"Survey after survey suggests that our
UK schoolchildren may be some of the least happy in Europe. A diet
of tests and chasing the elusive benefits of imposed incrementalism
may be a part of that. Some schools can and do teach unremittingly
to the tests, and the tests are frequent.
It's not just our children of course: talking
to a headteacher as part of an inclusion research project in Hong
Kong I asked what future learning might aspire to be like there. "Surely" she said, "there
might be a little more joy?". And technology is one very effective
way of adding, or reintroducing, that joy. Secondary age children mourn
the loss of play from their primary years and yet play is something
that ICT has brought into learning from the very beginning. ICT in
learning holds the potential to bring back playfulness and engagement
and in 2010, finally, it is doing just that.
Since those earliest days of Space Invaders the dream of engaging children
in learning as fully as they are evidently engaged in their game play
has been a significant part of ICT events everywhere. But by 2010 the
whole debate has become a lot more complex:
- our understanding of cognitive development
tells us more clearly how the problem solving of games can help
other learning tasks too; children playing games at the beginning
of their day can jumpstart a whole cultural change in school so
that "being brainy is cool";
- children as games designers learn to deconstruct and critique new
media;
- and of course the design of new learning environments, of hardware
and software are finally embracing the need for playfulness too.
Finally, we really know that Playful Learning is highly effective.
This year's BETT central feature highlights Playful Learning. Play of
course has escaped from its boxes and much of it now uses GPS trackers,
handheld and pocketable devices, collaborative teams, international links
and more. A host of play based activity - with plenty of screens and
a whole class of children from Lampton School in Hounslow who will be
playing, learning, challenging, tweeting and provoking BETT guests using
a diversity of hardware, software, devices and ideas.
Playful Learning is great fun and has re-energised
classrooms, rekindled school parent relationships, re-engaged brains
and provided at times a powerfully competitive space for problem
solving, and at other times a place for real individual concentration.
At this year's BETT, we hope you can be a part of it".
©heppell.net 2020
