School – Recent education and learning technology

In 1987 the UK Government’s Department of Education and Science introduced the national curriculum into UK primary schools which was rolled out to secondary

society wishes to pass on to its children and young people” (Children‚ Schools and Families Committee, 2009). Therefore, it can be reasonably assumed that all participants in this age range that were educated at secondary school level in the UK, were taught to the standards of the national curriculum. However, as the subsequent examples illustrate, there were varying levels of resources and cultural differences throughout the sample. The following comments by three women describe the differing experiences when introduced to technology at school. Nancy, who at the time of interview worked in ‘the beer industry’, has a large following for her fashion blog on YouTube. She had an untroubled introduction to computers and the internet. Her school had good computer resources and she also considered herself to have a ‘natural aptitude’ for learning technology.

Nancy 18–28: I’ve always used [computers] since school, since I was about 13. […] Back in school they used to put you on a computer in an IT lesson and they would teach you the basics of [Microsoft] Word and everything else like that, and they would teach you stuff like how to make your own website and HTML. […] I’ve always been a bit of a computer geek. I loved things with computers. You know I liked making music and opening up new programs and trying to teach myself [Adobe] Photoshop.

This is contrasted by Sarah, a primary school teaching assistant, who draws cartoons traditionally on paper and then scans and uploads to her website. She felt that the lack of resources during her secondary education hampered her knowledge of computers, along with the cultural attitudes of the environment of where she grew up. Sarah 18–28: Where I’m from [a small rural village in central England] we had just

one computer for the whole of the 6th form. We had to share it between… I don’t know how many there were, but back then where we lived, computers were secondary. You were meant to marry a farmer or go and work in a factory, it wasn’t an important thing at all. So I’ve really struggled with computers but just clawed my way through. YouTube is really good for watching videos on how to do things and that’s the saving grace for me really. And I just learn bits

and I’m still terrible really (laughs) at scanning and everything comes out blurred and I enter the wrong size. You just have to keep going. Mandy confesses that she was disinterested in learning about computers and technology at school. Her attitude changed when she started creating her own blog and promoting her comedy collective on the web.

Mandy 18–28: I was never very technologically advanced [at school]. I wasn’t really interested in new things for a long time. It would have been around the year 2000. […] I changed completely. I used to just either have no interest in it or think that it wasn’t very important and then suddenly I’ve just realised in that last few years what it can do for you and advertising you. Before that it took quite a few years [to catch up]. I am quite slow with things I think because I was probably being a bit stubborn but then once I thought “Oh, that’s quite interesting” it all completely changed and I became interested in all of it.

These three examples serve to demonstrate that there are many different reasons as to the level, ease and enthusiasm for embracing computers and digital technology. Along with the varying quality of facilities and localised priorities of their schools, one of the reasons for these different reactions to learning new technology may also be cultural. Mandy expresses a view that challenges much academic discussion attributed to this age range’s enthusiasm towards digital technologies, this being her early apathy and the perceived inconsequence of digital media and the internet in her life. It is clear from Sarah’s educational experiences that self-discovery of online learning materials like YouTube helped fill the knowledge gaps that she forewent during a traditional secondary school education.

Along with introduction to computers and software a large portion of the participants were also introduced to the internet and the web at school. Two male participants spoke about the transformative effect the internet had on researching homework projects. They both experienced a moment when the transfer of research began to shift from the physical libraries (or CD-ROM encyclopaedias) of the school to the multitude of resources available on the web. Ross, who now co-edits an architectural blog, believes his introduction to the web ‘expanded’ his mind.

Ross 18–28: I was [introduced to the internet at] secondary school. We (our family) didn’t have the internet at home to begin with. It is something that I used exclusively within school. I think that must have been when I was about 15 years old when it suddenly became an extension to using encyclopaedias in the library. Suddenly there was this great resource occurring on a computer that you could go to and begin to look at the first few websites. […] It coincided with the start of GCSEs and basically the need to find more information that the library didn’t contain at school. It was interesting because it was the start of a whole new world opening up. One of the first websites that came to my attention […] was artencyclopedia.com. It meant that you could start to look up more artists than we had access to in the books and that the art teacher had. […] And I really started to expand my mind. […] I’ve always been curious to find out about more things than one source can give you.

Carl, a primary school teacher who started making YouTube videos relating to his teaching specialism, phonics, as a hobby, had a similar experience.

Carl 18–28: Back in about 1995 [the internet] first had a presence at school. […] Around the late 90s I’d been really keen on using the internet to find information primarily and to communicate, because all I’d been used to was a rather bog-standard PC with a really poor modem quality and also finding information through Encarta encyclopaedia was quite limiting especially when you’re completing your homework at school.

Indeed, this age range of participants is aware of a time before the internet but, as many were pre-teen when its introduction occurred, found it a natural medium to adopt. Damian, a digital photography student, found this to be the case.

Damian 18–28: [The web has] not always been there. I can remember when we got our own family computer when I was maybe 12. It’s always been there since then [and] I just fell into the habit.

Above are three primary examples of participants in this age range experiencing the transfer from analogue and traditional learning practices to the internet and digital technologies. These were practices that relied on the learning of software and the need to develop technical skills.

5.4.3 Software and technical skills

Other than school, very few of the participants had any formal training in software or digital technology. Some of the university students were given basic software introductions, but generally the most common process of learning and problem solving by participants in this age range was through the web or digital media. Darren created both digital and non-digital art and had been learning software since an early age, and was comfortably aware that learning software is an on-going process.

Darren 18–28: I’ve found [learning software] easy. I’ve always been quite good with computers so I’m always up for learning new software. I find that once you know the core basics of how things work it’s all the same names rearranged in the software. So it’s quite easy to get my head round. [I’ll keep developing my skills] because everything is adapting, everything’s changing. You need to be on top of it.

Indeed, Damian considered learning to use online media being less about learning and more a natural procedure that he found ‘just happened’.

Damian 18–28: The online side of things [I found] very easy. I didn’t really think of it as a learning process. It’s just something that has developed I guess. And then with the linking from Tumblr to Twitter to Facebook that was almost an accidental process. There wasn’t much effort at all put into physically attempting to learn these things, they just happened.

Although Andy was given some basic software instruction at school and later at university he too found that the process of sharing was a much more of a natural process.

Andy 18–28: In terms of creating a photograph, I did photography as part of my GCSEs and that is where I learnt how to create photographs […] I

upload button and then you upload it up (laughs). Nobody’s ever taught me how to do that and I don’t think you need to be taught really.

Many of these practices are heuristic and experience based methods of problem solving, such as trial and error.