#ukedchat TONIGHT about #purposed
As you’ll already know, #ukedchat is a weekly hour-long Twitter chat on a Thursday night between 8-9pm GMT. This week I’m guest moderating on the following topic:
What’s the purpose of education? Are we heading in the right direction?
Step 1
Watch this:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y7MTHYWDTU&w=640&h=390]
Step 2
Download TweetDeck (also Google Chrome version), use TweetGrid or use Twitterfall (my favourite) to follow the hashtag #ukedchat. More on that here.
Step 3
Join in! Read, respond, debate. It’s fast-paced!
If you like this, then you’ll want to follow @purposeducation, the hashtag #purposed and sign up to the newsletter at http://purposed.org.uk
Update
Here’s my summary with the entire archive of tweets here:
An extremely difficult hour to summarise given the frantic pace of the tweets! There was certainly a feeling that the purpose of education is much more than simply gaining ‘good’ examination results; most weren’t happy with the way education is heading in the UK. Although there was a strong anti-Gove sentiment, the overall tone of the discussion and debate was positive, with a sense that there was enough grassroots feeling to make educators’ voices heard in Whitehall.
‘Confidence’, ‘passion’ and ‘skills’ were perhaps the most used words in 140-character contributions to the question of what constitutes the purpose of education. Tweets mentioning the importance of holistic education, of equipping young people with the ability to learn how to learn, and of raising aspirations were among the most retweeted.
Many contributors mentioned how refreshing it was to discuss the fundamentals rather than ‘the latest web 2.0 tool’. Although some expressed frustration at only have 140 characters to express themselves (along with the speed of the updates) there was an almost-tangible sense of people thinking deeply about their beliefs as educators about the purpose of their profession.
Thanks for pointing this out to me. A great help.
I managed to catch the end and have been reading back through the #ukedchat tag. Thanks for the summary Doug.
“Although some expressed frustration at only have 140 characters to express themselves (along with the speed of the updates) there was an almost-tangible sense of people thinking deeply about their beliefs as educators about the purpose of their profession.” <– agreed!
More reason then for people to join in with #500words, write 500 words about the purpose of education and make your voice heard: http://purposed.org.uk/campaigns/500-words/
[My take on #ukedchat] I thought the discussion demonstrated that there is serious dissatisfaction with the current state of education and that the future (if left in the hands of the present government) does not look good. On the other hand the discussion also showed that their is enough dissent that the present government is going to have a real fight on their hands.
The purpose now must (surely) be to spread the word far and wide and mobilize teachers, students and parents (who normally grumble but do nothing) into taking action. It can't just be the impassioned few; it needs to be everyone who says that they care about education – standing up united. Then we may be able to make a difference and wrench the future of education out of the hands of the government and into the hands of learners and educators.
I couldn’t make yesterday’s #ukedchat, but I can identify with the frustration. I also welcome the focus on fundamentals – I’ve found frustration in the way that key education events (White Paper for example) don’t really get discussed.
Of course, the real key to getting a strong debate going and making fundamental changes is to also mobalise those teachers who are not engaged in blogging / tweeting / the-usual-crowd-going-to-conferences-to-hear-each-other-speak ;-)
Well, indeed, but those already engaged in debate are most likely to be
easiest to ‘mobilise. ;-)