Table of Contents
Comments
Commenters1
1
There is virtually no-one, from young children to the very elderly, who does not engage in some way with digital technologies in today’s Britain. The average adult spends almost half of his or her waking hours using the products and services of the digital information and communications industries, whether at work, at home or on the move.
1
There is virtually no-one, from young children to the very elderly, who does not engage in some way with digital technologies in today’s Britain. The average adult spends almost half of his or her waking hours using the products and services of the digital information and communications industries, whether at work, at home or on the move.6
More than 22 million in the UK use computers for tasks of varying sophistication in our work every day: these people need digital work skills, which will serve them well also in their leisure and home life. More than 2 million people work directly in creating, providing, maintaining and supporting the systems, network, software applications and content on which the rest of us depend: these people need a higher level of skills, which often draw both upon vital creative skills as well as technical digital skills, alongside the basic competencies of digital work skills.
More than 22 million in the UK use computers for tasks of varying sophistication in our work every day: these people need digital work skills, which will serve them well also in their leisure and home life. More than 2 million people work directly in creating, providing, maintaining and supporting the systems, network, software applications and content on which the rest of us depend: these people need a higher level of skills, which often draw both upon vital creative skills as well as technical digital skills, alongside the basic competencies of digital work skills.7
The education and skills needed to support these categories must be both wide for the many who use the digital technologies for leisure and work (ICT also provides a vital enabling infrastructure in which education and learning take place right across the curriculum); and deep, for the still very large numbers who design and provide for Digital Britain.
The education and skills needed to support these categories must be both wide for the many who use the digital technologies for leisure and work (ICT also provides a vital enabling infrastructure in which education and learning take place right across the curriculum); and deep, for the still very large numbers who design and provide for Digital Britain.8
Britain is by no means at the back of the pack globally. But neither do we lead. This country has the potential to become a leader. All the evidence is that effective deployment, understanding and use of digital technologies are crucial to every business’s competitiveness. For some it is transforming.
Britain is by no means at the back of the pack globally. But neither do we lead. This country has the potential to become a leader. All the evidence is that effective deployment, understanding and use of digital technologies are crucial to every business’s competitiveness. For some it is transforming.9
For the supply of high-quality professionals for Digital Britain, the challenges are long-standing and deep-seated: our national willingness to engage in education with the ‘hard’ subjects- mathematics, technology and the physical sciences; our ability to combine, in those who do, creative and cognitive capability and deep technical competence with interpersonal and business skills; and the relevance of courses to business and the understanding of the career opportunities for students of both sexes.
For the supply of high-quality professionals for Digital Britain, the challenges are long-standing and deep-seated: our national willingness to engage in education with the ‘hard’ subjects- mathematics, technology and the physical sciences; our ability to combine, in those who do, creative and cognitive capability and deep technical competence with interpersonal and business skills; and the relevance of courses to business and the understanding of the career opportunities for students of both sexes.10
The simple message at the core of this interim report is that we cannot afford to treat education and training for digital technologies as just another ‘vertical’ subject area. It underpins everything we do in the 21st Century. Successful, emerging economies have already embraced this message. We must do likewise.
The simple message at the core of this interim report is that we cannot afford to treat education and training for digital technologies as just another ‘vertical’ subject area. It underpins everything we do in the 21st Century. Successful, emerging economies have already embraced this message. We must do likewise.11
Similarly, in education and training for digital life skills, we need a step change in approach, starting with the youngest. The interim report of Sir Jim Rose’s independent review of the primary curriculum is one very encouraging sign. He rightly focuses on the need effectively to engage an entire generation growing up with the internet, multi-media formats and broadband. This starts with inspiring and innovative programmes and initiatives to engage a new generation of students and attract them into technology-inspired and creative careers.
Similarly, in education and training for digital life skills, we need a step change in approach, starting with the youngest. The interim report of Sir Jim Rose’s independent review of the primary curriculum is one very encouraging sign. He rightly focuses on the need effectively to engage an entire generation growing up with the internet, multi-media formats and broadband. This starts with inspiring and innovative programmes and initiatives to engage a new generation of students and attract them into technology-inspired and creative careers.12
The Government’s report on the creative industries, Creative Britain proposed pathways through training, apprenticeships and support for business start up in the creative sector. As part of this strategy, the Find your Talent initiative offers young people regular involvement with arts and culture in and out of school to develop their own creative skills. Likewise, the Sector Skills Councils, e-skills UK and Skillset, have recognised the urgent need to change attitudes and stimulate demand among young people for technology and creative media-related degrees and careers. For example, the project Revitalise IT, led by e-Skills UK, aims to build on its existing employer-supported education programmes including the Information Technology Management for Business (ITMB) degree course, while the new Diplomas in IT and Creative Media for 14-19 year olds, and Skillset’s Digital Media Apprenticeship are also noteworthy.
The Government’s report on the creative industries, Creative Britain proposed pathways through training, apprenticeships and support for business start up in the creative sector. As part of this strategy, the Find your Talent initiative offers young people regular involvement with arts and culture in and out of school to develop their own creative skills. Likewise, the Sector Skills Councils, e-skills UK and Skillset, have recognised the urgent need to change attitudes and stimulate demand among young people for technology and creative media-related degrees and careers. For example, the project Revitalise IT, led by e-Skills UK, aims to build on its existing employer-supported education programmes including the Information Technology Management for Business (ITMB) degree course, while the new Diplomas in IT and Creative Media for 14-19 year olds, and Skillset’s Digital Media Apprenticeship are also noteworthy.13
5
The first step is to understand the importance of ensuring that all children and young people in education have access to the right level of learning and technical resources to enable them to develop the vital first steps of digital life skills and digital work skills without which they will be unable to play a full part in society. To achieve that, we will also need to ensure that our teachers have the skills and support they require to provide the right level of learning.
5
The first step is to understand the importance of ensuring that all children and young people in education have access to the right level of learning and technical resources to enable them to develop the vital first steps of digital life skills and digital work skills without which they will be unable to play a full part in society. To achieve that, we will also need to ensure that our teachers have the skills and support they require to provide the right level of learning.14
The Government is also looking at the ways to ensure that the most disadvantaged young people are not left behind because they lack technical facilities in their homes.
The Government is also looking at the ways to ensure that the most disadvantaged young people are not left behind because they lack technical facilities in their homes.15
8
One key initiative in this area was recently launched by the Prime Minister, who in the Home Access programme made clear that every child in England should have access to a computer to enable them to fully engage in their education and through this initiative also be equipped for the contemporary knowledge economy.
8
One key initiative in this area was recently launched by the Prime Minister, who in the Home Access programme made clear that every child in England should have access to a computer to enable them to fully engage in their education and through this initiative also be equipped for the contemporary knowledge economy.16
The Government must not ignore those adults who are disadvantaged because they lack these crucial digital life and work skills: at the life skills level, we can address these issues through Media Literacy with which we deal in the next section.
The Government must not ignore those adults who are disadvantaged because they lack these crucial digital life and work skills: at the life skills level, we can address these issues through Media Literacy with which we deal in the next section.17
At the level of digital work skills, we are working to ensure that education and skills provision is reaching those who need it, offering the right level of support to meet the needs and aspirations of both learners and potential employers. The recently announced initiatives to offer training to job seekers also offers important support. It is also encouraging to see some good examples of employers sustaining and even in some instances increasing their commitment to training and skills development for their workforces, recognising the evidence that investment in the workforce is one of the best strategies for economic development. We will be returning to this important subject in our final report.
At the level of digital work skills, we are working to ensure that education and skills provision is reaching those who need it, offering the right level of support to meet the needs and aspirations of both learners and potential employers. The recently announced initiatives to offer training to job seekers also offers important support. It is also encouraging to see some good examples of employers sustaining and even in some instances increasing their commitment to training and skills development for their workforces, recognising the evidence that investment in the workforce is one of the best strategies for economic development. We will be returning to this important subject in our final report.18
1
The digital economy skills build on the basic competencies and introduce and integrate a wide range of creative, technological and business skills. The digital economy relies upon these hybrid professionals who can bridge technology, creativity and business. It needs leaders and managers throughout business understanding and being able to manage the links between business strategy, innovation and creativity, and technological deployment.
1
The digital economy skills build on the basic competencies and introduce and integrate a wide range of creative, technological and business skills. The digital economy relies upon these hybrid professionals who can bridge technology, creativity and business. It needs leaders and managers throughout business understanding and being able to manage the links between business strategy, innovation and creativity, and technological deployment.19
1
The pathways from education to business are complicated. There is more work to be done to strengthen the understanding of the ways for education and business to work together to create the skilled workers and leaders which businesses need. We make the most of partnerships for research and development and innovation. We will be working with the Sector Skills Councils to develop some practical action points for Government, higher education and work sectors for the final report.
1
The pathways from education to business are complicated. There is more work to be done to strengthen the understanding of the ways for education and business to work together to create the skilled workers and leaders which businesses need. We make the most of partnerships for research and development and innovation. We will be working with the Sector Skills Councils to develop some practical action points for Government, higher education and work sectors for the final report.20
The Government has asked Liam Byrne and Alan Millburn to look specifically at the media in their work on New Opportunities. The country cannot afford for this important area to miss out on the talent of people simply because of where they live or because they do not know the right entry points. We need to make sure that we find and develop all talent.
The Government has asked Liam Byrne and Alan Millburn to look specifically at the media in their work on New Opportunities. The country cannot afford for this important area to miss out on the talent of people simply because of where they live or because they do not know the right entry points. We need to make sure that we find and develop all talent.21
Within the creative industries, there is still a tendency to regard investment in skills and training as the first area to be cut in hard times rather than the first area for investment.
Within the creative industries, there is still a tendency to regard investment in skills and training as the first area to be cut in hard times rather than the first area for investment.22
1
The Sector Skills Councils have done excellent work in bringing together training provision to support the many small and medium-sized businesses working in the creative industries, and to offer personal development provision within and between different areas of these converging sectors. We will also be asking them to come forward with recommendations on further actions for our final report.
1
The Sector Skills Councils have done excellent work in bringing together training provision to support the many small and medium-sized businesses working in the creative industries, and to offer personal development provision within and between different areas of these converging sectors. We will also be asking them to come forward with recommendations on further actions for our final report.23
Government already has a significant workplan underway to address skills, including the Skillset Media Academy, the Diplomas in IT and Creative Media, the IT Management and Business degree and the National Skills Academy for IT, which is due to open this year. In line with our recent High Level Skills Strategy, we look to employers and the Higher Education Sector to collaborate effectively around meeting demand for higher level skills, ensuring continuing investment in both the existing and future work force.
Government already has a significant workplan underway to address skills, including the Skillset Media Academy, the Diplomas in IT and Creative Media, the IT Management and Business degree and the National Skills Academy for IT, which is due to open this year. In line with our recent High Level Skills Strategy, we look to employers and the Higher Education Sector to collaborate effectively around meeting demand for higher level skills, ensuring continuing investment in both the existing and future work force.24
In addition, the Government has established the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) to promote and support research into, and development and exploitation of, technology and innovation for the benefit of UK business, in order to increase economic growth and improve the quality of life. Digital Creative Industries have been a priority application area for R&D funding. It has also invested in Knowledge Transfer Networks (KTNs) which are national networks in specific fields of technology or business application, e.g. Creative Industries & Digital Communications, which bring together people from businesses, universities, further education, research, finance, the public sector and technology organisations to stimulate innovation through knowledge exchange.
In addition, the Government has established the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) to promote and support research into, and development and exploitation of, technology and innovation for the benefit of UK business, in order to increase economic growth and improve the quality of life. Digital Creative Industries have been a priority application area for R&D funding. It has also invested in Knowledge Transfer Networks (KTNs) which are national networks in specific fields of technology or business application, e.g. Creative Industries & Digital Communications, which bring together people from businesses, universities, further education, research, finance, the public sector and technology organisations to stimulate innovation through knowledge exchange.25
1
The Digital Britain team will continue to work with other government departments, and agencies including DIUS, Becta, HEFCE and DCSF in taking forward our work in this area. This is an area that requires business, education providers and the voluntary sectors to work together and it is an area where we welcome responses to this interim report.
1
The Digital Britain team will continue to work with other government departments, and agencies including DIUS, Becta, HEFCE and DCSF in taking forward our work in this area. This is an area that requires business, education providers and the voluntary sectors to work together and it is an area where we welcome responses to this interim report.26
We will return with recommendations across digital life-skills, digital work-skills and digital economy skills, in the final Digital Britain Report.
We will return with recommendations across digital life-skills, digital work-skills and digital economy skills, in the final Digital Britain Report.Tags: Alan Millburn, Becta, Britain, broadband, communications industries, Creative Industries, Creative Media, DBIR_S5, DCSF, digital, Digital Creative Industries, digital technologies, DIUS, e-skills, finance, government, HEFCE, Information Technology, Jim Rose, Knowledge Transfer Networks, Liam Byrne, multi-media formats, National Skills Academy for IT, Prime Minister, Skillset Media Academy, software applications, technology organisations, Technology Strategy Board, UK, United Kingdom
What defines “a computer”?
Where are mobile devices in this?
Who do the computers/devices belong to?
A good first step would be to rid those of our universities from so called ‘heads of computing’ that achieved their positions in less than honest transparent ways. I can think of at least two who I would not believe anything that they wrote!
My youngest son, a Year 8 pupil at a local Comprehensive did not receive IT as a specified timetabled lesson during the whole of Year 7. Instead computer skills were learnt at a very basic level as part of the Maths and English curriculum once every four weeks. During Year 8 he has had one IT lesson a fortnight but six of Maths and English. The Sector Skills Councils, e-skills UK and Skill set, have recognised “the urgent need to change attitudes and stimulate demand among young people” How does the government expect attitudes to change if IT is being taught so infrequently and not considered to be an essential subject taught alongside Maths English and Science which are also compulsory. The report suggests that young people have “access to the right level of learning and technical resources” How do the government intend to address the issues raised?
The concept of ‘hybrid professionals’ is important. The digital world is now beyond the stage where technical knowledge, creativity and management skills can reside in different individuals (if that was ever true).
This means educators need to:
– encourage technically-oriented students to enjoy being creative (and believe that they can)
– develop technical appreciation and skill in ‘arts’ students
– help all students to be more business-aware able to communicate and work well with others
Links between higher education and employers are becoming much closer now. But historically it has been difficult for educators to discover what employers genuinely want from them. What will make their graduates employable?
This is particularly so in Technology/Computing, where there can be a tension between (1) developing conceptual knowledge and generic skills (2) giving students specific, practical skills and knowledge.
For example, employers have been saying for many years that what they most need are recruits with good communication and lifelong learning skills, and that they will provide the technical training themselves. Yet, scanning the job adverts in technical fields, what you mostly find are very specific requirements for particular technical skills (programming languages, or specific systems and methods). So it is not clear where the focus of educators and students should lie.
Perhaps one solution is to use specific technical practice as a vehicle for teaching underlying concepts and generic skills. This is not easy to achieve, but if it is the best solution, we (university educators) will need to make it work.
This section would be improved by some specificity about what is meant. It seems that by Digital Life Skills you mean the ability to turn on a computer and use Office, email and web.
Digital work skills seems to mean a modicum of systems management and network configuration knowledge, perhaps also such abilities as being able to set up a web site and write simple html.
Digital economy appears to include programming abilities, perhaps including more advanced web site design, PHP and Perl for instance, and perhaps sophisticated systems admin skills.
If you were to explain explicitly what these things mean, then you could give a better idea of how programmes can be developed or have been developed to product such skills.
You could also take the opportunity to reflect on the great weakness of current IT education. It focuses on having people use Microsoft software as an appliance. What is needed however is for people to understand how systems are constructed, and how to use various packages, so that, confronted with the unfamiliar in either applications or behaviour, they can figure their way through it.
So it implies not teaching Excel, but spreadsheets. Not teaching Word, but word processing. Not teaching Photoshop, but teaching graphics.
Not teaching Windows alone, but teaching Unix type systems, administration and configuration.
You want more people leaving education understanding IT, even if the price is they have not memorized how to do all the detailed things you might think useful in Office or Windows.
Everyone in your category 2 should know how to use awk for data extraction, and how to write a simple shell script.
You laugh.
But you need to think. It was for lack of this that CDs were sent around the country and lost containing millions of complete records of individuals. The slightest knowledge of shell scripting and awk or Perl would have enabled local admins to extract only the data that was being requested. As it was, to extract a few columns was beyond them.
We have reared a generation of IT “experts” who do not understand how to do the simplest things with computers if they are not part of the rote learning of how to run a Windows network. This has to be reversed and corrected.
People should read the Next Generation User Skills Report http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/HNComputing_NGUSReport_NextGenerationUserSkills.pdf
It addresses a lot fo these issues – comment and precis on report and Digital Literacy at:
http://www.l4l.co.uk/?p=140
Again this is a top down model working through agencies that don’t often have a clue. BECTA, for example, doesn’t even have a RSS feed to its site. When I asked them why on the NAACE list they said they would be looking into it with a possible pilot. Meanwhile teachers are setting up Multi-User WordPress blogs for their classes and feeding out homework by iTunes. A better model would be to put in place a top down model enabling localisation and getting all LAs etc to be transparent about why they lock down sites. Some teachers within institutions can’t even access safety sites to show pupils how to navigate the online world safely.
I have outlined some suggestions for possible way forwards in this post here some time ago :
So here are a few suggestions for starters.
1) A top down policy that has the vision to push through change in this area that enables bottom up localised transformation. How?
A qualification based on competency that is nationally recognised for educators in Digital Learning. Senior management will only buy into systemic and radical change in this area where there are enough exemplars of use and esteem for practitioners that can effect change. It’s no good sub-contracting out academic study for years on end without practical outcomes. What is needed is a national qualification that is bound into ITT and continues throughout a practitioner’s life – not necessarily within the bounds of the school. More importantly it needs a bedrock set in the world of informal learning that can be co-opted into and eventually transformational for our present learning institutions. It needs to be dynamic, engaging, passionate and reflect the world of work. It needs to reevaluate the roles of teachers and learners giving them a creative, flexible mindset ready for constant flux and change.
It is quite possible to create a living laboratory of doing things in new ways without disrupting learning. Jesse Dylan’s Science Commons film points to a wonderful exemplar in that field. Watch that film. Now why can’t we have that insight, energy and creativity in schools? We are talking about aggregation of knowledge here and how people can dynamically adapt that for the greater good.
There needs to be a qualification over and beyond initial teacher training that is workbased and rooted in practice and it needs to be a flatly distributed i.e. not rubber stamped by any one university but generated from the workplace and moderated in all teacher training institutions. It needs to include audio, video and distributed technologies as well based on projects where appropriate that bind in and reflect the new plethora of technologies outside the school. It needs to have a mechanism to keep learners safe through acceptable use policies deeply rooted in local communities real and virtual and it needs to be transparent and carry high value to both educators, practitioners and learners and by learners I mean teachers as well! This needs to be archived and accessible as exemplars for future use and be contextually bound to local and global culture reflecting diversity and change. A dynamic chain of change throughout the land.
2) Release copyright for schools to be able to remix and open up new Digital Pathways. Media companies need to be co-opted and encouraged to sponsor in-service, on the job, projects that bind in and open out opportunities for Digital Learning. If it is not commercial then leave it alone from litigation for heaven’s sake through the process of creative commons – if it becomes monetizable then give “schools” the opportunity to exploit that in tandem with partnerships. If it isn’t generating income, exploiting or undermining commercial activity then let it be shared, modified and used for learning.
3) Make the changes top down but the practice local and global. Ensure that the sense of “community” is bound into each and every project. Design for transformation and change but make it matter to the people engaged in the learning, personalise it on an individual and community level to reflect each and every community and these communities can start out rooted in the geographical area but be prepared to engage and join with other, bigger distributed communities to aggregate and scale that knowledge, competency and achievement.
Make all this easily and openly searchable and tagged so that learners and facilitators can augment and adapt to their local context. Make it highly personalised and fit for purpose and enable people to see that context changes over that process sometimes and have a mindset to deal with that change. Not a one stop shop for failure.
This is not about the tech – it’s about the people and how they can join together in new ways to do things more productively. I care about education in this country and I see a possible massive lacuna of missed opportunity. I’m passionate about our children and their futures. I want them to grow up safe, curious, innovative, creative and engaged in their learning for the span of their whole productive lives.
Check out the Next Generation User Skills report
http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/HNComputing_NGUSReport_NextGenerationUserSkills.pdf
The government in it’s Masters course through the Teacher Development Agency has begun to address this – however the various universities tasked with rolling out masters programmes aren’t conscious of any activity beyond their particular academic silos i.e web 2.0 and informal learning that is going on a grass roots community level. The initiative to make teachers a Masters led profession doesn’t really take into account interoperability beyond their own particular academic silo. When consulting for Naace at the recent TDA day I took notes and made reflections:
http://eduspaces.net/leoncych/weblog/497549.html
“Skills” here is a misnomer – what is needed is a spine of reflective action research carried out by teachers in their institutions that inform research AND benefits the local community. I would suggest a spine of video exemplars of projects put up on the NEN (National Education Network) of projects that teachers are working on towards their masters for everyone to see and comment on. These shuouldn’t be tied to just one institution. Why video? Because otherwise the level of reflectivity and volume of reading will NOT be scalable for such a large scale rollout of Masters. With video you are able to reflect and comment and have comments made (much like this website) quickly and transparently – tools such a Viddler where webcam comments csn be made on video blogs and diaries on a film’s timeline would solve a lot of these problems. Of course in order to this the broadband infrastructure needs to increase considerably.
Think about the conflicts and scalability issues when trying to introduce a masters course into several large schools where senior management are trying to juggle the dsy to day workings of the school with 4 or 5 NQTs who are also doing masters.
Plus if every Academic institution is going to be overly concerned with locking students into academic silos by being overly concerned with issues of validation how are teachers up and down the country going to find and communicate with each other about idiosyncratic issues or compare projects outcomes that might be similar e.g the 5 Maths teachers doing Masters up and down the country in different academic institutions who might like to compare notes and collaborate – with the current systems.
In my opinion Universities and staff in ITT have little or no Digital Literacy – they do not have a grammar or syntax in even how to use web 2.0 and new technologies and so it fails at the first hurdle.
If you don not implement systemic conscious raising about the skillset to implement really radical and ground breaking digital literacy and the use of digital and ICT within the systems then you are on a hiding to nothing.
Otherwise you get the comment I got at the consultation day – but they need to talk to each other face to face. Yes b ut the scope of that communication could also be augmented by a spine of digital infrastructures that enable aggregation and collaboration for the many not just those locked down into masters programmes within a particular academic instittuion. Until you get university ITT lecturers who know how to use Digital Resources you are going to be on a hiding to nothing.
Meanwhile some teachers are using blogs, wikis, Twitter, video and countless other applications in their classes (if they can get them unlocked) – quite happily – all they need is top down policy to enable localisation and empowerment. They have a full understanding of the grammar of communicating in this way and they are binding it tightly into their communities. But exemplars are needed to take this from early adoption to the mainstream and we do not have those mechanisms yet.
To give a brief example of how this is beginning to work in practice see these blog posts put out by Andrew Field about whether his school should shut because of the snow. The school blog was used as a mechanism to garner community involvement in locsl decision making:
http://opensourceschools.org.uk/utility-open-source-school-blog.html
By the following day he had had 184 comments from teachers and parents. The school was providing weather updates faster than the local radio station.
More exemplars like this need to be highlighted and shared. When the community is bound in in this way locally things start to change systemically.
I am involved, at present, in filming teachers using web 2.0 technologies in their practice and I am struck by the level of consensus and insight they are gaining from using these tools. Of course all of them are fluent in Digital Literacy – what they are doing needs documenting and disseminating to other institutions.
At present Digital Literacy is not on the agenda anywhere I can see in Education – now is a perfect opportunity to take these exemplars and magnify them so that people can start to understand how these systems are being used at grass roots level. By the time BECTA and other agencies get round to doing it it will be too late or much too slow.
If you are serious about systemic change then listen to the teachers and practitioners at grass roots level who are boilerplating these systems.
Research so far has only been institution wide – often these teachers are working in isolation within an instittuion with little or no awareness by senior management. If gov’t is serious about digital life skills then I suggest they estasblish a mechanism to scale up the excellent practice that is already going on and put mechnisms in place to enable empowerment at grass roots level. Create posts in schools that renumerate teachers who can share good models and to scale this up through awareness at senior management and LA level – they’re often the last to know.
Anna Rees –
The question is, what he would be learning. There are two things we could mean. One is something that is like writing, using a book index, it is required for all subjects. This is basically computer familiarization as a tool This is not really IT education, though most schools seem to think it is.
Then there is education in the subject of computing and networking. This is very valuable and intellectually demanding, and it bears the same relation to the former as physics bears to DIY. That is, in DIY you use rules of thumb which are derived from physics. But its not physics.
Real IT education demands knowing about systems administration, some ability to programme, some understanding of networking…
Good luck finding this in your local comprehensive. What you are more likely to find is locked down computers where none of this stuff is accessible for fear of ‘damaging content’ being accessed!
I have to say I wholeheartedly agree with your comments and can confirm that my child is only receiving the most basic of computer familiarisation skills in IT lessons in school. I value the importance of computer literacy and I hope to reflect this upon my child’s learning at home. Many children may not have the same advantages which consequently will result in a wider gap of the digital divide in which the less fortunate will again be the victim.
ICT as a tool rather than ICT as the requirement. The reward is in the activity enabled by ICT. The requirement to use ICT should not set up a psychological barrier that deters any engagement in all forms of PDP. PDP is personal and non-compulsory so it is all about flexibility, going where the market is and exploring the best means to an end.
Access to the Internet (including net neutrality) is a more sensible metric than access to a “computer”, whatever that is.
All the children in our area have access to computers at their schools – which is great, we are a rural area but CLEO (Cumbria Lancashire Education Online) has made sure we are not out of the race. Our problem is that when the children leave school/college/uni they have no access at home. This leads us back to the USO, and a 2Mbit connection is not a lot of use with the contention ratios for children to download homework and do research at home. Therefore they won’t be able to fully engage in their education in the same way as their urban counterparts will.
Cyberdoyle, I agree. At the other end of the education spectrum, I have plentiful experience globally trying to get ed to working, professional adults and the BIG block is always between what the office provides and what home (and study time) permit. The UK is in real danger of following the same path.
Gillian, what you say is so true, we are finding that many people running their own business lack basic ICT skills, one chap who was a big bug in the town hall called in the other day to ask how you make a new line when you are writing a letter, answer – press enter- reply, which is the enter button?
A business which had to respond to an emailed word document lacked the skills to save the doc and update and return it to the sender. So it goes on. Why don’t these people join computer classes? Because they don’t have the time, they don’t always deliver what they need, and they cost money. That is why local user generated content could deliver the lessons (which would be interactive) at a reasonable time to suit the business over a broadband connection. These would be a cost effective way to improve the ICT skills of many businesses, mainly rural ones who can’t spare the time in business hours to drive into town where the classes are held .
@cyberdoyle re: local classes – the opening up of education materials under the banner of OERs – open educational resources – is another way of making high quality learning materials available for public use, free at the point of use.
A recent call from HEFCE/JISC is trying to encourage UK HEIs to engage more activiely with releasing their materials as OERs (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/fundingopportunities/funding_calls/2008/12/grant1408.aspx).
There is a downside to some OERs, though, in that they are not designed for, nor were ever intended to be used for, distance educational use; which is the sort of use that we might expect to see in self-directed training. The Open University “OpenLearn” learning materials (http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/) *were* originally designed for distance education, but even there, I don’t know how relevant the materials are to basic skills development in ICT; nor how current those materials are.
Tony – the call for funds closed on 4th March, not that any rural communities would have access to them or urban communities for that matter. There is no provision for community learning that I could ever find. I set up our own classes in the community and taught them for free, that was the only way to help the people about here. We are too far from any learning establishment. We now have a club in the village hall and several people help out and share their knowledge, again this is all done by volunteers. The powers that be can only provide help for certain groups, and nobody fulfills that criteria. ie when i was trying to get help for silver surfers, the only help i could get was if I paid to be trained, wasting valuable time and money in the process so that I could then charge everyone to have a lesson. Easier just to train them for free. The only lessons available for farmers was if they were employed, were under 25 and had no qualifications. They were then eligible to have a free nvq2 course that would teach them lots of stuff they didn’t want to know but would tick lots of boxes for the college. My fellow farmers are usually 40 -50+ and don’t fit into any category. It would help if someone dishing out the funding took the trouble to find out what it was people wanted to learn. You can lead an orse to water but you can’t make it drink. It has to be thirsty. I do appreciate you finding the links though, many thanks for trying!
[...] level, (for example: all comments on section 3.1); at the paragraph level, (for example, comments at the paragraph level); and by the name of the commenter, allowing you to consider individual responses to the report [...]
virtually no-one? the average adult? with phrases like this it’s no wonder the needs of vulnerable sections of society are continually dependent on charity and the kindness of strangers. The prohibitive cost of assistive technology puts digital engagement outside the range of the majority of people with disabilities. I work with technology; it’s a prime deliverer of educational opportunities and resources and, with the appropriate assistive hardware and software, it has the potential to provide a digital level playing field in terms of access. This Section seems to focus on encouraging those who are not engaging through choice – it fails to acknowedge the greater need to support those who are not engaging through more unfortunate circumstances.
Facilities for digital work training are sadly lacking in our area (not sure about others). We are in Lancashire and rural, which means a long trek to any centre providing lessons. We also find the lessons available are not what we want or need. Enquiries to local colleges result in negative assistance, as they are not franchised to deliver anything but courses that fulfill certain criteria. Online tutorials could be the answer, but unfortunately we can’t access them due to non-existent or inferior broadband connections. There is a demand for people to access what they need to know, when they need to know it. YouTube is providing this service. We need enough bandwidth to get it.
I needed to know how to replace some ram in a computer today, I just went to Youtube, watched the video, and JFDI.