LATWF – Learning And Technology World Forum
Last week I attended the Learning And Technology World Forum – LATWF, a major world Education Ministers conference hosted by the UK government in London. Throughout the week I was part of the Learner’s Voice team composed of 7 students from all over the world. Our duty in this forum was to attend conferences and workshops, maintain a blog about the event and, on the last day, present a plenary in front of 400 delegates including 60+ Ministers of Education.
The most important part of the forum was the closed conference that brought together 60+ Ministers of Education representing countries from all around the world. This conference was about the next steps that countries need to take in order to include technology in their education systems. This was a disappointing session, as we witnessed ministers playing a game of ‘Show and Tell’ instead of trying to figure out answers to their problems. We have heard a lot of aims and ambitions and everybody was talking about ‘what we should do’, but no strategies or promises have been made.
The main issues on everyone’s agenda was changing the curriculum in order to fit the student’s needs and training teachers in order to understand technology better and adapt easier to the student’s needs. My question here was: have anyone asked the students what their needs are?
Another question that was raised was: ‘Who should be in the driver’s seat? The Industry or the Education System?’ The answer I’ve heard in this forum was: The Education System. Now let’s think about it for a moment, in today’s world technology evolved; the society evolved; but education didn’t.
Ricardo Semler was one of the guest speakers in this event and he managed to prove this point by asking a simple question: Why do children have 3 months of summer holiday? Because it’s too warm, because they need to rest or is it because ages ago, when this education system came in place, students had to help their parents during the summer holiday with the field work? We all know that this is not the case anymore and after two weeks of holiday children need to be entertained.
Ricardo also came up with a really innovative education system that is having really good results in three schools from Brazil. This system is based on a matrix of knowledge which the students are free to explore and they are the only ones that decide which subjects they want to dig into and which they want to learn on a basic level. This system is based on negotiating with the student on a base of two months projects that they could engage in. The whole idea of the system is to involve the student in his education planning. This approach will give the child more confidence and motivation and will allow him to be more innovative. The usual lecturers will become mentors and the classes will be taught by passionate professionals which will be employed only on the duration of the project.
All in all, the event was a really good experience which allowed me to better understand the way decisions are being taken at a really high level and the direction that the education system will be taking the next few years.
