Tag: YouTube

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.