Keeping it simple – technology and learning

Keeping it simple – technology and learning

I can understand why a lot of people shy away from ‘technology’. Instead of being introduced to technology naturally, like using a device to play a game or perform a task that you know it will help with (and I mean any device, Spectrum ZX, Sega, washing machine) the first experience of computer technology for many people was because they were told to use it. Pre-iPad, the first computer experience was probably some sort of desktop computer. Their experience was of words, buttons, icons, abbreviations, menus, and all else that didn’t make immediate sense. One ‘wrong’ click was often a disaster, and for a lot of people it put them off for life. These experiences lower your self-esteem and dampen our natural curiosity – you become afraid to try anything new or push a button for fear of breaking the whole thing.

For me, the iPad changes everything. I’ve worked with a load of different technologies, and still do, but the technology that has had the greatest, most excited, most positively transformational response so far has been the iPad. Since the iPad came along I have had the joyous experience of introducing educators to ways in which this device can … Read more...

The power of a musical experience – Part 2

The power of a musical experience – Part 2

Friends and I were discussing yesterday how playing and experiencing music together with other people, in bands, orchestras, choirs, whatever group, is a magical experience. When I’m playing in a group I always feel that we’ve got on a train, and once it gets going we’re not stopping until we reach the end of the journey. We’re a unit, yet we’re still individuals. When we’re in that moment, we’re creating something that is so much bigger than the group. So what is that thing that makes 2+2=5? Where does the extra 1 come from?

For years now I’ve imagined that my (completely imaginary) PhD thesis would been on the phenomenon that is stadium singing. As I’ve carried this idea around with me for so long I knew it would have already been done, and a friend told me yesterday of a Coursera class in Model Thinking where these sorts of things are touched upon. (The next class starts on October 7th if you’re curious about using models to make sense of the world around us. I’ve just signed up – thanks AN, and thank you technology!) I can understand when a group of 10 or 100 people making music together … Read more...

Surprised by a Sum

Surprised by a Sum

A young girl I know has been working on chimney sums. (They are called chimney sums because the numbers are stacked vertically.) I was always curious about the strategies she was learning and how her mind was working. One day I offered her the iPad with the Explain Everything App open, explained that I didn’t really know what a chimney sum was and asked her to explain to me what she was doing as she worked it out. She was excited to teach me and got to work immediately.

Using Explain Everything she explained the chimney sum in great detail. She told me about each number, whether they were units, tens or hundreds, and how we were going to add them together. The result really made me smile. Not only was her explanation really clear, but  one particular bit of what she did really took me by surprise. She demonstrated a different way of working things out that I thought was really cool. You can see this bit in the video below…

It’s amazing to actually hear a thought process. I was able to experience a young learner’s mind actually thinking and working things out in real time. I love … Read more...

Brand Wisdom

Brand Wisdom

I was listening to Russell Brand on Desert Island Discs last week (click here to listen), and something he said stuck with me. He was asked by Kirsty Young if he would like to have children, he answered emphatically yes, and went on to say:

I like people that don’t have social constructs that I have to carve my way through to get to the truth of what they actually are and what they actually mean and what they are actually afraid of and what they actually care about, and children haven’t been taught to encode yet, so the only language they know is truth and love.

This brought home just what an honour it is to teach, to have those young minds in our care that we can help shape and form, inspire and excite curiosity in. What an opportunity!… Read more...

Chomsky Style

Chomsky Style

Passing tests doesn’t begin to compare with searching and enquiring and pursuing topics that engage us and excite us. Noam Chomsky

I was struck by the above quote by Noam Chomsky which I read in a tweet by Brian Bailey (@EdTechEmpowers). Inspired to investigate further, I found the video ‘The Purpose of Education’ in which Chomsky talks about various topics around education including the purposes of an educational system, the impact of technology and thoughts on assessment. (The video was presented at the Learning without Frontiers conference in January 2012.)

The Daily Riff has a good breakdown of various aspects of the talk and you can watch it there too (click this link to watch on YouTube), but the parts that stuck out for me were:

  1. That “passing tests doesn’t being to compare with searching and inquiring and pursuing topics that engage us and excite us. That’s far more significant than passing tests. If that’s the kind of educational career that you are given the opportunity to pursue you will remember what you have discovered.”
  2. That “teaching ought to inspire students to discover on their own, to challenge if they don’t agree, to look for alternatives
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