It’s quite extraordinary how far school’s have developed in the way of introducing technology to aid and progress the potential of these kids.
As I recall my primary school experience, there was one computer between three or four classrooms. Now the incorporation of Nintendo DS, state of the art digital cameras and Macs in the curriculum, which you’ll see in the video, are becoming a staple part of primary school life and transforming education completely.
For the better is debatable, but certainly the Shropshire school kids have benefitted enormously and really prepared and given them a head start for secondary school.
So. Is this the end of jotter books and poster paints…?
What is stressed by the headteacher Mr A. Davis, is the word balance. Allowing the children to use traditional media in lower primary and in a sense weaning them away as they approach key stage 2. My own opinion and that of the research I’ve been carrying out is that traditional media and technology should be taught hand in hand and that one should not eliminate the other. It’s impressive to have the facilities to take advantage of technology yet I feel it’s still necessary to incorporate traditional media, e.g. scanning a hand-drawn image and finalising it on the computer.
Environmentally friendly…
Certainly eliminates the necessity to use paper for writing etc which is a huge plus, however it also removes the hands on portfolio that you build up over your school life. Yes it’s available on a CD, yet can you imagine at the age of 19/20 finding your hidden year 5 art projects on a CD? You can’t flick through the pages, you have to take the laborious task of cleaning the disk and then slapping it in an available computer only to find that the disk is scratched…or unreadable for whatever reason.
It’s a tricky concept to grasp being an 80’s baby and all, I can’t imagine that my year 4 Lowry sketches would have the same visual effect computer drawn. This is art, where shading and texture are necessary in a sketch. The same effect cannot be duplicated on a computer, it can be closely emulated using wireframes, shading etc but it’s still a 2D creation. There’s no charcoal smell or pencil scratching sound, the sense you have is purely visual which is the basis for my reasoning that computers cannot replace traditional methods and a balance should exist within primary school education.
Not every school has these facilities…
Which disrupts development across the board. This is perhaps irrelevant to my argument, but needs to be said that all schools should have access to the same facilities for equality’s sake.
Your job…
This is always the case. Our generation have made the older generations really knuckle down and advance from their initial traditional methods to computer based production in order to sustain their career role. This is the age we live in where technology is constantly improving and as a result we have to keep on jogging to stay in the loop.
The primary education curriculum incorporating ICT to such an advanced stage, to me, is quite scary. These kids are utilizing the equipment and producing work to a standard I could quite confidently say wasn’t expected in my year 11; Granted it was at least 5 years ago, yet still a massive leap.
When these children are leaving university, pursuing a career in graphic design, web development, copy-writing, whatever it is that you do…better keep on your toes as they are going to be hot to trot.
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