#OnlyLearning

Have you ever taken a moment to consider what you share online?  What about all those photographs of your children? Have you even asked your child if they are happy with you sending their digital likeness into the ether, at a time when an ever-greater number of tools are being launched, and used, with minimal thought for their longer term impact. The United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child was written a long time before we had any reason to worry about online presence - after all the the UNCRC came into action in 1992, a year before  CERN  placed its World Wide Web technology in the public domain and gave birth to the phenomenon of online communication. Yet the UNCRC has incredible relevance for our children, especially given omnipresent online access and these new AI   tools : Article 3  - The best interests of the child must be a top priority in all decisions and actions that affect children. Article 8  - Every child has the right to an id...

I recently read Stepping into a Virtual Reality Classroom for Teacher Training (columbia.edu)  and I was intrigued to see the situation in Myanmar pre-pandemic described in very similar terms to how I have previously described the situation here in Scotland today:  ...teachers often lack not only digital skills themselves, but also the pedagogical breadth to meaningfully engage students in inquiry-based activities that make the most of access to technology The  Myanmar: Connect to Learn  project site details the issues faced by their schools when it came to developing digital pedagogies: It was clear that knowledge, skills and infrastructure were all lacking. The same concerns raised in Scotland. Having just supported an authority with upskilling teaching staff and deploying thousands of devices into the hands of staff and students alike, I feel I have a good understanding of how these three factors impact on education here. The ongoing work being undertaken by ...