והלוואי גם אצלנו – ובקרוב!

Lord Puttnam is chair of education innovation charity Futurelab

Whenever I go into class, I have to power down.

At school, you do all this boring stuff, really basic stuff, PowerPoint and spreadsheets and things. It only gets interesting and exciting when you come home and really use your computer. You’re free, you’re in control, it’s your own world.

Most kids probably cannot tell you whether they are actually learning anything from that freedom and control, from the hours spent playing computer games, joining in chat forums and (for the more adventurous) setting up websites. But isn’t that where the education system should take over and work out what the golden nuggets of learning might be?

Let us start a serious public debate about how and whether we can bridge this gap between children’s experiences inside and outside school. How much are they really learning through their passion for computer-based entertainment? How do we maximise the educational benefits of that passion, without, of course, killing it stone dead? Or – and there will be some who continue to believe this – should education and entertainment remain on entirely separate tracks?