WWW2006 - Education, Education, Education!

Yesterday’s activities at the WWW2006 were an educational experience. Peter and I dipped into the Education & Information talk by Gordon Thomson, Cisco’s Operations Director for Scotland & Ireland, and Tim Pearson, CEO of RM. We were treated to a sneak preview of the new Scottish Schools Digital Network (considered by some to be the most advanced in the world) which will be an enormous boon to teahcers and pupils through its provision of high-speed access to digital materials through a very clever content delivery model. Scottish schools should have access by Sept 2006, and if your’re interested in getting involved, there have been several jobs advertised both here and in the Scotsman to join their team over the last few weeks.

Much of the focus of the morning was on incrreasing productivity through effective use of IT: “connect, collaborate and compete” was Gordon’s message, backed up by his belief that education is about a process, not a place, and that innovation (previously cataglogued as intellectual property) is really about collaboration. The world is flat, says Thomas Friedman, often quoted from his new book through out the talk. Food for thought…

I was also lucky to attend the workshop held by Infosys and e-skills sector Uk to discuss the development of a new IT Diploma for 14- 19 year olds (sadly, only to be available in England from 2008). It was very interesting to brainstorm ideas for how employers might participate more actively in engaging with the learning process. Amongst the ideas flying round the room were that ‘Mothers bring their daughters to work for a day’, ‘Fathers should return to school for a day’ and ‘Teachers should work in industry for a day’. Not sure if it should all happen on the same day though… I particularly liked the idea of a “Webbies” style award for young web designers and a proposal that they should organise their own annual IT conference like this one. What do you think?