I am working with the University of Bradford to think about creativity and it’s got me thinking about risk-taking. If creativity is about doing something new, something fresh, something novel, then inevitably it includes a degree of risk: the risk that the idea won’t solve the problem, the risk that it’s different to expectations, that […]
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RSS feed for this sectionWhat is school for?
I was party to a fascinating discussion with colleagues from the RSA yesterday about the nature of education: asking the basic question – what’s the point of school? Catalysed by the change in UK government, there seems to be a battle between the idea of school being a place for ‘transferring a body of knowledge’ […]
If you go down to the woods today
I have found my feet. Literally. The new flexibility I’m enjoying with my business has allowed me to rediscover the benefits of walking. Especially walking in the countryside – through woods, away from the busy streets. Such apparently frivolous activity has tangible benefits: without wanting to state the absolutely obvious, it is good for you. […]
Knowledge is power to do more…
A few months ago I wrote of the growing belief among young people that Google removes the need to know anything. However, it seems that the pursuit of knowledge seems to be on the rise in two very different quarters. Micheal Gove, the UK Education Secretary, in his recently announced review of the National Curriculum, […]
Page-turning isn’t learning
Electronic page turning is the bane of e-learning. The lazy tendency to translate traditional educational resources into the equivalent of online books undermines both the credibility and effectiveness of web-based learning because it ignores all the interactive potential of the medium. Pressing ‘Next’ to move on a screen is a dumb device to progress. It […]
Where games meet learning
In earlier posts, I’ve looked at the research evidence for and against the learning potential for games and how play in general relates to learning. This post looks at the overlap between games and learning. Although many people become quite aerated about definitions, for the sake of today’s note, I’m simply using ‘games’ to mean […]
New Year’s Revolution
I’m excited about this year. I’m not one for making New Year’s resolutions but this year is something of a revolution because I have something better. A new business. A new opportunity. After years of working as an academic, for the BBC and a couple of great independent media companies, I have started my own […]
A degree of value?
Today the UK parliament votes to triple fees to study for a higher education degree. Given the composition of the House of Commons, the outcome of the vote is largely predictable. The effect on future generations is less clear. When student tuition fees were introduced in 2006, Universities UK (UUK), the representative organisation for the […]
Where play meets learning
Play’ and ‘games’ are dirty words to many traditional educationalists because of their connotations of trivial, wasteful and indulgent activity. It might hark back to our WASP-ish philosophy that only hardship and suffering are good for the soul. Even the seminal play theorist, Johan Huizinga, argued that play is “an activity connected with no […]
Games teach us lots
In my earlier post, I highlighted how little actual evidence there was that games can deliver transferable learning on the own. This post presents some of the recent work that suggest playing computer games can teach us lots, albeit as a complement to other interventions. There are two kinds of learning one can associate with […]