thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.and dominic, can i thank you very much for that kind introduction. i'm delighted to be here at bett today, andi'm delighted to see so many of you, and to see so many old friends and colleagues aswell as new. in particular i was very pleased just a secondago to be able to say hello to my colleague charles clarkewho i think as education secretary probably did more than any other minister to bringtechnology and education together. and it's fantastic that charles is still involvedand at the forefront in making sure that children can benefit from the very best that technologycan bring.
i also want to congratulate not just thosewho've shown political leadership but those business leaders who've been responsible forthe huge number of commercial successes that are exhibited in the hall today. i had the great pleasure briefly earlier ofseeing some of those exhibits and i had the double pleasure of meeting a childhood heroof mine - lewis bronze - who some of you may know used to be an editor of blue peter. that for me was a thrill, but what was aneven greater thrill was seeing the way which his company expresso is using technology inorder to bring the existing curriculum alive to a new generation.
and the same sense of excitement that i feltat about 5 o'clock twice a week when the blue peter theme tune was being played is now therein the classrooms of tens and hundreds and thousands of children thanks to the technologythat he and other companies are using to bring learning alive. and it's a particular source of pride forme as an education minister in the british government to acknowledge and indeed to celebratethat british companies are world leaders in the fields of education and technology. they'regoing from strength to strength - the members of besa have increased their exports by 12per cent in the last year. crick software, which has worked in the usa, chile and qatarand which already supplies 90 per cent of
uk primary schools, recently secured theirbiggest single order ever. they're supplying half the schools in moscow, with clickr 5literacy software, fully translated into russian. there's another british success story, promethean.they make interactive whiteboards and educational software, and they've just signed a memorandumof collaboration with the mexican ministry of education to work in primary and secondaryeducation throughout mexico. these are just a few of the hugely impressivearray of achievements of british companies ã± and there are many more all around us inthis hall. in particular, iãd like to mention all those shortlisted for the bett awardstonight. good luck to all nominees, and congratulations (in advance) to the winnersã–
now these british success stories remind usthat, all around us, technology has changed world in previously unimaginable and impossibleways. most of us carry more advanced technology in the smartphone in our pocket than neilarmstrong and buzz aldrin used to reach the moon. every day we work in environments which arecompletely different to those of 25 or 100 years ago. where once clerks in offices used to scribbleon card indexes and lived by the dewey decimal system,now thousands of office workers can freely roam the world from their desktop.
it used to be the case that car manufacturingplants housed lines of workers hammering and soldering and drilling,now a single technician controls the delicate operations of a series of robots. and even in my own profession, if you cancall it that, of journalism - when i started out in the 1980s, it was a case of typewritersand telexes and smokey newsrooms, surrounded by the distant clatter of hot metal type. now if you walk into any newsroom ã± and observeany journalist ã± they're almost unrecognisable from 20 years ago, and the daily tools ofthe trade. the telex machine became a fax, then a pager, then email and sms. a desktopcomputer has become a ubiquitous laptop. my
pockets used to be filled with huge mobilephones, then over time as the mobile phone shrank it was replaced by the blackberry,and it's an e-reader and ipad, which make every reporter their own mobile newsroom. with each new gadget, with each huge leapforward, technology has expanded into new intellectual and commercial fields. twenty years ago, medicine wasn't really aninformation technology. but now, genomes have been decoded and the technologies of biologicalengineering and synthetic biology are transforming medicine. the boundary between biology andit is already blurring into whole new fields, like bio-informatics.
twenty years ago again, science journals werefull of articles about the ã«ai winterã ã± the fear that the initial post-war hopes forartificial intelligence had stalled. now, detailed computer models show us more thanwe ever imagined about the geography of our minds. and amazing brain-computer-interfacesallow us to control our physical environment by the power of thought ã± truly an exampleof what arthur c. clarke once said that any sufficiently advanced technology can seemlike magic. and twenty years ago again, only a tiny numberof specialists knew what the internet was and what it might shortly become. now, billionsof people and trillions of cheap sensors are connecting to each other, all over the worldã± and more come online every minute of every
day. almost every field of employment now dependson technology. from radio, to tv, computers and the internet,each new technological advance throughout our lifetimes has changed our world and changedus all too. but there is one notable exception. the fundamental model of school educationis still - in many classrooms - a teacher talking to a group of pupils. it has barelychanged over the centuries, even since plato established the earliest ã¬akademiaã® in ashady olive grove in ancient athens. if you took a victorian schoolteacher intoa 21st century classroom, in many schools
in the country, he or she would feel completelyat home. whiteboards may have eliminated chalk dust, chairs may have migrated from rows togroups, but a teacher still stands in front of the class, talking, testing, questioning. but all of us in this room know, that modelwonãt be the same in 20 yearsã time. it may well be extinct in ten. technology is already bringing about a profoundtransformation in education, in ways that we can see before our very eyes and in othersthat we havenãt dreamt of yet. now, as we all know, confident predictionsof the technological future do have a habit of embarrassing the predictor.
as early as 1899, the director of the us patentoffice, charles duell, blithely asserted that ã¬everything that can be invented has alreadybeen invented." in 1943, the chairman of ibm said that "thereis a world market for maybe five computers". the editor of the radio times said in 1936,ã¬television will not matter in your lifetime or mineã®. most impressively of all, my fellow scottlord kelvin, president of the royal society, scored a hat-trick of embarrassing predictionsbetween 1897-9. he said, "radio has no future", "x-rays are clearly a hoax" and "the aeroplaneis scientifically impossible". now i hope i won't join that illustrious companyby stating on record that this technology
or that gadget is about to change the world.nothing has a shorter shelf-life than the cutting edge. but we do all need to be alive to the greatpromise of innovation. and we in britain in particular should never forget that one ofour great, under-appreciated national heroes, alan turing, laid the foundation stones onwhich all modern computing rests. his pioneering work on theoretical computation in the 1930sled the way for turing himself, von neumann and others to create the computer industryas we know it today. and it was another pioneer, bill gates, whowarned us that the need for children to understand computer programmingis much more acute now than when he was growing
up. but as we all know, and as the chairmanof google, eric schmidt, recently lamented, we in england have allowed our education systemrecently to ignore that great heritage and we are paying the price for it. because our school system is not preparingchildren for this new world. millions have left school over the past decade without thebasics they need for a decent job. and in particular, the current curriculum is notpreparing students to work at the very forefront of technological change. last yearãs superb livingstoneã±hope reviewã± for which i would like to thank both authors ã± said that the slump in the ukãs videogames development sector is partly the result
of a lack of suitably-qualified graduates.the review, commissioned by my colleague ed vaizey who has championed the computer sciencecause in the department for culture, media and sport for two years now, found that theuk had been let down by an ict curriculum that neglects the rigorous computer scienceand programming skills which high-tech industries need. itãs clear that technology is going to bringprofound changes to how and what we teach. but itãs also clear that the promise of turinis not being fulfilled in our schools today. we need to acknowledge, however, that governments,if they are to live up to that promise, have to be clearer about where they can add value.and governments are notoriously flat-footed
when it comes to anticipating and facilitatingtechnical change. too often, in the past, administrations have been seduced into spendinghuge sums on hardware which is obsolete before the ink is dry on the contract. and sometimeswe've invested time and money in drawing up new curricula, which painstakingly detailsspecific skills and techniques which become superseded in the real world almost immediately. i believe that we need to take a step back. already, technology is helping us to understandthe process of learning. brain scans and scientific studies arenow showing us how we can understand the structure of language, how each of us as individualsremember and forget, and underlines the benefits
of properly designed and delivered testingand also reveals the importance of working memory. so as science advances, and our understandingof the brain grows, we can learn more about the process of education and how technologycan augment that process of education. so it's important for government not to rushpell-mell after a particular technology, potentially filling school cupboards with todayãs answerto betamaxes and floppy discs. instead, we in government need to ask ourselves a fundamentalquestion. what can technology do for learning? i think there are three points immediately: first, technology has the potential to disseminatesuperb learning much more widely than ever
before. subjects, classes and concepts thatwere previously limited to a privileged few are now potentially freely available to anychild or adult with an internet connection. look at 02 learn, a free online library oflesson videos developed and uploaded by teachers. it has already delivered around 25,000 hoursof teaching via 1000 lessons from every type of school and college, right across the country:science lessons from wand comprehensive school, music lessons from eton. and at the same timewe should all be aware of the huge potential of itunes u, where lectures from the worldãstop universities are available at the touch of a button. michael sondell's award-winninglectures at harvard, previously restricted to a priviledge few, now available to allof us who believe in social justice. it's
also the case that the independent schoolscouncil, teaching leaders and some of the best academy chains are now working to putmaterial and lesson videos online. and they've been inspired as i have by the hugely successfulkhan academy: more than 3.5 million students watch its educational videos every month andgoogle has now donated $2 million for that materials to be translated into 10 other languages. i'm alive to this potential because i've seenit operating at firsthand. i remember in singapore just over a year ago, seeing how brilliantlessons can be delivered through a mix of online and teacher-led instruction. and inareas, and i think we feel this particularly acutely in britain, where there is specialistteacher shortage, specialist teaching could
be provided for groups of schools online,so that gives more children the opportunity to learn subjects that were previously closedto them. that's why, for example, that it's so fantastic that the further maths supportprogramme have used the internet to give poorer families access to specialist help for thetough step papers, which dominate the best universitiesã selection process for mathsdegree courses. technology is allowing us to overcome the current shortage that we havein high-level maths teaching, particularly in poorer areas. so as online materials grow and flourish,we all need to think about how we can guide students through the wealth of informationand techniques which are freely available
online and make sure they access the best. and, of course, online, there aren't justopportunities for pupils to learn, there are opportunities for teachers to become betterat their craft as well. the royal shakespeare company is working with the university ofwarwick on an online professional development learning platform to transform the teachingof shakespeare. launching next month, the ã¬rehearsal roomã® teaching resources willgive teachers all over the world access to the insights and working practices of internationally-renownedactors, artists and directors, as well as specialist academics and teachers. the programmewill even offer the chance to study for a post graduate qualification in the teachingof shakespeare.
and in america, the knowledge is power programme,one of the most successful and widely-studied charter school chains, is already using cheapdigital technology to share lessons from its most proficient teachers to every teacherin that chain. and even the best teachers can hone their skills by watching their peersin action. so, the easy availability of high quality material can augment teaching andlearning. but just as technology raises profound questionsabout how we learn, the second point i want to make is it also prompts us to think abouthow we teach. games and interactive software can help pupilsacquire complicated skills and rigorous knowledge in an engaging and an enjoyable way. adaptivesoftware has the ability to recognise and
respond to different abilities, personalisingteaching for every pupil, whatever their level of ability. with the expert help of a teacher,students can progress at different rates through lessons calibrated to stretch them just theright amount. now i know there are some who will raise theireyebrows at the prospect of games influencing modern education practice. but we should beproud of the contribution that games can make. britain has an incredibly strong games industry,with vast potential to engage with education both in this country and all over the world.and weãve already seen these technologies being used in imaginative ways. games developedby marcus du sautoy, professor of mathematics at oxford, are introducing children to advanced,complicated maths problems ã± often at a much
earlier age than people would have imaginedthose children could grapple with those mathemtical concepts - and those games are producing greatresults. before christmas i visited kingsford schoolin newham, where the department for education is working with the li ka shing foundationand the highly respected stanford research institute. the pilot scheme operating thereuses computer programmes to teach maths interactively ã± for example, showing a race between twopeople on screen and allows pupils to plot their time and distance on a graph, then adjustit for variables. now, this pilot hasnãt been dictated by centralgovernment or any minister, but stanford already says it is one of the most successful educationalprojects they've seen and i am looking forward
in due course to seeing the results of thepilot. so, it's not only the case that technologycan augment teaching and learning, and also introduces us to new pedagogies and new waysof learning which can engage students who may not have been engaged before. technologyalso, and this is my third point, brings unprecedented opportunities for more sensitive assessmentof students' abilities. teachers can now support pupilsã learning by assessing their progressthrough technology in a much more sophisticated way, and that assessment can be shared inreal time with pupils and parents. each pupilãs strengths and weaknesses canbe closely monitored. and one of the advantages of using technology is that pupils who arestruggling can be stigmatised sometimes, and
those who are streaking ahead, can avoid beingembarrassed. teachers can adjust lesson plans to target areas where pupils are weakest,and identify gaps in knowledge quickly and reliably through the medium of technology. sophisticated assessment like this is alreadybeing used in schools now. brailes primary school, for example, a small rural schoolon the border of warwickshire and oxfordshire, uses online tools enabling teachers to usepre-assembled tests, or design their own. one of the teachers, deborah smith, has praisedthe system, saying, ã¬it has enabled me to differentiate my teaching to meet the needsof different groups. the assessments are quick and simple to prepareã– leaving more timefor planning and teaching.ã®
in chichester school for boys, electronicvoting pads provide students with instant feedback during class.teachers get real-time feedback on how well their material is being understood ã± evenon a question by question basis. these are just three ways - augmenting teaching,new styles of learning, better assessment - in which technology is profoundly changingeducation today ã± and i am sure from what's on display in the hall today that there willbe many more. while things are changing so rapidly, whilethe technology is unpredictable and the future is unknowable, government can highlight andencourage these trends, we must resist the temptation to wade in from the centre justbecause there is a new and exciting initiative
to prescribe to schools exactly what theyshould be doing and how they should be doing it. we have to work with the grain of these developmentsas they arise: supporting, facilitating and encouraging change, rather than dictatingor constricting it. by its very nature, new technology is a disruptiveforce. it innovates, it invents, it flattens hierarchies, and it encourages creativityand fresh thinking. i could say the same of our whole school reform programme. in fact,iãm fairly sure i have said the same on many occasions. just as weãve devolved greater autonomy toschools, and put our trust in the professionalism
of teachers; just as weãve sought to liftthe burden of central prescription, and given heads and schools power over their own destiny;just as the internet has made information more democratic, and given every single userthe chance to talk to the world; so technology will bring more autonomy to each of us inthis room, whether we're in business, the business of education or parents. it's a huge opportunity. but itãs also aresponsibility. thatãs why, when it comes to government spendingits money centrally, we don't want to focus too much on hardware or procurement. instead,we want to concentrate on investing in training individuals. we need to improve the trainingof teachers so they have the skills and knowledge
that they need to make the most of the opportunitiesahead. it is vital that teachers can feel confidentusing technological tools and resources for their own and their pupilsã benefit, withinand beyond the classroom. it's vital that they can adapt to new technologies as theyemerge. it's important that they can keep up with children who are digital natives whomthey are now entrusted to teach. so that means we have to ensure that teachers receive thebest possible itt and cpd throughout their time in the classroom in the use of educationaltechnology. so we'll be working with the tda, and itsnew incarnation, the teaching agency, to look at initial teacher training courses carefullyin the coming year so that teachers get the
skills and experience they need to use technologyconfidently. and weãre also working with nesta who, supported by nominet trust andothers, are today announcing a â£2m programme to fund and research innovative technologyprojects in schools. one of the ways we can support teachers isencouraging them to learn from other schools who are already doing this particularly well. we know that some ict teaching in schoolsis already excellent - as reported in the most recent ofsted report on ict education- sharing that excellence will help all schools to drive up standards. we are already workingwith the open university on vital, a programme which encourages teachers to share ict expertisebetween schools. high-performing academy chains
will also play a huge role in spreading theirsuperb practice and innovation between schools. and the new teaching schools we've createdacross the country are already forming networks to help other schools develop and improvetheir use of technology. so the department for education is going to provide dedicatedfunding to these teaching schools to ensure that their expertise aids the process of continuingprofessional development in this vitally important area. but even as we want to spread the existingbest practice, we have to acknowledge that the disruptive, innovative, creative forceof new technology also forces us to think about the curriculum.
to my mind, this one area exemplifies, morethan any other, the perils of the centre seeking to capture in leaden bureaucratic prose therestless spirit of technological innovation. to be blunt, we have a problem with the currentict curriculum. we know that the best degrees in computerscience are among the most rigorous and respected qualifications in the world. theyãre basedon one of the most formidable intellectual fields ã± logic and set theory ã± and theyprepare students for immensely rewarding careers and world-changing innovations. but youãd never know about the promise andchallenge of the best computer courses from the current ict curriculum.
schools, teachers and industry leaders haveall told us that the current curriculum is too off-putting, too demotivating, too dull. submissions to the national curriculum reviewcall for evidence from learned societies and from campaign groups have all called the currentnational curriculum for ict unsatisfactory at best. these organisations are worried that it doesnãtstretch pupils enough or allow enough opportunities for innovation and experimentation ã± theyall say that the curriculum has to change radically. some respondents in a 2009 research studyby e-skills actually said that ict gcse was
ã¬so harmful, boring and/or irrelevant itshould simply be scrappedã®. the royal society is so concerned that it has spent two yearsresearching the problem with universities, employers, teachers and professional bodies.it's due to publish a report this friday which i'm looking forward to reading. and becauseict has been so unpopular, there are now grave doubts about existing computer science couresefor 16- to 18-year-olds. just at a time when technology is burstingwith potential, teachers, professionals, employers, universities, parents and pupils are all tellingus the same thing. the ict curriculum in schools is a mess. thatãs why i am announcing today that thedepartment for education is opening a consultation
on withdrawing the existing national curriculumprogramme of study for ict from september of this year. now, the traditional approach would have beento keep the programme of study in place for the next four years while we assembled a panelof handpickedexperts, wrote a new ict curriculum, spent a fortune on new teacher training, justfor that curriculum and engaged with exam boards for new ict gcses only to find thatall that work would become obsolete almost immediately. we won't be doing that. technology in schools will no longer be micromanagedby whitehall. by withdrawing the programme
of study which is centrally prescribed andimposed, weãre now giving schools and teachers freedom over what and how to teach; we hopeit will revolutionise ict as we know it. now it's important for me to stress that thestudy of ict will remain compulsory at all key stages, and will still be taught at everystage of the curriculum. and for those who want it, the existing programme of study willremain on the web for reference. but no english school will be forced to followit any more. from this september, all schools will be free to usethe amazing resources that already exist and are now being generated on the web. universities, businesses and others will havethe opportunity to devise new courses and
new, more rigorous and attractive exams. andin particular, we want to see universities and businesses create new high quality computerscience gcses, and develop curricula which encourage schools to make use of the brilliantcomputer science content which is already available online. i am pleased that ocr is pioneering work inthis field, and i'm delighted that ibm and others are already working on a pilot. facebookhas teamed up with uk-based organisation apps for good to offer young people the chanceto learn how to design, code and build social applications for use on social networks, viaa unique new training course which they aim to make freely available online this yearto potential users all over the world.
and there are other specialist groups havepublished or are about to publish detailed ict curricula and programmes of study, includingcomputing at school (led by the british computer society and the institute of it), behind thescreens (led by eskills uk), and others - all of these programmes have enjoyed considerablesupport from industry leaders. imagine the dramatic change which could bepossible in just a few years, once we remove the roadblock of the existing ict curriculum.instead of children bored out of their minds being taught how to use word and excel byteachers who are even more bored, we could have 11-year-olds able to write simple 2dcomputer animations using an mit tool called scratch. by 16, they could have an understandingof formal logic previously covered only in
university courses and be writing their ownapps for their smartphones. this is not an airy promise from an mp ã±this is the prediction of experts like ian livingstone who have already built world-classcompanies from computer science. the new computer science courses will reflectwhat you all know: that the subject is rigorous, fascinating and intellectually challenging. after all, the founder of facebook, mark zuckerberg,is one of the most innovative and successful proponents of computer science today. buthis computer science expertise is just one arrow in his intellectual quiver ã± he isalso an expert in maths, science, french, hebrew, latin and ancient greek.
and it's important that we see computer sciencetaking its place alongside those subjects as a universally respected and rigorous academicdiscipline. computer science requires a thorough grounding in logic and set theory, and it'smerging already with other scientific fields into new hybrid research subjects at the cuttingedge of science like computational biology. so that's why i'm saying today that if a newcomputer science gcse can be developed that meets the high standards of intellectual depthand practical value that we know the subject can reach, we will certainly consider includingcomputer science as an option in our english baccalaureate of academically rigorous subjects. although individual technologies can changeday by day, they are underpinned by foundational
concepts and principles that have enduredfor decades. long after todayãs pupils leave school and enter the workplace ã± long afterthe technologies they used at school are obsolete ã± the principles if they're sufficientlyrigorously embedded in the curriculum they will have learnt in computer science willstill hold true. now of course advances in technology shouldalso make us think not just about the ict curriculum but about the broader school curriculumin a new way. in an open-source world, why should we acceptthat the curriculum will always be one single, static document? a statement of prioritiesfrozen in time; a blunt instrument which lands with a thump on teachersã desks and updatedonly centrally and only infrequently?
because we know that in ict, for example,schools are already leading the way when it comes to using educational technology in newand exciting ways ã± and they do it in spite of what the curriculum prescribes, not becauseof it. the broader requirements of the national curriculum,while they do need to be specified in law, they can be used creatively to help us developthe content of what is actually taught. so beyond a new, slimmed down national curriculumconcentrating on the essentials, we need to consider how we can take a wiki, collaborativeapproach to developing new curriculum materials across the board; using technological platformsto their full advantage in creating something richer and more sophisticated than anythingthat's previously been available to schools.
my proposal to disapply the ict programmeof study is about embracing the potential of that freedom. it will mean that, for thefirst time, teachers will be allowed to cover truly innovative, specialist and challengingtopics. and whether they choose someone else's curriculum,or whether they design their own programme of study specifically for their school, theywill have the freedom and flexibility to decide what is best for their own pupils with theirown abilities and their own background. teachers will now be allowed to focus moresharply on the subjects that they think matter ã± for example, teaching exactly how computerswork, they could study the basics of programming and coding and they can ensure that pupilshave a go themselves.
initiatives like the raspberry pi scheme whichthe guardian highlighted yesterday will give children the opportunity to learn the fundamentalsof programming with their own credit card sized, single-board computers. with minimalmemory and no disk drives, the raspberry pi computer can operate basic programming languages,handle tasks like spread sheets, word-processing and games, and connect to wifi via a dongleã± and it costs between â£16 and â£22. this is a great example of the leading edge ofeducation technology happening right here in the uk. it could bring the same excitementto computing as the bbc micro did in the 1980s, and i know that itãs already being carefullywatched by education and technology experts all over the world.
so now as well as choosing what to study,schools can also choose how. technology can be integrated and embeddedacross the whole curriculum. in geography, for example, pupils could access the specialisedsoftware and tools used by professional geographers, allowing them to tackle more challenging andinteresting work. molecular modelling software could bring huge advantages for science students. and the abbey school in reading has alreadybeen piloting 3d technologies for teaching biology, showing 3d images of the heart pumpingblood through valves, and then allowing students to manipule, rotate and tilt the heart inreal time. as the abbey school biology teacher ros johnson said, the 3d technology ã¬hasmade me realise what the students werenãt
understanding...what i canãt believe is howmuch difference it has made to the girlsã understandingã®. ultimately, the use of technology in schoolsis a subject that will keep growing and changing, just as technology keeps growing and changing. but we can be confident about one thing. thedemand in our economy and the world economy for high-level skills will only grow in theyears ahead. in work, academia and their personal lives, young people will increasingly dependupon a higher level of technological literacy and a greater depth of scientific knowledge. and it won't just affect our country. everynation in the world will be changed more than
we can imagine by the growth of technologyand we in britain must ensure that we can make the most of our heritage and our existingassets to become, to remain and to lead the world as leaders in education technology. today has seen the conclusion of the educationworld forum here in london. one of the things i want to emphasise is how excited i am thatthe collaboration that the bett conference embodies and that the education world forumincarnates, because i cannot emphasise enough how important it is for me to ensure thatall of us learn from each other and that in particular we all seek to emulate what ishappening in the highest performing education systems. i am delighted that so many of themare here today ã± and it's my intention to
ensure that we in this country can learn fromthem. and one of the areas i believe we can learnfrom them is the culture of aspiration which is embedded in the highest-acheiving educationnations. and that culture of aspiration is about setting directions.today iãve set out our direction of travel in technology, and taked a few steps on thepath to ensuring that our children learn more from the innovation for which you are responsible.but there is more to come, and we will have more to say over the course of this year. and we need your help to ensure that as wetake further steps down that road we continue to travel in the right direction. which iswhy i'd like to welcome the online discussion
launched today at schoolstech.org becausewe need a serious, collaborative conversation about how we can use technology better totransform education ã± and i look forward to finding out what everyone has to say. events like this are crucial in showcasingthe best of what technology can bring, showing what can be done, reminding us what is alreadybeing achieved. we will depend upon your insight and your ideas, your expertise and experience,as you take these technologies into schools and try them with your students. so thank you again for everything you've done,everything you will do, for inviting me to bett today, and i wish you all good exploringtoday.