GGGG Ep 4 – Navigating Technology in Education

Mark Taylor 00:00:40

Hello and welcome back to Education on Fire and the Ger Graus Gets Gritty series with Professor Dr. Ger Graus OBE. Now, each of the seven episodes are based on a chapter from his book Through a Different Lens, Lessons from a Life in Education, which is published by Routledge. Now details of how to get your copy are in the description and we would love for you to get involved in this using the hashtag #educationonfire in your social media posts. Now, you can send your thoughts, comments and messages via my website educationonfire.com or join me for a live show every Wednesday at 5pm UK on YouTube. At the end of the series, Ger will be joining me for a live discussion with Q and A. And you can be part of that show by just signing up to the newsletter on the educationonfire.com homepage. Keep inspiring and thank you so much for being part of these incredibly important conversations. Hello, my name is Mark Taylor and welcome to the Education on Fire podcast, The place for creative and inspiring learning from around the world. Listen to teachers, parents and mentors show how they are supporting children to live their best, authentic life and are proving to be a guiding light to us all. So, Gare, thank you very much. This is episode four. We're going to be talking about technology, which is interesting to have it as a topic on its own, because I think we both agree that it's integral to every part of our life now and certainly every student, every pupil, every young person. It's something that they've just grown up with. So, yeah, take us into, into the world of technology as you see it and why it became a chapter of the book.

Prof Dr Ger Graus OBE 00:02:14

Technology Bloody hell would be, I think, is the title of the paragraph kind of referencing Alex Ferguson as was then Sir Alex Ferguson as he is now after the 21 win against Bayern Munich in the Champions League in 1999. In the last two minutes, I feel the same about technology. Technology. Bloody alley. His was of course about football. The technology chapter, Mark, was one that I wasn't going to write because I thought it permeates everything. So I'll just do bits and pieces in each of the chapters and it kind of didn't work like that because it's, it had become such a big part of, of a negative discussion really about mobile phones in schools and technology this and technology that and AI was, was going to do all sorts of damage. So I, I talked to the publisher and we decided to have, have it as a, as a chapter on its own, albeit probably less about technology and much more about human behavior and, and the will or the lack thereof to, to make a difference. There is, there is no shadow of a doubt that over the years technology has always been important and is increasingly important. I mean, I reference technology in my terms. When I went to primary school all those years ago, I learned to write with a fountain pen as a piece of technology. And fountain pens were great except if you were left handed because the little inkwell was on the right hand side and you were forever dragging your sleeves through whatever you just, just written. And then the, the fountain pen was replaced by the ballpoint pen and there was an outcry, there was an absolute outcry because young people would not know how to write nicely and neatly anymore. It would become too fast and sloppy and it would, you know, it was dumbing down and dropping of standards and all those kind of things and, and actually looking back the critics at a fair point, certainly when it came to my handwriting it was not as neat with, about, with a bit of ballpoint pen as it had been with a fountain pen, but it was quicker. So I suppose there was a pro and a con in my, in my older age. I've gone back to fountain pens now because I actually, I need more time to think what I'm going to write. And the fountain pen somehow allows me to do that. And it wasn't ever so long after when, when calculators were introduced into schools and the reaction was very similar. The reaction was oh my God, and this is terrible. And when they go to shops they won't know what, what to change, what change to expect back when they've purchased something. And this is about dumbing down and dropping of standards. And the argument became the same and, and, and then of course now we're in the AI phase and it's all terrible and it's all dumbing down and it's going to lose its lots of jobs and all those things. And, and it struck me that a couple of things, one is the concern, however badly expressed, is always legitimate. People, people have a legitimate right and reason to worry. It's in our job description as human beings. I think, I think that we go over the top is not necessarily, not necessarily a good thing. And the fact that we never ever seem to look at the positives of things that the positive of the calculator on the positive of the ballpoint pen and certainly the positive positive of the Internet and of, of AI and that actually both the positives and the negatives have got little to do with the technology but a great deal to do with the humans behind that technology. And we need, we always need to be mindful of that. And, and, and, and that's about it, really, about the technology side of it, in a nutshell. I mean, our reactions then have become very interesting and how we have not yet succeeded in addressing the equity agenda around technology, for example, both inside countries and globally, how we have not yet managed to make the greatest invention ever, which is the Internet, with the greatest democratizing potential. It's an area we failed dismally. So the fact that the gaps that are being created or the gaps that exist, I should say, are becoming greater rather than smaller. So all of those things means that there's nothing wrong with the technology, but we are not ever so well equipped on a grand macro scale and on a micro scale to deal with it. The fact that we are actually talking about banning mobile phones from schools is unbelievable. It is literally turning around to your children and to mine and saying, now, for, for whatever, six, seven, eight hours a day, we're going to pretend that they don't exist, whatever. Next, we're going to get them to walk to school because cars are dangerous too. And, and I'm not saying before people start screaming, I'm not saying that they should have mobile phones in the classrooms all the time. What I'm saying is we haven't even had the discussion yet and we certainly don't publicly seem to have had to be the young people. All the news report I see there's somebody coming in from somewhere who's either a retired head teacher or is an, or is an Ofsted person, an inspectorate or whatever, telling us how bad it is. I've never seen a young person coming on saying, actually, I now have a WhatsApp group with my friends in Spain and in Italy, whereas not too long ago I would have been writing letters which take ages to get there and ages to get back. I mean, they're simple things, but we've never had that discussion and certainly haven't had it with the young people yet, from experience. I know, give me a group of 20 youngsters and I will write you, or rather they will write you a code of conduct that is better than that, that can be written by adults and they're probably also better at policing it. We just need to give this thing a chance. So when we cry and shout about technology, we're actually not crying and shouting about technology, we're crying and shouting about ourselves, to ourselves.

Mark Taylor 00:09:13

I think in the last episode, when you mentioned about your mobile phone, how it's not doing any harm, just sat there on the desk is, you know, it's a piece of technology, enables you to do amazing things. It's not actually doing anything. It's the user, it's the way we police it, it's the way we have conversations about it where these sort of issues arise or perceived issues arise. And, and I think from a really sort of global perspective in terms of history, it's a little bit like saying we can't use that. So let's forget about the Internet and computers. So everything you learn, you have to go to the library and you can't use the school library, you have to go to another library because, you know, you might find something on the Internet that we don't like. And the same thing with AI it's like you now need to start with a blank piece of paper and, and do all of that just from your immediate imagination. Now the one thing I've learned from AI is the fact that I can create a piece of work quickly and much more eloquently and to the point. Using AI as a starting point, not as the finishing point, not as in its entirety to create something which is much more helpful for other people than I ever could on my own. And that isn't to say we should or shouldn't use it is to say that it is a tool which everyone has the ability to use now. And not having it as a part of what we're going to be having is a learning experience as a useful experience is, is, is ridiculous. And, and the equity thing I also find interesting is the fact that if every school had a mobile device or a computer or a pad or a tablet for every child, then, okay, let's not have phones in schools. However, the ridiculous thing is, is that what we can't do is give children the technology they need because we can't fund all of that yet a large proportion, and absolutely not everybody, but there's a large proportion of people who will have that device in their pocket or in their bag which could be useful in the right way to enable learning to look different than like say, just banning it and assuming that they're not there.

Prof Dr Ger Graus OBE 00:11:16

Totally agree. And I think the other thing is we have to remember that if, if we educate in a child focused way, we also have to respect and recognize that the phone is the medium by which children and young people communicate. Now, again, I want to be absolutely clear. We also talked about, well, being in the, in the, in the previous episode and, and of course there are connections between social media and children's lack of well being, unwell being. Of course there are, but again, it's not the phone's fault and neither is it the social media per se, but it is about how we use it and how our young people are using it or are permitted to use it. So we're talking about new behaviors in a new normal and we haven't come up with that. So we're still shouting from the days where we're at the foothills of the use of technology in schools and the hardware and the software have moved on and we're still standing looking up and shouting louder and louder. And I think so there are, there are huge issues around this, but they are not about the technologies and they are about negativity. I want somebody to come on the telly or whatever, in an interview and give an example of how they've used AI in a project. You know, the Internet will allow me, the Internet per se will allow me to take whole classes to parts of the world they could only have dreamt of visiting, to have experiences that they could not have otherwise. Now all of those things I think are magical and wonderful in, are better than outstanding. But we just need to take, in a sense, sit back and think this whole thing through again. I've used this so many times. I would have, if I had my German class now, I would have set up beforehand WhatsApp groups with their friends in Germany and I would do it live during lessons and I would do it on their phones because there are their devices, they know how to use them and it's not an economic thing. Although I recognize that you're right in what you're saying, of course, Mark. But in my case it is what they would do and I would encourage them to stay in touch with their German with our WhatsApp pals beyond the lesson. And of course you can then come to codes of behavior. But we, I think we just need to be slightly less dull and, and hung up about health and safety and safeguarding and all those things. Nobody would want, nobody who was involved in the education and schooling of children would want their children to come to harm. Yeah, and we will do about it what we can, but it's also a little bit like riding a bike. At some point you will fall off and then you will learn next time not to fall off. So it's also the youngsters participation in this, the use of AI in schools and the whole cry about AI is ridiculous. It's a little bit like the calculator thing. If we don't Integrate AI into our learning, into our teaching, and even, if you wish, into our examinations, we will very rapidly widen the gap between what goes on even more between what goes on in schools and what goes on in a place of work. I use AI all the time because at certain things, a bit like the calculator, it is quicker and better than I am. I then use the outcome of the sum or the piece of AI, and I integrate it into the work that I want to complete. I have never, ever gone and say, write my book for me, but I have gone and said, if I put all of this in, can you make this more eloquent? Can you get this to flow better? Can you make sense of it, whatever? Or indeed, sometimes you go and say, I need to know what's on in my region during the school holidays. Can you find it all for me? And it needs to be free. Bang. Two minutes later, it's done. It would take me weeks to do that, literally, so. So I think we just need to realize also that the use of AI if our schooling, at least in a significant part, is about our children's futures and what roles they may play and jobs they may have in the future, then being equipped with a good dose of AI will stand them in very good stead. When that time comes, we have to recognize that a little bit like the calculator, a little bit like the ballpoint pen.

Mark Taylor 00:16:12

Many thanks to Richard Taylor. He's a retired head of English and a former colleague of Gehr's from here in the uk. Where did you first meet G. And what are those sort of early memories, right?

Richard Taylor 00:16:23

Yeah, must have been about 1983. I'd been teaching for 10 years. I was head of English at a school in the suburb of Norwich. And the head said, oh, I made a very interesting appointment. I've got a Dutch bloke coming to teach German. And obviously, you know, he had that kind of cachet right from the start. And what. What struck me, yeah, he had this extraordinary blend of an accent of. Of. Of Dutch and a sort of stage, Lancashire. I think it's because he used to watch a lot of Coronation Street. Funny man, liked to joke in those days, we didn't really go into each other's classrooms a lot. But I soon took notice of the fact that in his first year, he'd started a German exchange. We already had a French exchange, he'd started a German exchange. And I suppose that really was the start of his connect, extend and challenge mantra there. I mean, because every year more children went. They were asked to do more demanding things as part of the exchange. So obviously somebody, you know, that I first took notice of because of that. But then through things like Band Aid, the school really got on board with Band Aid. And I suppose most people would remember Gere for the, the. The efforts, the galvanizing effect he had. He's very passionate, but also very organized and had a serious level of schutzpah because, you know, he would ring up the Band Aid headquarters and talk to anybody there, including Bob Geldoff. He'd walk into shops and say, can you give us some free merchandise to auction to raffle because we're raising money at the school. UEA entertainment secretary got bombarded. Have any of your acts that are appearing at uea, you know, got any record, signed records? They could give us all kinds of stuff like that. And as a result, by the time we did our A Run for life in 1986, the school had raised more than any other school in the uk. So when Gail left, you know, usual sort of thing, last day of term, you know, a few speeches to people who are leaving, I've said, I said, well, I reckon you pretty unstoppable. You've got that blend of passion and organization and determination, and it's always nice to be proved right. But if anything, I'd rather undersold him because I can't think of anybody else who's had a succession of interesting, demanding a range of roles in education. If you wrote that as a cv, people would say, you're taking the mickey. Nobody does all that in that order over that, you know, that period of time.

Mark Taylor 00:19:50

The other thing that you mentioned in the last episode was this whole sense of fun. And I think that's where technology really comes in. If I'm wanting to create a project giving children license to kind of use their imagination. The idea of technology and AI and all the tools that are out there now make it incredibly exciting because, you know, you can create things in your imagination which can be become a reality in a way that you could never do before, whether that's creating video, whether it's creating artwork. You know, this whole podcast is happening because the technology is available for us to be in different locations and have this conversation. We might be able to do it in some way, but it would definitely have a different way of being. And then certainly the people that we've been able to have conversations with through your book, that we've obviously been able to put into these episodes as well. And so those positives, I think, are really important And I think, like you said, also hearing from children who've said why this was so brilliant, why this was so supportive, makes a really important lens different, literally than what we're hearing so much in the media.

Prof Dr Ger Graus OBE 00:21:03

I think there's a, I think it's totally true. I think there's another thing that we need to focus on and that's teachers and all the teaching professions. So the more technology. There's an interesting thing, isn't it? The question, will AI replace teachers? I actually think AI, if we want to do it well, will create more jobs in the teaching professions because the level, the frequency and the quality of continuous professional development needs to be unbelievably high and will cost a great deal. I'll give you an example out of, out of the dark ages. When I was education director in Whittenshaw in South Manchester. It was at the time when electronic whiteboards were being launched. And I remember a representation from lots of teachers coming to see me saying, we all need electronic whiteboards in our classrooms. And I wasn't disagreeing with it at all. My question was, however, what you're going to do with them? And the answers were fuddled and muddled because why would you know? I, I didn't know either, but it was a genuine question. So, so my answer very politely was, well, you can't have them yet because I'm not clear and neither are you what we're going to do with them. But let me think it through and I'll talk to some people and I promise you we'll do something about it. But what we need is I can't put whiteboards, electronic whiteboards in every classroom across 29 schools, only then to find a year later that only 3% of you are using them and they're not there to be used just to replace the blackboard. Right. So we need more. So one of the things we did, we developed this concept of quality development teachers, I think we had eight of them in the end, top notch teachers, mainly from a primary background, who taught alongside other teachers in the classroom to make the teaching and learning better. So it was an ongoing professional development focusing particularly on years 4, 5 and 6 and 7 and 8, so that we would kind of embrace that, that, that transition period. So I went to our, to our colleagues and said, how do we do this? And they also had, at the time that launched portable electronic whiteboards, although in those days, Mark, they were heavy enough to give you a decent hernia by the end of the day, if you weren't very careful but we had, we had portable electronic whiteboards. So we bought one for each of our quality development teachers and we got them trained to the highest possible level and then they carried them with them into the classroom and started using them alongside the teachers in the classroom. One year later, we put an electronic whiteboard into every school's classroom, into every classroom, in every school site. And what we found was that the use was nearly 100% because we'd actually done it the right way around. And the AI developments, which are much faster than that, kind of remind me a little bit of that, that we can't just buy all the kits and say to our teachers, get on with it. Right, There will be a cost if you wish. I don't necessarily, of course, a financial cost, but a cost in terms of teacher time and development and continuous professional development, because you would want the teachers to be confident teachers using that technology. Now, there's another side of things that I always look at, which is older students in schools, so the 15, 16, 17 and 18 year olds who are technologically often better than the grownups, they might not be aware on health and safety and safeguarding issues, which is why you would need the teachers next to them, but you might actually get some of the students to lead on some of the teaching and learning in the lower years. You'd have to pay them, by the way. Right, this is not the volunteering for the Duke of Edinburgh Award or whatever nonsense we can invite so that we don't have to pay them that it doesn't cost us anything. So I would expect them to be paid at least the living wage plus, but they become a resource. And incidentally, if you do employ 16, 17 and 18 year olds as CO teachers, imagine what that does for their skills and their competences and their capabilities. So you could create this win, win, but you need to be courageous to do it. But the point is, again, we've been talking about this for quite a while now and actually we haven't mentioned a RAM or a bite yet. We're talking about how humans can be deployed to make the technology work to its best. And there are some brilliant examples. I mean, I keep going back to the COVID time, how schools, unreservedly, how schools reacted to that using technology was miraculous. It was wonderful. It was under the huge stresses, it was brilliant. It was magical. Such a shame that we let all of that go and we tried so hard to go back to 2019 so fast, but it did show that we can do it. Now the time pressures are not on Us like they were then. I think we could do this better with the introduction of technology. And there are other ways of. If I look at what the Kalinga Institutes in India do. The Kalinga Institutes are a group of universities, higher education institutions that consists of social sciences and technology sciences. The social sciences side of things are occupied by 80,000 of the poorest students in India and their education is funded through the technology side of things, where people, very wealthy people, pay very high fees to go to those institutes. So they've got a kind of Robin Hood model, but they're both equally, very strongly based on the use of technology, but very heavy focus on the training of staff. So we must almost. We need a big professional brainstorm. And I don't mean the DFE or Ofsted or other inspectorates worldwide. I mean the teaching professions must take a lead in this and must have an ongoing societal brainstorm as to how we can use that technology with all its brilliance, in a magical way and in a safe way. That's the big debate. And not shutting down technology for six or more hours a day because we're scared of youngsters bringing mobile phones into classrooms. There are ways of doing this, but we can only achieve that if we're inclusive of the young people and their parents in the decision making and not exclusive by making the decisions for them without them being part of the discussion.

Mark Taylor 00:28:38

And I think certainly that was a big thing that we've talked about already in previous episodes, that idea of it being a whole community and everyone having a voice and being included in these things. And I think I certainly remember from our conversations in our household was the fact that the sorts of things which were important from a safeguarding point of view, when we were speaking to our children about it, they were fully aware of it, but also they knew what they wanted from the technology and that was the social interaction with their friends in a safe environment. They knew what was. The dangers were. Didn't want to get anything related to that. That's not. You know, they were. They like to say they were policing themselves to have the positiveness of those things rather than being overly worried about the negative. Which isn't to say that we didn't all learn something about some of the good things that we could have conversations about or the. The parameters of putting things in place to support them and to make sure that they were safe at various ages. Because, of course, it's a different conversation when they're younger than when they're 18 or whatever sort of age group we're talking about. Here. But I think like you said, having them at the heart of what do you know, what do you use? Why do you do it? You don't have to show me all the things that you said to your friends, but actually we're in this together. And even silly things like the way they write a text, the things that they do, the way they communicate, the, the language that they use is very different than, than what we know. So it seems dull for us to say, you have to look at it like this from an adult's perspective because they're going to turn around and say, well, that's not what we do anyway. You actually don't understand how we're using it and why we're using it and have a grasp of, of what these children who've grown up in this era as opposed to us, that have been sort of developed into it, if you like.

Prof Dr Ger Graus OBE 00:30:22

I agree. And ironically, most of the, I would predict that most of the changes to our language, so in England, for example, or in the UK to the Oxford Dictionary, most of those changes will come from our young people through their use of technology. New words change words, obsolete words, whatever it is, that's where it will come from at a speed that we've probably never experienced before. I totally agree, but I think we have to think about positivity and calculated risk. And I look at, and I call out as an action point to big conference organizers like Bets and Guess in the Middle east and many others. And instead of rather blandly focusing on Rams and Bytes and what technologies can do and focusing on the danger side of things, I actually think that they should have not the big companies, not the Microsofts and the Lenovo's and the Hewlett Packards on the stages. I think they should have the young people on the stages and become a voice for technology through young people and get the big beasts to respond. Because the big beasts, quite frankly, turn up at those events that they sponsor and do very little to bring about change because otherwise we would not see the levels of inequity that we're seeing. And if you remember, during COVID there were governments left, right and center handing out laptops to children who didn't have Internet access at home. Now where were the big beasts then? Where were they collectively not and weren't going to government and saying, we'll take care of that, we will fund it. We don't pay any taxes anyway, so we'll fund that. But you don't see that. So I think they need to be held to account in A very different way. They need to become the delivery agent of the possible and then leave the rest to the young people and the teachers and their parents and they'll sort it. Yeah, but for goodness sakes, let go. Let in that sense, let organizations like the Department for Education stay well away from this. They can sit and observe. So the solutions are not hard to arrive at. But it fills me with sadness when I see big events like BET London, BET Asia, GUESS Dubai and other GUESS Istanbul. And in those massive events, they're doing no more than treading water and they're not affecting change. And I've been on advisory boards and global advisory boards, and what they have at best achieved underachieved is to create the level of awareness they have not achieved change. I can't think of a single child anywhere in the world that is better off because I served on a number of advisory boards with other really good people. I've enjoyed meeting the people. I've met some great friends. Eric Abrams, wonderful people. Eric was the then Chief Equalities Officer at Stanford University and had a thing or two to say about inequity and technology and big beasts, but we weren't really hurt because I'm not sure that that even was the intention of the advisory board. So it's muddled and I think those organizations should and must do better.

Mark Taylor 00:33:56

And I think you're right, because, I mean, I've been to these events and I've interviewed people at these events, and everyone gets very excited about the possibilities of what their particular technology within any given company or organization can do. And like you say, I'm sure that the majority of children, over the course of the number of years I've been going, which is probably, I don't know, six or seven now, would look very different. And what they experience is pretty much exactly the same. And I think the real missed opportunity is the fact that the hardest thing to do is to get everyone to have a conversation, because getting them in the same place at the same time, and what these organizations do have is educators, people within the large technology companies, actually all in one place where things could actually be discussed properly. And like you said, if it was, had an open conversation with children and students there as well, explaining what they needed and how they needed it and how it needs to work and what technology they actually need and how that fitted into their sort of learning and their schooling in a more general sense, you could obviously see a path that would start to work. But like I say, I'm not actually sure that's the agenda. It's there as a way of just being able to say this is what we've got and aren't we doing a wonderful thing in this particular thing? And you can come and buy our product in our, in our opportunity that we're giving to you, but you have to kind of make it work for yourself. And I think the opportunity of doing it on a much more international level with real people that can make a difference and say, no, we'll do this, we'll fund this, we'll create a situation where this is going to help people that doesn't ever seem to go from any given conversation to it looking any different in a classroom.

Prof Dr Ger Graus OBE 00:35:41

And we must also remember we've talked about the teachers and the teaching professions, but we must also remember that the technological competences of children are younger and younger. So this is not the domain of secondary schools. So when we're talking about teacher training, we are, we are, we're beginning to talk from, I don't know, for seven, eight years onwards. And we need to decide what it is that happens when there needs to be a really big debate if we want to utilize this and make it as good as it possibly can be and make it as magical, full of awe and wonder, all those amazing things. And think about the links that can be created between. We talked about in a previous episode, between museums, libraries, galleries, that whole out of school hours learning and the in school teaching at early ages, we really have opportunities to square all sorts of circles. There is one thing that I also wanted to highlight is that every activity that a child, young person performs with technology is, let's call it a hit. Every hit is measurable. Every hit is a choice, is a choice in time, is a decision made, is a decision made either right at the beginning of a process or as part of a longer term learning process. We are becoming so incredibly data rich through the use of technology that we need to work with research institutions at universities now to actually begin to say, well, let's look at better measuring, well being issues. I mean, I don't think we need more tests and test results. I think we're well, well into that. But in terms of getting to know the child and his or her or within his and her context better, we have an absolutely brilliant set of opportunities to come out with groundbreaking research, at least as groundbreaking as the research I conducted with Kidsania all those years ago about children's choices and then finding out who the children are and analyzing what the consequences of that behavior are for professionals, for example, but also for parents, etc. So we need to have that debate because we sometimes forget that we get on with the technology. We either get scared of it or we get excited about it. But it creates such data set which anonymized, can bring us such richness in terms of better understanding the people we're dealing with and therefore becoming so much better in our provision. We don't even talk about that aspect of things and we should be talking to universities and higher education institutions, et cetera, about that yesterday. That debate needs to be led by the higher education institutions, with the higher education institutions, but also directly with schools. I think every school should become a research project and we partner to a university to lead to better findings so that we can arrive at better provision through the use of technology in that way.

Mark Taylor 00:39:13

And the other thing that struck me from that is the fact that even if we talk, the other thing that's come out is this win, win situation that we need to move things forward, which seems to be important. So even if we take the government need data, they need exam results to show what's going on. That sounds so horse and cart compared to what's available now. Because like you're saying, with the data that's available and everything which a child does, they could easily, I'll say easily, I'm sure that's not the case. But with the technology and the brilliant people that are out there, you can almost have like an electronic digital passport of everything that you've done which is related to technology. So that when you leave school at a certain age, you want to know, this is what I'm capable of, this is what I've experienced, this is what I've learned, this is how it can all be there and shown. It doesn't matter whether you got a level five in this particular SAT or whether you got an eight or a nine at gcse, because that's okay. I did this on that particular day based on that experience and the ability to have, you know, all of the data that you've done in a way which of course has to be properly looked at, stored, you know, all the safeguard and all the things that would need to be in place to do it. But it seems like in this day and age, bear in mind companies are doing it already in order to give you an algorithm to sell you to stuff. There must be a way to have an educational version of that that actually supports a child to say, look at all this wonderful stuff, look what I'm learning, look at how I can do it, how I can Then demonstrate this to somebody else so that when you're in a position to work, want to communicate with somebody, whether it's a job, whether it's a project, whether it's just something you're working on with your friends. Look, I can show you all of this because I've got all of this information here and it can be packaged in such a way that it can be really useful for people rather than it working against you totally.

Prof Dr Ger Graus OBE 00:41:03

And it exists, so I'm sure it'll rapidly get better and more sophisticated. But if you look at organizations that I've done a little bit of work with, like My Global Bridge, for example, Ben Mason's Baby. So my, my, my Global Bridge essentially is a very sophisticated form of LinkedIn for children and young people. Now the last time I talked to Ben about this is well over a year ago, so before I became ill. And when I catch up with him soon, I'm going to learn things about developments that have gone so fast. I'm going to need to put a seatbelt on, probably, but, but the thinking is already there. We just need to politically and, and in a societal way with, with of course, future employers begin to look at and say, well, we really need to, we want to look beyond the grade. We need to know. We as employers need to know our future employees better. So what's out there and government is going to need to follow that lead sooner rather than later.

Mark Taylor 00:42:21

And I think is a real life example. My daughter's just gone to university, so for two years doing array levels. You know, we supported her with her schooling, we supported her out of her schooling based on all the pressures that go with it in the, in terms of learning, in terms of lifestyle, in terms of how you put all those things together. And I think one of the most interesting conversations, which is really hard to have while you're going through it compared to now, since she's done it, is the fact that none of it really matters, apart from the grade, to get you into the next thing that you're going to do. And it was a snapshot of the system at the time. This year's version of what the exams were, how you felt on that day, how ridiculous it is to have three A levels on one day. All those sorts of things that you manage to do and the sorts of things we're talking about now would just give you make those two years worthwhile because you've got all the learning in one place that you've got. And I know you take the learning from your A levels into your degree or into your job or whatever you're doing. But it just seems like such a small thing to do. And I think that taking ownership of your own learning for a sense of being able to demonstrate it, but to really understand that every day is important, it's all making a difference and it's all not just a stepping stone to what's coming up next because it's all about the here and now from that point of view. I think there's much more benefit to that than, like I say, just any data points or all that sort of. I just need the next grade.

Prof Dr Ger Graus OBE 00:43:50

So there is. I totally agree, Mark. And there is so much to be excited about in terms of technology, really positively excited in terms of content, in terms of data, in terms of behaviors. Because hopefully at some point from this will emerge a behavior code that just, just as when I walk into schools, children will open doors for you, we will virtually have that kind of courteous, respectful behavior. We're still learning that we're catching up. Right. And again, it's not the technology's fault, it's just that we've been woefully slow and, and we need to become a bit faster and, and we certainly need to be much more courageous. But, but I would urge very strongly to, for the profession to tread cautiously around batting things and actually try to be more inclusive with the young people and with their families to see what answers can be, can be arrived at so that we actually see an improvement using technology rather than pretending that it's A, all bad and B shouldn't exist.

Mark Taylor 00:45:05

And I think the thing that gives me the most hope and is, is the most exciting about how all these conversations that we're having can make a difference is one, we're talking about a child centered idea of what this is and about the community aspect of how we all make this happen and what those conversations look like and how they can be implemented. Because like I say, we weren't talking about how to use this iPhone or how we should use AI or whatever because that will all work and it will change from day to day. But it means that if we're having conversations with people, we're talking about things in the right way. We understand that it's the connection and how we use things as tools, how we're able to pull these things together and work as a community within the family, within the school, further afield and make the most of the opportunities to make it a sort of a global conversation, then it's an exciting thing to do. And I think having that excitement at the heart of what we do with an understanding, understanding of the, the bigger picture, then it just changes the whole feel of what all of this is about from education to technology and the fact that it's all part of the same thing. So I think it really is an exciting opportunity, an exciting time. We just need to make sure that we focus on it being that rather than it all being a negative and oh, look where this could take us.

Prof Dr Ger Graus OBE 00:46:19

Totally. And if I want advice how to use a camera on an iPhone, I'll go and ask a 12 year old old. I, you know, one of the words that's come back into my vocabulary for reflecting on my position in relation to technology is the word luddite. I, I, I'm, I'm a fully signed up one I think Mark on that front and, but, but it is good, it has been a good conversation in terms of we haven't looked at the rams and bites and, and those kind of things. We've actually looked at, at the possibles and, but also at the morals and the ethics of it. And that courage, I think the one word we need across the piece I think we need more often education and schooling, but particularly when it comes to technology. To two words I would say one is courage and the other is trust. There is something else that springs to mind. You know, our next episode, the next chapter is entitled the Role we Play and it's about role models who are very significant degree and, and technology is an area that is so in its use in schools and around schools is so full of role model concepts.

Richard Taylor 00:47:31

Right.

Prof Dr Ger Graus OBE 00:47:32

So, so we need to behave as role models towards our children and young people in terms of kindness, respectfulness around the whole technology agenda. Patience sometimes. Yeah. But we also need to remember, and I think, I fear we sometimes forget that when it comes to the use of technology and the application of technology in everyday life as well as around school and in school, there is a fair bit, fair chance that our youngsters are more of a role model to us than we are a role model to them. And that's such an interesting concept because I think perhaps historically when we look at role models, we've always looked at it or very often looked at it as the younger ones looking up to the older ones, as it were, in a role model thing. Well, when it comes to the appliance of the science of technology, I would strongly argue that that trend is reversed. That we as the oldies need to respectfully look up to our young people and work with them to understand better what on earth we're getting engaged in. So out of all the areas of role modeling, I think the technology one involves both probably more than any of the others. And I think that's happy and good news and a lot for us to learn from and a lot for us to celebrate.

Mark Taylor 00:49:05

To be quite honest, education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.