Bebo
Don Ledingham
Saturday 17 June 2006
Friday 16th June
Diary: Quality Improvement Team Update; Department briefing; Meeting with David Gilmour to plan further developments in Exc-el (P.S We have an Exc-el Board meeting this coming Tuesday at John Muir House 4.00 - if you'd like to be part of the discussions please accept this as an open invitation to attend - we should finish about 5.30pm); met with a teacher and their union rep; Sheila McKendrick to finalise questions for Acting HT interview; Ross High School Acting Headteacher Interviews.
I received an interesting e mail from a colleague and parent about some of the things I've been saying about technology and children's learning. In my recent conference presentation about citizenship I referred to the fact that both my sons spend a lot of time of Bebo - I was making the point that this is voluntary, engaging, and enabled them to be part of a community - quite aside from the skills they were developing - schools need to tap into this engagement or their learning environment will become ever more distant from the reality which children experience in the outside world.
Here's the e-mail (I have been given permission from the writer to post it here) - comments welcome:
"Had a thought on the engaged/not engaged at school item. I think that it
can be the case that young people become disengaged because the web
world they inhabit- and some are there for many hours a day- is more
about their agenda than the education agenda? Does that make sense? If a
person can spend time designing/creating/talking to friends etc on a
page on the web maybe this 'zones them out' for the hard lesson that
learning isn't always about what they want? If we could gain a balance
between the technology and the teaching maybe we could reel these
youngsters in again? I often think that young people expect a lot
because that is what the rest of the world says they should have. The
culture of being successful and 'be all you can be because you can' is
misleading. What is success? Money? I often chat to my children about these web items and I think it is
about balance of time spent on it - we also live in an 'instant' world
nowadays. Do you know who your children text/talk to? I don't anymore!
Mobile phones take care of that. Visual stimuli are what they want to
have - they can become desensitised as well - life doesn't affect them
as it happens in isolation - in their rooms or alone somewhere. Parents
worry that they will log on to do some research and end up being
sidetracked into a chat place. I have always encouraged the thought that a bit of graft and a set of
good results will offer choice - the more choice we have as we leave the
world of school will allow us to 'be all we can be'. This isn't what it
should be but the wide world is a hard place and that is how we are
often judged. Choice is important. One path is not always best.
Adaptability is a good thing."
I won't offer my response at this time - but it's great to get such feedback about posts on my blog. It's just this kind of dialogue that helps to shape our practice and future policy.
Comments
Bebo and your colleague's response
Alan Coady
Sunday 18 June 2006
There’s no doubt that the digital world is exciting. I can’t imagine life without it – professional or personal. Every time the phrase “looming European energy crisis” is mentioned, I wonder how much we might be “locked out of” were power to be limited. Still, that’s for another day. Whether the use of computers in itself is enough to reel pupils in – regardless of agenda is something I feel underqualified to predict.
Current differences between school life and life on the outside seem very numerous:
- young people rarely gather in groups of 1000 outside school
- they do not spend such large amounts of time anywhere else
- there are legal and safety considerations in school which necessarily highlight the atmosphere of order in contrast to the apparent spontaneity of some outside activities
- there is not the expectation that young people (or adults) should be somehow be improved by many of the activities they pursue out of school - constant measuring and the pressure of time feature far less, if at all
- young people feel that they should be able to choose their company outside school – as do adults (the notable exceptions being work or prison)
As to questions of qualifications, future choice etc. these seem to be subsets of the larger question “what is school for?” As long as league tables, qualifications for university/workplace etc. feel like the raison d’etre of the school system, then those who feel that they stand a chance of benefitting from this will engage and those who do not may disengage.
I agree wholeheartedly with your correspondent about some young people expecting life and success to be easy. Certain sections of the media stand to benefit by underplaying notions of work and commitment. These things are not currently cool. This is not entirely new. Thomas Edison summed it up nicely: “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
p.s. I’d be interested in attending the meeting on Tuesday but, as I finish in NBHS at 3:50 I would not be able to arrive punctually. Please let me know if this is a problem.
How to make 80 Million Friends and influence people
David
Monday 19 June 2006