At the annual BETT Show, in 2014, friends in Norway, Sweden and Denmark assembled a Scandinavian colloquium that is each year fascinating to participate in. #diuBETT was pretty popular - it trended on Twitter this year and hundreds attended.
I have been priviledged to sit in on these events over the years (with pal Oystein Johannessen) - and to offer inputs and reflections. The short version of this experience is that the students' contributions are compelling and we learn so much from them. This year I captured some of the remarks from the 5 institutions' students as they presented and commented on the clear vision of a learning world that was articulated by these thoughtful, reflective, wise full-time learners.
As we have moved from building learning for students, through co-constructing it with them, to finally equipping them as reflective practitioners to lead learning, we should find the remarks below reaffirming. There is also a huge gap between the locking, blocking and controlling that we hear too often, and the ambition, open, tech-agnostic, collaborative perspective of these students.
Anyway, judge for yourselves - they said much more than this of course, but these sample remarks are verbatim and indicative of a wonderful morning of presentations. Everything in white italics was said by the students. :
Katedralskolen Skara , Sweden
it's really hard to be approved as relevant in Wikipedia…. but I'm in there!
we learn to swim with sharks, by swimming with sharks
our classroom is everywhere, in the cloud a lesson is not a matter of meeting in a room anymore, but in a space of time together
Sandvika, Norway
our book - not by teachers about how they teach, but by learners about how we learn.
their book "Connected Learners" is here by the wayit's really motivational to see people from Asia and elsewhere reading your blog
it was exciting to see how excited they were, when they had the chance to use the technology (this was talking about working with students in China)
…and if you want to buy our book.
I loved it…. (this last remark was delivered at the end of a video of vox pops by a student - really, it summarises the views expressed throughout the whole morning)
Søderbergskolen, Denmark
we are the leading school in the use of technology - we have no paper (except when the teachers need to test us!)
we have had a huge debate about to get more democracy in our day…
Google docs - we use it every day and very often
we used a lot of time last night to create our app - if you want to see it, talk to us afterwards
we use.... iAnnotate, iTunes U, Evernote… etc etc
and a final reflection on their tech rich paper free learning:
does it work better? well, teachers don't get mad if we forget books, our bags are not heavy and full of books….
Spyken Lund, Sweden
we had a wide variety of topics we wanted to cover for you - we have chosen three
we used Audacity - it's free, easy to download and to use
we gave the podcasts to other students so that they could, in turn, use it with their learning
about half my class didn't know about the programme - we could only ask our classmates for help
the feedback wasn't just an "A" - it was "if i was a producer, I'd do this…" which was very helpful
the social media Facebook played a VERY important part
without these tools going to school would be a lot less productive but, to be frank, also a lot less fun
Nordahl Grieg Upper Secondary School, Norway (the Wild West!!)
imagine you have an exam tomorrow, what do you do?… at our school, we go to Facebook
of course we don't sit on Facebook all day - we also play video games…. don't worry, we will explain it to you
I was learning something, at the same time as I was having fun
I can only speak for myself - but how would I not benefit from all this?
How indeed?!
this page created by prof stephen heppell
and last updated by him on
Monday, January 27, 2014 2:26 PM