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Digital literacy campaign - Michael Gove's speech in full
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 January 2012 12.06 GMT
And I have to start by congratulating all the companies in this
Hall.
British companies are world-leaders in the field of educational
technology, and going from strength to strength - the members of
Besa, for example, increased exports by 12% in 2010. Crick Software,
which has worked in the USA, Chile and Qatar and which already
supplies 90% of UK primary schools, recently secured their biggest
single order ever, supplying half of all schools in Moscow with
Clicker 5 literacy software (fully translated into Russian).
Promethean, which makes interactive whiteboards and educational
software, signed a memorandum of collaboration with the Mexican
Ministry of Education last June to work in primary and secondary
education throughout Mexico.
These are just a few of the hugely impressive achievements of
British companies - and there are many more all around us. I'd also
like to mention particularly all those shortlisted for the BETT
awards tonight. Good luck to all nominees, and congratulations (in
advance) to the winners#
How technology has changed the world, and the workplace
All around us, the world has changed in previously unimaginable and
impossible ways. Most of us carry more advanced technology in the
smartphone in our pocket than Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin used to
reach the Moon.
Every day we work in environments which are completely different to
those of twenty-five or a hundred years ago.
Where once clerks scribbled on card indexes and lived by the Dewey
Decimal system, now thousands of office workers roam the world from
their desktop.
Where once car manufacturing plants housed lines of workers
hammering and soldering and drilling, now a technician controls the
delicate operations of a whole series of robots.
When I started out as a journalist in the 1980s, it was a case of
typewriters and telexes in smoky newsrooms, surrounded by the
distant clatter of hot metal.
Now newsrooms - and journalists - are almost unrecognisable, as are
the daily tools of the trade. The telex machine became a fax, then a
pager, then email. A desktop computer became a laptop computer. My
pockets were filled with huge mobile phones, then smaller mobile
phones, a Blackberry, and now an e-reader and iPad.
And with each new gadget, each huge leap forward, technology has
expanded into new intellectual and commercial fields.
Twenty years ago, medicine was not an information technology. Now,
genomes have been decoded and the technologies of biological
engineering and synthetic biology are transforming medicine. The
boundary between biology and IT is already blurring into whole new
fields, like bio-informatics.
Twenty years ago, science journals were full of articles about the
'AI Winter' - the fear that post-war hopes for Artificial
Intelligence had stalled. Now, detailed computer models show us more
than we ever imagined about the geography of our minds. Amazing
brain-computer-interfaces allow us to control our physical
environment by the power of thought - truly an example of Arthur C.
Clarke's comment that any sufficiently advanced technology can seem
like magic.
Twenty years ago, only a tiny number of specialists knew what the
internet was and what it might shortly become. Now, billions of
people and trillions of cheap sensors are connecting to each other,
all over the world - and more come online every minute of every day.
Almost every field of employment now depends on technology. From
radio, to television, computers and the internet, each new
technological advance has changed our world and changed us too.
But there is one notable exception.
Education has barely changed
The fundamental model of school education is still a teacher talking
to a group of pupils. It has barely changed over the centuries, even
since Plato established the earliest "akademia" in a shady olive
grove in ancient Athens.
A Victorian schoolteacher could enter a 21st century classroom and
feel completely at home. Whiteboards may have eliminated chalk dust,
chairs may have migrated from rows to groups, but a teacher still
stands in front of the class, talking, testing and questioning.
But that model won't be the same in twenty years' time. It may well
be extinct in ten.
Technology is already bringing about a profound transformation in
education, in ways that we can see before our very eyes and in
others that we haven't even dreamt of yet.
Now, as we all know, confident predictions of the technological
future have a habit of embarrassing the predictor.
As early as 1899, the director of the U.S. Patent Office, Charles H.
Duell, blithely asserted that "everything that can be invented has
already been invented."
In 1943, the chairman of IBM guessed that "there is a world market
for maybe five computers". The editor of the Radio Times said in
1936, "television won't matter in your lifetime or mine".
Most impressively of all, Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal
Society, scored a hat-trick of embarrassing predictions between
1897-9, declaring, "radio has no future", "X-rays are clearly a
hoax" and "the aeroplane is scientifically impossible".
A new approach to technology policy
I don't aspire to join that illustrious company by stating on record
that this technology or that gadget is going to change the world.
Nothing has a shorter shelf-life than the cutting edge.
But we in Britain should never forget that one of our great heroes,
Alan Turing, laid the foundation stones on which all modern
computing rests. His pioneering work on theoretical computation in
the 1930s laid the way for Turing himself, von Neumann and others to
create the computer industry as we know it.
Another generation's pioneer, Bill Gates, warned that the need for
children to understand computer programming is much more acute now
than when he was growing up. Yet as the chairman of Google, Eric
Schmidt, recently lamented, we in England have allowed our education
system to ignore our great heritage and we are paying the price for
it.
Our school system has not prepared children for this new world.
Millions have left school over the past decade without even the
basics they need for a decent job. And the current curriculum cannot
prepare British students to work at the very forefront of
technological change.
Last year's superb Livingstone -Hope Review - for which I would like
to thank both authors - said that the slump in UK's video games
development sector is partly the result of a lack of
suitably-qualified graduates. The review, commissioned by Ed Vaizey
who has championed the Computer Science cause in the Department for
Culture, Media and Sport, found that the UK had been let down by an
ICT curriculum that neglects the rigorous computer science and
programming skills which high-tech industries need.
It's clear that technology is going to bring profound changes to how
and what we teach. But it's equally clear that we have not yet
managed to make the most of it.
Governments are notoriously flat-footed when it comes to
anticipating and facilitating technical change. Too often, in the
past, administrations have been seduced into spending huge sums on
hardware which is obsolete before the ink is dry on the contract. Or
invested vast amounts of time and money in drawing up new curricula,
painstakingly detailing specific skills and techniques which are
superseded almost immediately.
I believe that we need to take a step back.
Already, technology is helping us to understand the process of
learning. Brain scans and scientific studies are now showing us how
we understand the structure of language, how we remember and forget,
the benefits of properly designed and delivered testing and the
importance of working memory.
As science advances, our understanding of the brain will grow - and
as it grows, it will teach us more about the process of education.
What can technology do for learning?
Rather than rushing pell-mell after any particular technology,
filling school cupboards with today's answer to Betamaxes and floppy
discs, we need to ask ourselves a fundamental question.
What can technology do for learning?
Three points immediately:
7 First, technology has the potential to disseminate learning much
more widely than ever before. Subjects, classes and concepts that
were previously limited to a privileged few are now freely available
to any child or adult with an internet connection, all over the
world.
Look at 02 learn, a free online library of lesson videos developed
and uploaded by teachers. It has already delivered around 25,000
hours of teaching via 1000 lessons from every type of school and
college, right across the country: science lessons from The Bishop
Wand Church of England Comprehensive School, music lessons from
Eton. What about iTunes U, where lectures from the world's top
universities are available at the touch of a button, and where the
Independent Schools Council, Teaching Leaders and some of the best
Academy Chains are working to put materials and lesson videos
online? Or the hugely successful Khan Academy: more than 3.5 million
students watch its educational videos every month and Google has
donated $2 million for its materials to be translated into 10
languages.
I've been lucky enough to see first hand in Singapore how brilliant
lessons can be delivered through a mixture of online and teacher-led
instruction. And in areas of specialist teacher shortage, specialist
teaching could be provided for groups of schools online, giving more
children the opportunity to learn subjects that were previously
closed to them. The Further Maths Support Programme, for example, is
using the internet to give poorer families access to specialist help
for the STEP papers, which dominate the best universities' selection
process for Maths degree courses.
As online materials grow and flourish, we all need to think about
how we can guide students through the wealth of information and
techniques freely available and accessible online.
And, of course, I'm not just talking about opportunities for pupils
to learn. The Royal Shakespeare Company is working with the
University of Warwick on an online professional development learning
platform to transform the teaching of Shakespeare in schools.
Launching next month, the "rehearsal room" teaching resources will
give teachers all over the world access to the insights and working
practices of internationally-renowned actors, artists and directors,
as well as specialist academics and teachers. The programme will
even offer the chance to study for a Post Graduate qualification in
the Teaching of Shakespeare.
The Knowledge is Power Programme, one of the most successful and
widely-studied charter school chains in America, is already using
ubiquitous, cheap digital technology to share lessons from its most
proficient teachers. Even the best teachers can hone their skills by
watching their peers in action.
7 Second, just as technology raises profound questions about how we
learn, it also prompts us to think about how we teach.
Games and interactive software can help pupils acquire complicated
skills and rigorous knowledge in an engaging and enjoyable way.
Adaptive software has the ability to recognise and respond to
different abilities, personalising teaching for every pupil. With
the expert help of a teacher, students can progress at different
rates through lessons calibrated to stretch them just the right
amount.
Britain has an incredibly strong games industry, with vast potential
to engage with education both in this country and all over the
world. We're already seeing these technologies being used in
imaginative ways. Games developed by Marcus Du Sautoy, Professor of
Mathematics at Oxford, are introducing children to advanced,
complicated maths problems - and are producing great results.
Before Christmas I visited Kingsford School in Newham, where the
Department for Education is working with the Li Ka Shing Foundation
and the highly respected Stanford Research Institute. Their pilot
scheme uses computer programmes to teach maths interactively - for
example, showing a race between two people on screen and inviting
pupils to plot their time and distance on a graph, then adjust it
for variables.
Again, this pilot hasn't been dictated by central government, and we
haven't developed the programme. But Stanford already says it is one
of the most successful educational projects they have seen and I am
looking forward to seeing the results.
7 Third, technology brings unprecedented opportunities for
assessment. Teachers can now support pupils' learning by assessing
their progress in a much more sophisticated way, and sharing
assessments with pupils and parents.
Each pupil's strengths and weaknesses can be closely monitored
without stigmatising those who are struggling or embarrassing those
are streaking ahead. Teachers can adjust lesson plans to target
areas where pupils are weakest, and identify gaps in knowledge
quickly and reliably.
Sophisticated assessment like this is already being used in schools
around the country. Brailes Primary School, for example, a small
rural school on the border of Warwickshire and Oxfordshire, uses
online tools enabling teachers to use pre-assembled tests, or design
tests of their own. One of the teachers, Deborah Smith, has praised
the system, saying, "it has enabled me to differentiate my teaching
to meet the needs of different groups. The assessments are quick and
simple to prepare#leaving more time for planning and teaching."
In Chichester School for Boys, electronic voting pads provide
students with instant feedback during classes. Teachers get
real-time feedback on how well their material is being understood -
even on a question by question basis.
These are just three ways in which technology is profoundly changing
education today - and I am sure that there will be more.
We're not going to tell you what to do
While things are changing so rapidly, while the technology is
unpredictable and the future is unknowable, Government must not wade
in from the centre to prescribe to schools exactly what they should
be doing and how they should be doing it.
We must work with these developments as they arise: supporting,
facilitating and encouraging change, rather than dictating it.
By its very nature, new technology is a disruptive force. It
innovates, and invents; it flattens hierarchies, and encourages
creativity and fresh thinking.
I could say the same of our whole school reform programme. In fact,
I'm fairly sure I have said the same.
Just as we've devolved greater autonomy to schools, and put our
trust in the professionalism of teachers; just as we've lifted the
burden of central prescription, and given heads and schools power
over their own destiny; just as the internet has made information
more democratic, and given every single user the chance to talk to
the world; so technology will bring more autonomy to each of us here
in this room.
This is a huge opportunity. But it's also a responsibility.
We want to focus on training teachers
That's why, rather than focusing on hardware or procurement, we are
investing in training individuals. We need to improve the training
of teachers so that they have the skills and knowledge they need to
make the most of the opportunities ahead.
It is vital that teachers can feel confident using technological
tools and resources for their own and their pupils' benefit, both
within and beyond the classroom, and can adapt to new technologies
as they emerge. That means ensuring that teachers receive the best
possible ITT and CPD in the use of educational technology.
Working with the TDA, we will be looking at initial teacher training
courses carefully in the coming year so that teachers get the skills
and experience they need to use technology confidently. And we're
working with Nesta who, supported by Nominet Trust and others, are
today announcing a #2m programme to fund and research innovative
technology projects in schools.
We must also encourage teachers to learn from other schools which
are doing this particularly well.
Some ICT teaching in schools is already excellent - as reported in
the most recent Ofsted report on ICT education and last year's Naace
report, "The Importance of Technology".
Sharing that excellence will help all schools to drive up standards.
We are already working with the Open University on Vital, a
programme encouraging teachers to share ICT expertise between
schools. High-performing academy chains will also play a huge role
in spreading existing best practice and innovation between schools.
And Teaching Schools across the country are already forming networks
to help other schools develop and improve their use of technology.
The Department for Education is going to provide dedicated funding
to Teaching Schools to support this work.
The current, flawed ICT curriculum
The disruptive, innovative, creative force of new technology also
pushes us to think about the curriculum.
And one area exemplifies, more than any other, the perils of the
centre seeking to capture in leaden prose the restless spirit of
technological innovation.
I refer, of course, to the current ICT curriculum.
The best degrees in computer science are among the most rigorous and
respected qualifications in the world. They're based on one of the
most formidable intellectual fields - logic and set theory - and
prepare students for immensely rewarding careers and world-changing
innovations.
But you'd never know that from the current ICT curriculum.
Schools, teachers and industry leaders have all told us that the
current curriculum is too off-putting, too demotivating, too dull.
Submissions to the National Curriculum Review Call for Evidence from
organisations including the British Computer Society, Computing at
School, eSkills UK, Naace and the Royal Society, all called the
current National Curriculum for ICT unsatisfactory.
They're worried that it doesn't stretch pupils enough or allow
enough opportunities for innovation and experimentation - and
they're telling me the curriculum has to change radically.
Some respondents in a 2009 research study by e-Skills said that ICT
GCSE was "so harmful, boring and / or irrelevant it should simply be
scrapped". The Royal Society is so concerned that it has spent two
years researching the problem with universities, employers, teachers
and professional bodies - so I'm looking forward to its report, due
to be published on Friday. And while ICT is so unpopular, there are
grave doubts about existing Computer Science 16-18 courses.
In short, just at the time when technology is bursting with
potential, teachers, professionals, employers, universities, parents
and pupils are all telling us the same thing. ICT in schools is a
mess.
Disapplying the Programme of Study
That's why I am announcing today that the Department for Education
is opening a consultation on withdrawing the existing National
Curriculum Programme of Study for ICT from September this year.
The traditional approach would have been to keep the Programme of
Study in place for the next four years while we assembled a panel of
experts, wrote a new ICT curriculum, spent a fortune on new teacher
training, and engaged with exam boards for new ICT GCSES that would
become obsolete almost immediately.
We will not be doing that.
Technology in schools will no longer be micromanaged by Whitehall.
By withdrawing the Programme of Study, we're giving schools and
teachers freedom over what and how to teach; revolutionising ICT as
we know it.
Let me stress - ICT will remain compulsory at all key stages, and
will still be taught at every stage of the curriculum. The existing
Programme of Study will remain on the web for reference.
But no English school will be forced to follow it any more. From
this September, all schools will be free to use the amazing
resources that already exist on the web.
Universities, businesses and others will have the opportunity to
devise new courses and exams. In particular, we want to see
universities and businesses create new high quality Computer Science
GCSEs, and develop curricula encouraging schools to make use of the
brilliant Computer Science content available on the web.
I am pleased that OCR is pioneering work in this field, and that IBM
and others are already working on a pilot. Facebook has teamed up
with UK-based organisation Apps for Good to offer young people the
chance to learn how to design, code and build social applications
for use on social networks, via a unique new training course which
they aim to make freely available online this year to potential
users all over the world.
And other specialist groups have published or are about to publish
detailed ICT curricula and programmes of study, including Computing
At School (led by the British Computer Society and the Institute of
IT), Behind the Screens (led by eSkills UK), Naace and others, with
considerable support from industry leaders.
Imagine the dramatic change which could be possible in just a few
years, once we remove the roadblock of the existing ICT curriculum.
Instead of children bored out of their minds being taught how to use
Word and Excel by bored teachers, we could have 11 year-olds able to
write simple 2D computer animations using an MIT tool called
Scratch. By 16, they could have an understanding of formal logic
previously covered only in University courses and be writing their
own Apps for smartphones.
This is not an airy promise from an MP - this is the prediction of
people like Ian Livingstone who have built world-class companies
from computer science.
And we're encouraging rigorous Computer Science courses
The new Computer Science courses will reflect what you all know:
that Computer Science is a rigorous, fascinating and intellectually
challenging subject.
After all, the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is one of the
most innovative and successful proponents of Computer Science today.
But his computing skills are just as rigorous as the rest of his
talents - which include Maths, Science, French, Hebrew, Latin and
Ancient Greek.
Computer Science requires a thorough grounding in logic and set
theory, and is merging with other scientific fields into new hybrid
research subjects like computational biology.
So I am also announcing today that, if new Computer Science GCSEs
are developed that meet high standards of intellectual depth and
practical value, we will certainly consider including Computer
Science as an option in the English Baccalaureate.
Although individual technologies change day by day, they are
underpinned by foundational concepts and principles that have
endured for decades. Long after today's pupils leave school and
enter the workplace - long after the technologies they used at
school are obsolete - the principles learnt in Computer Science will
still hold true.
An open-source curriculum
Advances in technology should also make us think about the broader
school curriculum in a new way.
In an open-source world, why should we accept that a curriculum is a
single, static document? A statement of priorities frozen in time; a
blunt instrument landing with a thunk on teachers' desks and updated
only centrally and only infrequently?
In ICT, for example, schools are already leading the way when it
comes to using educational technology in new and exciting ways - and
they're doing it in spite of the existing ICT curriculum, not
because of it.
The essential requirements of the National Curriculum need to be
specified in law, but perhaps we could use technology creatively to
help us develop that content. And beyond the new, slimmed down
National Curriculum, we need to consider how we can take a wiki,
collaborative approach to developing new curriculum materials; using
technological platforms to their full advantage in creating
something far more sophisticated than anything previously available.
This means freedom and autonomy
Disapplying the ICT programme of study is about freedom. It will
mean that, for the first time, teachers will be allowed to cover
truly innovative, specialist and challenging topics.
And whether they choose a premade curriculum, or whether they design
their own programme of study specifically for their school, they
will have the freedom and flexibility to decide what is best for
their pupils.
Teachers will now be allowed to focus more sharply on the subjects
they think matter - for example, teaching exactly how computers
work, studying the basics of programming and coding and encouraging
pupils to have a go themselves.
Initiatives like the Raspberry Pi scheme will give children the
opportunity to learn the fundamentals of programming with their own
credit card sized, single-board computers. With minimal memory and
no disk drives, the Raspberry Pi computer can operate basic
programming languages, handle tasks like spread sheets,
word-processing and games, and connect to wifi via a dongle - all
for between #16 and #22. This is a great example of the cutting edge
of education technology happening right here in the UK. It could
bring the same excitement as the BBC Micro did in the 1980s, and I
know that it's being carefully watched by education and technology
experts all over the world.
As well as choosing what to study, schools can also choose how.
Technology can be integrated and embedded across the whole
curriculum.
In geography lessons, for example, pupils could access the
specialised software and tools used by professional geographers,
allowing them to tackle more challenging and interesting work.
Molecular modelling software could bring huge advantages for science
students.
The Abbey School in Reading has already been piloting 3D
technologies for teaching Biology, showing 3D images of the heart
pumping blood through valves, and manipulating, rotating and tilting
the heart in real time. As Abbey School Biology teacher Ros Johnson
said, the 3D technology "has made me realise what they weren't
understanding...what I can't believe is how much difference it has
made to the girls' understanding".
This isn't a finished strategy - but it shows our ambition
The use of technology in schools is a subject that will keep growing
and changing, just as technology keeps growing and changing.
But we can be confident about one thing. Demand for high-level
skills will only grow in the years ahead. In work, academia and
their personal lives, young people will depend upon their
technological literacy and knowledge.
And this doesn't just affect our country. Every nation in the world
will be changed by the growth of technology and we in Britain must
ensure that we can make the most of our incredible assets to become
world-leaders in educational technology.
Today has seen the conclusion of the Education World Forum here in
London. I cannot emphasise enough how important it is for me,
personally, that we learn from the highest performing education
systems - some of whom I am delighted to see represented here - and
I am very grateful to everyone who has taken the time and trouble to
come to London for this event.
I'm not here today to announce our final, inflexible, immutable
technology strategy. There's no blueprint to follow - and we don't
know what our destination will look like.
I'm setting out our direction of travel, and taking the first few
steps. There is lots more to come, and we will have more to say over
the course of the year.
I'd also like to welcome the online discussion launched today at
schoolstech.org.uk and using the twitter hashtag #schoolstech. We
need a serious, intelligent conversation about how technology will
transform education - and I look forward to finding out what
everyone has to say.
We want a modern education system which exploits the best that
technology can offer to schools, teachers and pupils. Where schools
use technology in imaginative and effective ways to build the
knowledge, understanding and skills that young people need for the
future. And where we can adapt to and welcome every new
technological advance that comes along to change everything, all
over again, in ways we never expected.
Events like the BETT show are crucial in showcasing the best and
brightest of the technology industry, showing what can be done - and
what is already being achieved. We will depend upon your insight and
ideas, your expertise and experience, as you take these technologies
into your schools and try them with your students.
Thank you again to BETT for inviting me, and I wish you all good
exploring today.
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Girls using computers
'Geek' perception of computer science putting off girls, expert
warns
10 Jan 2012
Dumbing down of computing to IT literacy and lack of initiatives to
inspire girls to take up the subject worsening the shortage
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School of Computer Science
The University of Birmingham