I spent much of last week in Edinburgh for the JISC Conference, of which maybe more later. JISC has a heavy communications component and strongly encourages ‘amplification‘ of conference activity through blogging, Twitter, video streaming, and so on. This might be one reason that discussions about Twitter are what I most remember of the event, partly because of the occasional questions about level of use from speakers or exhortations to participate.
It polarized somewhat: a familiar complacent cliquishness at one end and a defensive affected incomprehension at the other. I didn’t sense that this was generational, but there did seem to be a managerial gap, with ‘senior’ people often towards the latter pole.
Incidentally, proposals to overhaul the primary (aka elementary) school curriculum were leaked while I was there. Twitter was central to the coverage …..
Children will no longer have to study the Victorians or the second world war under proposals to overhaul the primary school curriculum, the Guardian has learned.
However, the draft plans will require children to master Twitter and Wikipedia and give teachers far more freedom to decide what youngsters should be concentrating on in classes. [Pupils to study Twitter and blogs in primary shake-up | Education | The Guardian]
