The Convergence Conversation

Groups and Committees

21st century classroom
28 February 2008

Just over 10 years ago a young, fresh and popular Mr Blair delivered perhaps his most famous sound bite of all. When asked what his three priorities in government were he replied: ‘Education, education, education’.

Since then, the sound bite has been backed up with hard cash by the Labour government: measured between 1997 and the end of the last academic year, the core "per pupil" funding has risen by 48% in real terms - or £1,450 more per year, per child. By the end of this academic year, it will be a 55 per cent increase. Yet despite this considerable spike in capital investment from the government, standards have refused to show a commensurate improvement.

This serves as some context for Intellect’s monthly Convergence Conversation that took a look at the ‘21st century classroom’ and asked what the implications and potential impacts of technology on the education system were. Some of the massive investment that has gone into schools has gone directly into technology: certainly on computers as the government moves towards its avowed aim of one computer for every 3 children in school, but also on new and genuinely transformative classroom technologies like interactive blackboards that allow some of the benefits of Web 2.0 in the shape of search, collaboration and video to be realised in the classroom.

This was a far reaching and strongly personal discussion reflecting the formative and fundamental role education plays in our development as people. The consensus was that technology had a vital role to play in the transformation of our education system: that it would facilitate and enable the ‘personalisation agenda’ to actually happen in schools. What it could, and this was only a could enable, was the transition in the role of teacher from traditional role as an ‘instructor’ to one in which he or she plays a ‘guide’. This change encourages and develops independent learning skills which are pretty much the holy grail for any knowledge economy.

Amongst all this optimism and enthusiasm we should retain an air of caution. Recent data suggests that the British 15-19 year old - the notorious early adopter - is spending significantly less time doing homework than they used to as a result of their use of social networking sites. Many of this age groups technology skill are extremely high but at this moment the curriculum ascribes little or no value to them, retaining its approval, quite reasonably, for the three R’s. This one will run and run.