Digital divide (2)

I have posted elsewhere in this phone blog about the digital divide opening up between the educational fundamentalists - who would ban everything from phones to social networking - and the 21st century schools who understnd that every turned off device is potentially a turned off child and are embracing the 21st century for all they are worth.

The Learning and Technology World Forum in Westminster brought a host (collective noun suggestions please?) of education ministers together and I invited a group from Lampton School to come along and form a panel talking to the ministers about how they use tech in their personalised learning. Their confident use of YouTube and social networking, their MSN support from teachers at night, their phones-as-a-classroom-resource, their sense of ICT entitlement, and more, captivated the audience who were however divided in their facial reactions! Everyone could see the value of course but half were nodding in a reaffirming kind of way, the other half looked frankly terrified! There's that Digital Divide again...

In the photo the students' hour and a half of confident answers to the ministers' questions is over to be followed something of a stampede to the front to ask more yet questions and seek more of their wisdom. Here the students are, statesmanlike, answering this last lot of questions! The same school - and some of the same students - went on to really impress the BETT guests with their projects on our Learning Elsewhere feature stand - they really were exceptionally and persuasively articulate about their learning lives.