The world according to Andrew

There’s been a lot of talk today about the future of computing in schools. As I’ve written previously it seems that technology and in particular programming are the education topics of the moment. The UK Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove got up on stage at the BETT conference this morning and in his speech branded ICT as currently taught in UK schools as boring and dull. Learning how to create spreadsheets or create a word document does not equip young minds for the future. Interestingly he’s opened things up and told schools to teach ICT as they see fit and to perhaps explore partnerships with Microsoft or Google. As it is, it seems that I’m not the only one interested in this topic and there has been a raging debate going on in the comments of the Guardian story covering the event all day. I highly recommend taking some time to read them (Incidentally the Guardian is running a great series of articles as part of their digital literacy campaign on all kinds of topics related to ICT in schools). For all the ill informed nonsense in the comments there are some very interesting points made along with a noticeable absence of ICT teachers. I suppose they were all in class. What worries me though is that this free form enterprise driven approach to ICT will only add to the confusion and push corporate messaging onto kids too early. Microsoft for example may not install the virtues of Open Source technology on their eager audience and I suspect Google see a future where every child in the playground has an Android device in their pocket. Personally, what I’d like to see is schools become more responsive to offers of help from interested people from industry no matter the company size or brand value along with a strict code of conduct on self promotion. My experience shows that schools are woefully inactive in this area having made several offers of help myself. Perhaps this announcement will change things. Only time will tell.