Never mind the technology, where’s the learning?

Yesterday was certainly an interesting day, and illustrates how a viral story can become disruptive to one’s work pattern. The Guardian story (see last blog entry) certainly caught my and others’ attention. Watching the story spread was much like any other until I got a tweet at around mid-day from Teacher’s TV News “Will you come on Teachers TV to talk about ICT in primary schools? Have just sent you an e-mail“. By two o’clock I was talking to their News Editor and had been persuaded. So next Tuesday it’s down to a primary school in Rainham to give my opinion on ICT in primary schools. The Guardian headline being a good starting point for discussing with the Head, staff and maybe pupils what primary age children should be learning in terms of new technology and the internet. Naace members have kindly been pouring ideas into a wiki page I set up, for which I’m grateful, and any more ideas would be welcome via this blog.

The original story juxtaposed what might or might not be taught in history, always guaranteed to awake those slumbering in Tunbridge Wells, and technologies that are perceived as promoting inconsequential gabble or have dubious authority. This mixture was perhaps bound to bring out the usual suspects when it came to defending the status quo. By the evening, the BBC’s PM programme had reeled out Phil Beadle to discuss the merits of ICT with Joe Dale (Joe has permission to put an MP3 on his blog, which should be up this weekend). Phil expounded his usual conspiracy theory about ICT in schools tempering it with the statement that he was not against ICT in schools as such, but Twitter, that “male gadget-loving fetishist” which “compounded a propensity towards short attention span”, needed “more research as to its benefits” before being used [my paraphrasing]. So speaks the teacher who specialises in, “risk taking and innovative approaches to teaching and learning”, according to his own website.

Update 4th April

Joe’s take on this has now been posted to his blog, and the full radio interview is below:

Joe Dale and Phil Beadle

Image credit: mallix

Tags: twitter, education, phil beadle, joe dale, Teachers TV, Rose review