天美传媒

天美传媒鈥檚 Stephen Heppell has written an article in the Financial Times that looks at education and technology.

As Chair of BU鈥檚 Centre for Excellence in Media Practice, Heppell also advises governments and organisations around the world on education and IT, and his Christmas wish was to let children build a better education system for tomorrow.

Heppell鈥檚 arguments focussed on the unequal state of education around the globe, with 鈥渁t least 55million [children] having no schooling at all鈥� and 鈥�114 of 208 countries having a significant shortage of teachers鈥�. He also notes that the equality gap between the wealthiest and the poorest 鈥渉as barely closed in the past 30 years鈥�.

鈥淚t is time we rethought education properly鈥�, Heppell says, before going into depth on how technology specifically has 鈥渢ransformed our daily lives in incalculable ways鈥� but so little [has] changed in education鈥�.

From the chairs and desks that 鈥渓ook pretty much like the perfect prototype for an anti-reading device鈥� to other school technologies that 鈥渋s often stopped at the school gates鈥�, education needs to embrace the interactivity that technology can bring to the classroom.

鈥淲hat is needed is not to fit the technology to the existing practices, but real innovation鈥�, argues Heppell. He describes how education will need to be 鈥渁 lot cheaper, more engaging, more shared and connected, and hugely more effective鈥� 鈥� just like a Google Car might be.

Further still, Heppell argues that it is in 鈥渁sking the children themselves to research how learning might be improved [that] produces compelling engagement, provides some really effective ideas and helps them to learn about learning鈥�.

Ultimately, 鈥渨e might create better and completely different learning with those children鈥� if we involve them in the process itself.