Drilling holes? What’s that got to do with ICT? Possibly quite a bit….
You can always rely on Niel McLean of Becta to come up with a fresh insight, and his talk at the Naace 2009 Conference proved to be no exception. I can’t recall the exact details of the story, but Niel related a conversation which took place at a parents’ open day:
Parent: What’s this machine for?
Design & Technology Teacher: It’s for drilling holes.
Parent: So why would you want to use it?
Teacher: To drill holes.
Parent: Yes, but why teach the kids how to use it?
Teacher: So they can drill holes.
People don’t always express themselves very well, and this is a case in point. What the parent was really asking was: Why would anyone want to drill holes?
The issue is, how far do we fall into the same trap?
Q: Why use SlideShare?
A: To create slides.
Q: Why use Audacity?
A: So we can edit a podcast.
Q: Why use a spreadsheet?
A: So we can do calculations.
We need to make sure that we have a rather better set of answers!
This is #16 in a series of 25 reflections on the Naace 2009 Conference. It was first published on 28th May 2009.