Whether you know her from the Byron review, on television as the host of the tiny tearaways or as a feisty and passionate lady who talks a lot of sense for one thing she has the opportunity to bend the ear of Mr Gove but whether he will listen we will have to wait and see.
Tanya as I like to call her immediately gained my respect when she started off by apologising for bringing an offensive weapon on stage, I first thought she was perhaps talking about her good looks but she soon revealed it was her mobile phone! This was great to hear as she then proceeded to say how ridiculous that this new ruling was. This completely echoed the sentiment of my presentation the day before at the same conference. In fact I have to get this in because I was hugely disappointed that it didn’t happen and feel I need to say it here. Before the SSAT conference I was approached by Tanya who wanted to look over my presentation as she intended to use it as part of her keynote, after being initially a little scared I was delighted and so forwarded it to her only to find she didn’t give me or the school a mention. Damn! I am not bitter about it I am sure she will instead come down and talk to us about the work we do in a school visit – you heard it here first Tanya we would love you to come and visit our school anytime.
As she talked it just got better and better – I was sold especially when she described how much she was looking forward to meeting Gove on the 16th December about how the government should be developing the use of new technologies in schools. I really wish I could be a fly on the wall in that one especially as there is hardly any mention to the use of new technologies in the new white paper.
This is what she said about things like mobile phones and other new technologies and their use in schools, she stated that society was scared and outraged in ‘wild panic’.
“When the printing press was first introduced there was wild panic especially from the church
When film industry grew in 1920’s there was wild panic
With the Invention of the sofa there was wild panic as people feared young people would laze around and not be constructive
And finally there was wild panic and a much heated debate on how long women should use a telephone for”
Next Tanya talked about digital citizenship and what does it actually mean? She told the audience a story about her son Jack “What do you think about digital citizenship? Well It is about just being a good citizen whether it is online or not! It doesn’t really matter what we call it! She then went on to talk about how angry she was when Obama came out and said that information is a distraction – I don’t know how to use ipods etc. She questioned whether for a man in his position it is right for him to be negative about these types of multiple platforms?
She summed up the talk by ending with the statement that technology is not the answer to everything but please show us the evidence of how and why it s bad!
I was frightened to hear the views of some of the audience on the use of technology in schools and how dangerous it is and how we should ban it. I fear that if we are not careful then the future education of the next generation is at risk. I will leave you with a question asked by Sir Cyril who has been revealed to be advising the new government on educational matters behind the scenes. “The average child – spends 7hours on the internet and only 1 hour reading? Don’t you find this worrying”
What do you think they do on the internet Sir Cyril I ask? Would you like a Kindle for Christmas?