Head in the Cloud

It was with interest that I read these articles over the last couple of days: BBC website: "Tablets Eroding Pupil's Digital Skills" The Register: Kids' Tech Skills Go Backwards Thanks To Tablets And Smartmobes" The Conversation: ICT Is Failing In Schools - Here's Why Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority - ICT Literacy Report Shows A Decline In ICT Literacy National Assessment Program ICT Literacy - Yrs 6 & 10 Report 2014 A report just published by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority found that the ICT literacy performance of students in both Years 6 and Years 10 decreased between 2011 - 2014. Their conclusions certainly caught my eye, and that of the press around the world: "The decline does not appear to be a result of changes in the test content, in the way the test was administered or sample obtained. One of the possible interpretations of the decline in ICT literacy is that the incre...

In my last post I talked about the balance between coding and digital literacy, and how it was refreshing to read a report from the ECDL saying that perhaps there has recently been too much of a focus on coding at the expense of digital skills.  It was with interest therefore that this morning I read this post - ' Coding and Digital Skills' , from Miles Berry. In it, Miles reflects upon the first year since the introduction of the Computing curriculum in England. He talks about the move from ICT to Computing and about computational thinking, but it's his conclusions that I found most interesting, and in my opinion should be read by all those educators in Wales involved in developing the new curriculum and digital competence frameworks. Let's hope that we do learn from England's experience in changing their curriculum, and in restoring a healthy balance between coding and digital skills/competence. Here is Miles' conclusion in full: I don’t want to give the im...