Their Space Education for a digital generation

@techreport{citeulike:1278124, abstract = {Executive summary Demos 15 School’s out The current generation of decision-makers – from politicians to teachers – see the world from a very different perspective to the generation of young people who do not remember life without the instant answers of the internet or the immediate communication of mobile phones. It is these decision-makers who shape the way that digital technologies are used in the system and who set them up to limit their use and role in everyday life. This is a short-term solution to a long-term change. In an economy driven by knowledge rather than manufacturing, employers are already valuing very different skills, such as creativity, communication, presentation skills and team-building. Schools are at the front line of this change and need to think about how they can prepare young people for the future workplace. But it is not just about schools – parents, young people and society in general have a blind spot in terms of recognising and valuing these ‘softer’ skills. Myths and misconceptions When they first emerge almost all new technologies have provoked panic over their potential impact. Debates driven by moral panic on the one side and technological determinism on the other are in stark contrast to the way young people view and use technologies. The young people we spoke to did not find questions around their consumption of digital technologies interesting. Using them was completely ingrained in their lives, and they did so simply to make their lives easier. They were preoccupied with maintaining existing networks, searching for homework on Google and playing games. Chapter 2 examines several myths to identify elements of truth alongside the distortions. We draw on our conversations with individual children, diaries, focus groups in formal and informal educational settings and our polling of 600 parents. This chapter builds up a clearer picture of the use, role and impact of digital technologies on young peoples’ lives. Learning from digital pioneers Most young people use technology to facilitate the kind of social interactions that we all recognise. However, there is a smaller group of digital pioneers that is pushing at the boundaries of conventional practice. For every focus group we ran there was a ‘leader of the pack’ who was one step ahead of the other children. These individuals have strong digital identities and are making the shift from consumption to creation. A range of characteristics is common to this type of activity – self-motivation, ownership, purposeful creativity and peerto- peer learning. Chapter 3 examines these characteristics in more detail and explores examples of schools that are building on this type of learning. These schools and headteachers are transferring elements into the classroom without assessing or institutionalising informal learning. Start with people not PCs In order to see change across the system, there needs to be a shift in thinking about investment from hardware towards relationships and networks. In the last ten years we have seen a staggering change in the amount of hardware in schools, but it has not had a significant impact on teaching and learning styles. So what does this mean for schools? It means that they need to really listen and respond to their users. Schools often fail to start in the right place – with the interests and enthusiasms of their students. They also need to recognise the new digital divide – one of access to knowledge rather than hardware – and start to redress some of the existing imbalances. Finally they need to develop strategies to bridge formal and informal learning, home and school. They should find ways that go with the grain of what young people are doing, in order to foster new skills and build on what we know works. The world has changed so why haven’t we? The current generation of young people will reinvent the workplace, and the society they live in. They will do it along the progressive lines that are built into the technology they use everyday – of networks, collaboration, co-production and participation. The change in behaviour has already happened.We have to get used to it, accept that the flow of knowledge moves both ways and do our best to make sure that no one is left behind. Chapter 4 talks about a necessary shift in values to make this happen. Chapter 5 goes on to outline the practical changes that need to happen at every level in the system from policymakers to practitioners in order to see real transformation.}, author = {Green, Hannah and Hannon, Celia }, citeulike-article-id = {1278124}, comment = {Forty-seven per cent of the parents we polled for this research thought that schools should showcase children’s creative digital work. thought that schools should showcase children’s creative digital work. By offering online resources such as this to parents and children they can find ways of recognising and rewarding creative work without subsuming it into the formal system. The recent Roberts Report ‘Nurturing creativity in young people’74 recommends that every young person should be given the opportunity to build up a creative portfolio alongside more traditional forms of assessment. This will be a resource for students who are achieving in different spheres to capture and share their work with potential employers, friends and higher education institutions. We argue that to gain real credibility, young people need to be given full control over who has access to this portfolio and when. Children are already posting an increasing amount of content on the web and this leaves them without the option of controlling who is able to view it, something which could have repercussions when they enter the workforce. Through the introduction of a Creative Portfolio we need to give them ownership of a system which allows them to identify their own milestones, tag their inputs in a number of ways and control levels of privacy and audience access. IPrint, Leicester UK 1 84180 175 5 Demos Magdalen House 136 Tooley Street London SE 1 2TU }, institution = {DEMOS}, keywords = {digital\_natives}, posted-at = {2007-05-05 00:19:39}, priority = {2}, title = {Their Space Education for a digital generation} }

TY - RPRT ID - citeulike:1278124 L3 - citeulike-article-id:1278124 TI - Their Space Education for a digital generation N2 - Executive summary Demos 15 School’s out The current generation of decision-makers – from politicians to teachers – see the world from a very different perspective to the generation of young people who do not remember life without the instant answers of the internet or the immediate communication of mobile phones. It is these decision-makers who shape the way that digital technologies are used in the system and who set them up to limit their use and role in everyday life. This is a short-term solution to a long-term change. In an economy driven by knowledge rather than manufacturing, employers are already valuing very different skills, such as creativity, communication, presentation skills and team-building. Schools are at the front line of this change and need to think about how they can prepare young people for the future workplace. But it is not just about schools – parents, young people and society in general have a blind spot in terms of recognising and valuing these ‘softer’ skills. Myths and misconceptions When they first emerge almost all new technologies have provoked panic over their potential impact. Debates driven by moral panic on the one side and technological determinism on the other are in stark contrast to the way young people view and use technologies. The young people we spoke to did not find questions around their consumption of digital technologies interesting. Using them was completely ingrained in their lives, and they did so simply to make their lives easier. They were preoccupied with maintaining existing networks, searching for homework on Google and playing games. Chapter 2 examines several myths to identify elements of truth alongside the distortions. We draw on our conversations with individual children, diaries, focus groups in formal and informal educational settings and our polling of 600 parents. This chapter builds up a clearer picture of the use, role and impact of digital technologies on young peoples’ lives. Learning from digital pioneers Most young people use technology to facilitate the kind of social interactions that we all recognise. However, there is a smaller group of digital pioneers that is pushing at the boundaries of conventional practice. For every focus group we ran there was a ‘leader of the pack’ who was one step ahead of the other children. These individuals have strong digital identities and are making the shift from consumption to creation. A range of characteristics is common to this type of activity – self-motivation, ownership, purposeful creativity and peerto- peer learning. Chapter 3 examines these characteristics in more detail and explores examples of schools that are building on this type of learning. These schools and headteachers are transferring elements into the classroom without assessing or institutionalising informal learning. Start with people not PCs In order to see change across the system, there needs to be a shift in thinking about investment from hardware towards relationships and networks. In the last ten years we have seen a staggering change in the amount of hardware in schools, but it has not had a significant impact on teaching and learning styles. So what does this mean for schools? It means that they need to really listen and respond to their users. Schools often fail to start in the right place – with the interests and enthusiasms of their students. They also need to recognise the new digital divide – one of access to knowledge rather than hardware – and start to redress some of the existing imbalances. Finally they need to develop strategies to bridge formal and informal learning, home and school. They should find ways that go with the grain of what young people are doing, in order to foster new skills and build on what we know works. The world has changed so why haven’t we? The current generation of young people will reinvent the workplace, and the society they live in. They will do it along the progressive lines that are built into the technology they use everyday – of networks, collaboration, co-production and participation. The change in behaviour has already happened.We have to get used to it, accept that the flow of knowledge moves both ways and do our best to make sure that no one is left behind. Chapter 4 talks about a necessary shift in values to make this happen. Chapter 5 goes on to outline the practical changes that need to happen at every level in the system from policymakers to practitioners in order to see real transformation. KW - digital_natives N1 - Forty-seven per cent of the parents we polled for this research thought that schools should showcase children’s creative digital work. thought that schools should showcase children’s creative digital work. By offering online resources such as this to parents and children they can find ways of recognising and rewarding creative work without subsuming it into the formal system. The recent Roberts Report ‘Nurturing creativity in young people’74 recommends that every young person should be given the opportunity to build up a creative portfolio alongside more traditional forms of assessment. This will be a resource for students who are achieving in different spheres to capture and share their work with potential employers, friends and higher education institutions. We argue that to gain real credibility, young people need to be given full control over who has access to this portfolio and when. Children are already posting an increasing amount of content on the web and this leaves them without the option of controlling who is able to view it, something which could have repercussions when they enter the workforce. Through the introduction of a Creative Portfolio we need to give them ownership of a system which allows them to identify their own milestones, tag their inputs in a number of ways and control levels of privacy and audience access. IPrint, Leicester UK 1 84180 175 5 Demos Magdalen House 136 Tooley Street London SE 1 2TU AU - Green, Hannah AU - Hannon, Celia ER -