My daughter is studying her GCSEs and yes they sometimes use tablets but more often than not she finds it much easier to simply sit down with a proper book, pen and paper or talk to real people about the subjects in order to learn. A lot of her friends simply use technology for fun, they find it too hard to learn from technology.
These companies, Google and Apple, simply want to shift units, we all know that's bloody obvious but the PR depts in these companies and the Gov ministers seem to the think the future is going to be like the fecking Jetsons! FFS! Wake up! education is not about "trendiness" at grass roots level, teacher and pupil, education is about personal engagement. It's about sitting down together and dicussing why Henry VIII reformed the church? Why did Hitler become such a nutter? What's the real message behind the Charge of the Light Brigade? You can put all the incredibly stunning visuals you like on a glass screen, make all the movies and interactive websites you like but to bring history and culture alive you need the one thing you will never put in a machine, a child's imagination.
I speak as a parent and a typical IT worker of 30 years experience, I've been using computers since I was 8 years old, I still love computers and IT in general, it's my life and my career. However it was when I became a parent that I realised that technology is a supplement to education, it can never be a replacement. These ministers who immediately pack their kids off to boarding school have no idea how to engagement with people let alone kids. Showing your child a castle, then describing how they toutured people, how the kings and queens fought over land and power. How the battles raged over Europe. Then watching your child's eyes light up and their imagination spark up, that day they walk into the castle gift shop and for the first time go right past the plush toys, straight past the video screens, straight past the interactive tech displays and go right to the bookshelf to find out more about "1066 And All That".
Biting the hand that feeds IT
