My wife, who works in education policy, just told me that the new education frameworks for England and Wales – the stuff which guides what teachers do in their classrooms – will not be printed in paper form for the first time. They’ll only be available on CD or online.
This is interesting, she said, because even three years ago this would have been impossible – teachers would have refused to countenance it, because they would still perceived themselves as being “offline”. Today, with far more computers in classrooms, not to mention interactive whiteboards and top-end projectors, technology is a day-to-day feature, and the announcement that the new frameworks will be paper-free has so far passed with barely a mention.
Her point, and the reason for this post, is this: “technology is only transforming when people are so used to the technology that they’re unaware of being part of a transformation.” The really significant revolutions happen when everyone’s looking the other way.
