I'm attending the first day of the 7th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies in Education in Crete this week. The first day has gone well, with an excellent keynote speech from Professor Rob Koper (Open University of the Netherlands) and a series of short papers and workshops on e-Learning and computer mediated learning. Star billing must go to Dr Gorg Mallia (University of Malta) who gave us a dynamic paper entitled: 'A tolling bell for institutions?' in which he challenged us all to consider the ways in which we are currently teaching students. With the digital generation upon us, are our methods adequate? Are we providing relevant experiences and contexts, given that 'digital natives' speak with a different accent to 'digital immigrants'? This is of course a real (Mal)teaser of a question, and we all had a lot to say about it.
I spoke to Gorg for a long time afterwards and we discovered we have a lot in common. We are the same age, both artistic (he produces a regular satirical cartoon for his national newspaper) and we both have similar ideas about social software and its importance for the future of education. We have a lot more to talk about, so will be keeping in touch...
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