No, it is not April 1st yet. The British government is proposing that Twitter is to be taught in primary (elementary) schools as part of a wider push to make online communication and social media a permanent part of the UK’s education system. And that’s not all. Kids will be taught blogging, podcasting and how to use Wikipedia alongside Maths, English and Science.
The draft plans were due to be published next month, but have leaked early to The Guardian. Children will also learn “fluency” in handwriting and keyboard skills, and how to use a spellchecker. Luckily they will still be taught how to spell themselves, rather than rely on Mr Clippy.
It’s a big overhaul of current thinking. Children will no longer be absolutely required to study the Victorians or the Second World War, as Teachers get a much freer hand in what goes on in the classroom in the biggest changes to primary schooling in a decade.
Traditional education in areas like phonics, the chronology of history and mental arithmetic remain but modern media and web-based skills and environmental education now feature.
The plans were drawn up by Sir Jim Rose, the former Ofsted chief, appointed by ministers to overhaul the primary school curriculum, and are due to be published next month.
I’m all in favour of teaching people computer and multimedia literacy, but is there not a real danger that by the time it gets approved for the classroom, kids will be being taught about email, Friends Reunited and Piczo, when the world is now Facebook, Twitter and Moshi.
In other words, can the government really keep up with technological innovation in the classroom? Seems unlikely.
I agree with a lot that was said but unfortunately you have to face several trials to prioritize a few of the things that were said.
For example: If you are building a product that is meant to be “naturally viral” or “naturally good” but you are competing with someone else that is already existing in the market place, scaling down your product could actually hurt you. The reason for this is because many consumers will not change they habits if the difference is not substantially enhanced enough to change.
So in this sense, it can be harmful to release a “scaled back” product to the public if there are already direct competitors offering the same product with little differences.
The bottom line though is you must truly enjoy what you do to become successful and the more planning and infrastructure you implement prior to releasing a product, the better off you are.
The average time from “conception” to “market” is seven years for a successful national / international company and the first five years of that should be spent planning and building the infrastructure.
Its true that time is essential in the internet world because of how many new products are continuously being launched and how fast technology advances, but there is something to be said about the companies that take their time to pay attention to every detail of their company prior to revealing it to the consumers eye.
You might get a consumer base quickly on the internet because the techies are curious but you wont retain them because typically they are not your standard “web consumer”. Believe it our not, but half of the population still is technology ignorant so when they get online they are looking for specifics and most of the time its a site that a friend told them about or they saw in traditional media that caught their attention based on a current “need”.
So if you can fill a market need, appeal to the masses, dumb down you product, pick up the slack of a competitor and believe in your product, you will be in great shape for success.
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Petrifying.
Will they use Urban Dictionary in English lessons too?
Why not?
Students need to be able to make educated decisions for themselves about what type of wording to use in different situations.
Languages change.
Agora responde lá a esta:
e se fosses à merda!!!
.
I think you should never teach technology but paradigms and processes instead.
So it’s basically about more about fostering media education in UK primary schools, isn’t it? Still a catchy headline
Teaching students about Twitter? LOL! Actually, there is nothing much to teach about Twitter except how did Barack Obama has used it to win the Presidential election last year.
Olé!
This is one of the most mentally retarded gov’t initiatives in the UK.
I think their gov’t should go back to school themselves, before making any more decisions – unless they want to spiral down in stupidity.
We’re in a post PC era, my four year old uses youtube on my iphone, my 18mth old daughter plays with the bubblewrap app. To them it’s just part of life and nothing special. I’m all in favour of an overhaul to schools curriculum with regards to tech and media however I’m a little skeptical that putting Twitter on the agenda is just the government jumping on a fad. More optimistically they’re just mentioning this to get picked up on the news and there is a more considered well researched programme of change behind this?
This will undoubtedly spawn a new West-End musical “Oliver Twit”
So just to re-cap:
Important: Twitter.
Not important: World War 2
hahahaha – I couldn’t of said it better
Your bad use of “couldn’t of” instead of “couldn’t have” shows which is more important to you :-p
Lol. And wow. I wonder what would happen if Twitter decided to show inline ads between tweets on the web Twitter, or force ads within Twitter clients. :\
Mass Twitter outrage?
Perfect…hahaha too funny
Presumably this is more for the teachers than the students, the latter of whom already know the technology. Also, presumably this is about information access (keyword search through search.twitter.com or similar), not account formation, as under the twitter Terms of Service, the minimum age for account setup is 13 years.
The skills that let kids use Internet technologies effectively also work in the real world: being able to evaluate resources critically, communicating well, being careful with strangers and your personal information, conducting yourself in a manner appropriate to your environment. Those things are, and should be, taught in schools. It’s also a good idea to teach kids how to use computers, including web browsers etc, and how those real-world skills translate online.
Twitter, Wikipedia, Facebook et al really should not be an enforced part of the curriculum. It’s short-sighted, promotes brand lock-in in schools, and ultimately smacks of hype-dizzy incompetence. Who exactly is advising the Department of Education?
Is there any way to unsubsribe from twitter posts? I’ve been receiving them here, mashable, makretingpilgrim and other sites.
I don’t want to waste time every day deleting all the tiwtter posts. I just simply don’t care about it
Yeah, you unfollow /remove the people you are following who are producing the posts you don’t like. Maybe I should go into teaching…?
I think they mean posts here *about* Twitter.
It’s called “skipping the article”, I think.
Well, then there are 2-8 posts about it every day… It’s a lot to skip
Twitter posts in news sites like this*
Skip over them?
Or unsubscribe to news sites that cover technology?
Can I be a teacher too?
I think the deluge of twitter stories on TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Silicon Alley Insider, and Mashable is because they have Federated Media as their ad network.
Federated Media is premised on ‘ads as conversation’. So every post is a unit of convo-ad, where ads-qua-conversation are conflated with pseudo-journalism.
GigaOm recently dropped Federated Media as its ad network, and their twitter news stories have noticeably dropped.
One conversation to rule them all. bahaha.
Christ, I hate hype, and spin.
I think teaching kids HOW TO use Wikipedia is a step forward from ordering them NOT TO use it, as they presently do in many North American classrooms.
Simple response: NO!
Maybe we first learn how to teach math, science, and maybe english. You know: things one needs to know to design/build technology and communicate their message to customers and partners.
This is a great story, I am all for teaching technology to pupils, however it has to be at the root level. In other words instead of teaching them how to use Microsoft Word, they need to be taught how to use a word processor. Open Source software is the future and therefore we need to concentrate on the wheels and not the vehicle!
People everywhere are mesmerized by technology and forgetting that learning how to use a computer is not a core skill at primary school level. This just makes kids lazy in trying to learn cores skills, such as numeracy and science. It is a fact that once someone masters core skills , he/she can easily learn anything.
Using apps like Twitter should be left for secondary school because kids should be taught core skills. Once kids are well prepared in core skills such as numeracy, then perhaps they can learn how to use Twitter when they reach high school level.
I had observed that kids who are spending too much time using a computer for entertainment rather than learning are slow learners. I coach a bunch of 7, 8 and 9 year old kids of close relatives in maths in the evening twice a week and the ones that spends too much time on computers at their house are the difficult ones to teach numeracy concepts. I usually go over the same topics with these difficult kids 3 or 4 times (ie, in sessions that run into 2 weeks or more) before they even understand. The ones who don’t use much of a computer to entertain are quick to grasp the concepts. I have taught them of how to solve linear equation and simple linear simultaneous equations by hand. Their parents have bought copies of Mathematica on my advise for their kids to use and I have also showed them of how to type certain commands into Mathematica’s workspace just to confirm their simultaneous equation or linear equation solutions. If they’re not the same with his/her solutions on paper , then the kid would go thru his worksheet paper step-by-step and try to find where he/she went wrong.
Core skills is very important. Anyone and everyone can learn Photoshop & Word Processing at any stage of their life, but if core skills are missed from an early age, then evidence has shown that there has always been less chance that the missing knowledge could be learnt at a later stage in life.
Allowing kids to use Twitter is not a core skill that kids need to know or use. It simply increases their wasted time by sending messages back & forth to their friends. The outcome of this is that they will start to feel that it is something so fun to use (an entertainment thing), which distracts them from learning core skills.
This is fascinating. Real evidence from someone actually observing and reporting on learning differences aparently caused by undisciplined use of entertainment based browsing. The evidence motivates need for a broader study.
This is f*cking depressing.
You took the words right out of my mouth.
Schools shouldn’t be about teaching content, but about learning to learn, getting the kind of critical skills that can be used in all kinds of contexts, and generating motivation for lifelong learning. Finnish schools are rated the best in the world according to the OECD/PISA ratings, and they have totally de-emphasised the role of content in the curriculum. Twitter could indeed help in the process as it helps children to learn to write in a precise, concise style – absolutely nothing wrong with that from a pedagogical point of view. Encouraging children to write is never a bad thing, no matter what the platform.
Front end stuff shouldn’t be taught. If anything it should be the back end gubbins that should be taught, databases and coding.
April Fools. Nice try.
Hmmm…how does this tie in with this report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7962631.stm
They teach them so that they can spy on them better later?
Another twitter update. techcrunch.com–>twittercrunch.com I think techcrunch.com should automatically redirect to twittercrunch.com
This is brilliant news.
twitter is an excellent service. Everyone needs to be made aware
Right… The one group of people that don’t need teaching about social media is da kidz – they practically invented it anyhow! (Obv they didn’t – a bunch of geeky dudes did, but they made it mainstream).
What a waste of time.
I am amazed at how ridiculous things are becoming.
Good step, but they’re missing their mark here.
When I was young, I had to learn a lot of information and I had to be able to recite it on command. I haven’t even finished university now, but times have already changed. All of that information is now freely available on the internet and accessible at any time… So what’s more important, to me at least, is not to know all kinds of useless facts, but to know the general info and to know how to think and how to search for information.
In other words, I think children should get lessons in thinking and in information retrieval. Yes, they should still be taught about history, etc. Yes, it’s important they learn stuff that they could need ‘on the spot’ – like calculating skills. However, we can go a little bit easier on drilling the information in – by the time they’re 25, augmented reality will be a fact and not even a luxury.
We’ll be able to retrieve information at any time, any place, about almost anything, without even moving our hands to grab our handhelds.
Embrace technology. Acknowledge its reality. Don’t stick to the old way, just because that’s how you had to do it yourself. It’s retarded – literally.
Schools should focus more on teaching kids on how to think creatively so they can create innovative products like twitter rather then teaching on how to use it….
I have yet to find a use for Twitter. This is by far the worst. If print is dead, programs like Twitter will drive a spike through the heart of conversation and personal interaction. What a shame. How come Facebook can’t sue Twitter for lifting a basic function of its site? Very strange. I am going to begin selling just the Coca Cola without the bottle and call it Delicious.
taken from the twitter terms of use
“You must be 13 years or older to use this site. ”
um…?
Obviously the solution is a special one for little kids. You know, one where you can’t see other people’s comments.
We can call it “notepad”
hmm… Could it be fair to say:
“Soon we’ll have a generation who can only write 140 character long sentences”
hahaha, some how I think this is kind of a joke, but really.
obviously they are being influenced by the huge microblogging lobbies! …in… um… London!
Hey, at least they’re providing more freedom to teachers over there, even if they’re being a little silly with it.
I think its kind of ridiculous. Primary school students don’t need twitter and wikipedia. I think people have completely missed the point of using the web in learning.
At such a young age, those kids should be out playing not thinking about twitter and social networking. This is absurd.
You are right its really absurd. Probably teaching them in such a small age would sure keep them motivated but some can get addicted to it and stop concentrating on their studies
This is surely a sign of the Apocalypse.
Or the idiocy of one Sir Jim Rose.
That’s bloody great. “txt speak” will replace English, Internet lessons will replace IT, and there will be no need for Maths as it will all be done on your calculator.
The idea of a child using twitter is frightening. Aside from the fact that there is a very high level of bad language, there’s also no parental control, and twitter, of course, is a very different social network to something like Facebook; Plus the whole thing about twitter is that generally you follow, and are followed by, people you don’t know in real life. If you let kids on twitter they’d have to protect their updates, and that changes twitter entirely; Those 1-2% who currently have protected updates are not experiencing twitter in all it’s glory, because they are not participating in the big-brain (as @grasuth calls it). So how can they teach this in schools? It would be a bit like trying to give the experience of base-jumping by jumping of a shoe-box. Maybe something like a closed, schools-based twitter-4-kids would be a good idea, providing you could prevent it being used for bullying and intimidation….
Anymore it’s not just Twitter I am getting more of than I care. Techcrunch.com seems to be morphing into socialmediamunch.com. There must be nothing else that matter except social media websites, their features, their toolbars, and their CEO’s who farted on a given day.
Maybe it’s just me. Slashdot where are you.
My initial reaction to this was one of disgust, but then I started to consider the value of learning to express your self clearly in a concise form; a talent that is often underrated.
As Churchill (allegedly) once wrote:
“I’m sorry for writing you such a long letter; I didn’t have time to write a shorter one.”
I thought Mark Twain said that.
Hey, why just settle for a business model that has yet to find profitability? We have an entire generation of kids to inspire to future unprofitability and uselessness.
These idiots should take a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2HAroA12w
Sure it’s done for comedy, but it still holds a lot of truth. This wouldn’t be good for kids.
There’s nothing to worry about here. It takes 13 year old a couple hours to learn how to use Twitter. So it’s a day’s lesson, that’s all. Plenty of weeks to spend on wars.
Twitter as cause of economic collapse:
http://www.gaebler.com/Economist-Blames-Twitter-for-Down-Economy.htm
I think it’s plain stupid and a waste of educational time to teach twittering and such in school.
They will learn all about it by themselves
Using twitter has helped me to be less verbose…i will give it that.
I think that’s the only real value I see aside from studying its effect on how information is accessed and the media.
It is nice to listen that twitter is going to be taught to children in schools.
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Dear Sir Jim Rose,
I think you are making a grave mistake!
Primary school kids (age 7-12) should be taught the fundamentals of literacy, science, history, math etc and not wasting time twittering.
Teaching twitter in school may just be another JuicyCampus disaster waiting to happen. (btw do you know what juicy campus is?)
Also, using Wikipedia alongside Maths, English and Science is dangerous too. What makes you think everything on Wikipedia is true?
Having gone through the British education system, there’s nothing wrong with it. Please done fix it if ain’t broken.
“What makes you think everything on Wikipedia is true?”
What makes you think that Britannica or Encarta are any more accurate? ……because they where written by professionals?
Blind trust is not a good thing either.
I’m an architect, and it amazes me how much faith people put in me and my work, without questioning it, simply because I’m a ‘professional’
You should question everyone and everything, and tools that allow you to do this are fantastic!
I’d really rather students learned this on their own, then try to learn it from teachers who don’t understand it themselves.
Additionally, by the time curriculum gets approved, the material tends to be long out of date.
I should add – the privacy concerns are very real, and I think Facebook (with a closed network of friends) is more appropriate for kids than a “big brain” like Twitter.
It’s extremely irritating that concerns about bullying are, from what I see, only brought up to make the point that online communication is evil. People don’t seem to care at all about bullying in the real world.
Yes, it’s easier to say mean things online, but it’s also a lot easier to click “Ignore” than it is to ignore the person three feet away from you.
I am intrigues by the level of post this item has received. In the ICT education community we are convinced this is a bit of journalistic puff designed to produce this reaction. It obviously worked.
We will wait and see what the report really says…. I doubt it will get this coverage.
How about we start teaching Financial Literacy instead of rubbish like this. So many people have no idea about Mortgages how to manage a credit card how to apply for a loan, Interest rates etc.
Maybe this lack of knowledge is partly to blame for our current global position.
twitter is really good. even jennifer aniston got fed up with her boy fnd , due to twitter.. i have written that story in my blog..
A good step in terms of promoting media literacy but do you really need to teach digital natives something they will absorb independently? Hopefully teachers can encourage kids to think about the broader potential and implications of the ability to connect with anyone, anywhere who has a cell phone. If it’s only a “here’s how you twitter” course, the students might as well teach the teacher.
As essential as this seems, it is in reality a bit stupid.
Adults were not born with internet or computers (most, its changing) and hence never learned how to use them (because they didnt exist), but the truth is that nowadays, the internet is becoming a commonly used tool. Would you see a point in teaching a kid how to use a TV and the selection of channels? probably not, the child has as much knowledge towards a TV as towards the internet. Nowadays it is possible to see kids at the youngest age on the computer, on internet.
I do not believe there should be a class just for this, the subject is too small and the core skills are more important, for example, teach a child how to select good information and conduct research and then he will know how to use wikipedia or any encyclopedia.
I think what should be taught in classrooms should generally stay the same but the ways to do it should change. For example I remember learning to look up words in the dictionary, now it would be nice to teach children how to do that on the computer as well.