By Alistair Owens www.keen2learn.co.uk

The United Nations gathers in December in Copenhagen. The hot topic, if you pardon the pun, is global warming. Nobel prize-winning scientists have spoken – we must agree to halve greenhouse gases by 2050 to stop temperatures rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius. In the forty years left on the clock it will be our children who must achieve this objective. The educational curriculum in renewable energy must include greater focus to this purpose.

All schooling could be a complete waste of time if we fail to correct the doomsday clock. It’s like having an Olympic stadium finished six months late after the start of the games, if you miss the opening ceremony the whole venture becomes pointless. Starting right now, if we fail to educate children in a concerted programme in renewable energy, then the very saviours of the planet will be ill prepared for the adulthood challenge we have carelessly set them.

An elite gathering of 20 Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry, economics and literature signed a memorandum yesterday urging the control of climate warming which otherwise will create “unmanageable climate risks”. I believe them, some don’t.

The alternative opinion is Earth has an uncontrollable urge to self harm. Earthquakes, volcanoes, solar activity all spew gases into the atmosphere that make man’s activity seem puny. So what’s the point? It is, the possibility this opinion is proven wrong. We will have lost the initiative and our “opening ceremony” in 2050 will certainly involve fireworks but not of conventional design.

The latest thinking in education is the opportunity to integrate learning across subject areas. Renewable energy involves maths, science, geography and literacy. What better practical way to merge subjects to give focus with a practical outcome. How often do we hear children and teachers complain of boring lessons in the classroom that have no practical value? What better way to focus the mind with teaching resources and educational games that can ultimately really save the world.

By Alistair Owens www.keen2learn.co.uk

Food labels are now awash with details of the ingredients, what’s good and bad, high in this, low in that and percentages of daily allowances. Could this extend to video games to show the percentage of educational content contained in the games.

The skills of the games developer have grown immeasurably over the years. Graphics and realism matched to the growing power of the computer and the demand of the consumer. This is a huge market where the development costs of a game are equally large. It is this that prevents the full adoption of the techniques in most educational games where the volume of sales is proportionately lower and cost recovery less feasible.

As a consequence the amazing skill of the games developer is predominately lost to education. Yet this is the one area where an amazing breakthrough could be achieved. Certain manufactures are making incursions such as Wii, Nintendo and Microsoft. The danger is that their commercial might could swamp the smaller and potentially more innovative developer. The risk of a PC versus Mac, VHS versus Betamax battle emerging, where the better version lost out, could develop. Equally the possibility of a paradigm shift in educational games should be welcomed. The situation needs both encouragement and control.

The advent of the iPod took the market established by the Sony Walkman and turned it on its head. Perhaps Apple never dreamed of the influence and market changes that would occur. The music industry has spun through vinyl records, cassettes; CD’s to downloads in 10 years. The application now is huge and versatile; even churches are using iPods to play organ music during services where organists have disappeared. But strangely all is not what it seems. There are compromises. The sound mixers from the original recording have apoplexy when the final version is released. The original master recording quality has to be exceptional to support the reproduction process. But whilst the sound quality of a vinyl recording is very high, technological difficulties means a CD has to clip the wave form reducing the quality. An iPod clips it further. We have “lost something in the translation”.

The control of educational content needs equal care. It is pointless if the established skill of the educationalist is clipped in the final reproduction of an educational game. It is safe to assume market forces will drive some existing educational games companies under. Unable to afford the huge development costs to enter the mass market potential they will simply disappear swamped by the big guns. This phenomenal knowledge base will be lost.

The better solution would be to harness skills from both the games developer and educationalist camps. In reality the end product has to have commercial potential and become an inevitable compromise. Maybe the ideal solution would involve legislation that insists on a minimum educational content in all games. This could be revealed on the packaging in similar fashion to food ingredients. Minimum content, recommended daily doses and key benefits clearly stated in coloured bands.

We are at a crossroads in education. Conventional teaching has developed skills that could be better applied through new technologies. The current approach is not necessarily working. Changes in society, disruptive children, the manipulative effect of targets, SAT’s and GCSE conspire to confuse and divert the impact of teaching. We are no further advanced in the overall achievement than 30 years ago.

Whilst technology has advanced at the speed of light, learning appears to have moved at the speed of sound. There is huge potential to embrace educational games, or educational content in video games as a means of “learning in disguise.” Playing games on the modern platforms now available, and those yet to emerge, means that some of the 85% of time children spend outside of school can be captured. Practice has the greatest influence in retention of learning. What better way than to make it fun.

By Alistair Owens http://www.keen2learn.co.uk

There is an essential need to get children on side to influence the future use of energy. The effects of climate change are gaining pace and our legacy to the next generation looks alarming. We need our children will need to hit the ground running to have measurable and immediate effect on the use of energy. Educational curriculum in renewable energy must be further reinforced to ensure this happens.

Energy is the capacity of a physical system to perform work. Energy exists in several forms such as heat, kinetic or mechanical energy, light, potential energy, electrical, or other forms.

According to the law of conservation of energy, the total energy of a system remains constant, though energy may transform into another form.
We can it easier for children to understand the situation by emphasising the significant difference between conventional energy and renewable energy. Energy basically falls into two groups; hot energy and cold energy.

Hot energy

The Hot group involves the use of Heat to convert a fuel into energy in power stations. The fuel used; coal, oil or nuclear is Hauled great distances – also using more fuel in the transportation process. The by-product of the hot energy group is Hazardous waste in the form of Hydrocarbons, ash and spent nuclear fuel. History will recall the headache we are handing to future generations.

Hot energy summary:
•    heat
•    hauled
•    hydrocarbons
•    hazardous

Cold energy

The Cold  green energy group. Cold, as there is no induced heat source used (Solar and geothermal are natural sources). Clean because there are no emissions, Continuing – as long as the planet exists and Climate friendly because there is no fuel excavated or waste product to be disposed. In this group is solar, wind, tide and wave energy. They are clean, producing no gasses from combustion and no waste heat. (apart from the small amount occurring in the generator itself).

Hydroelectric power also falls into the cold  group, but we have excluded it as there is some inevitable environmental damage in the production of dams. Similarly geothermal is a green form of energy and should be in the cold list, despite involving heat, as it has a continuing source of energy – as long as Earth exists!

Cold energy summary:
•    cold
•    clean
•    continuing source
•    climate friendly

In ten years the current negative effects on the climate will have progressed significantly. Politicians and pressure groups have a huge task to convince, let alone convert the population. Progress will inevitably be ponderously slow. OK it may rain a little more and temperatures are perhaps out of seasonable kilter but do we really need to worry?

As the lights are still on, and there’s fuel at the petrol station, ambivalence is set to prevail. We need a severe shortage to focus the attention. Price rises merely isolate the lower paid. The real saviours of the planet may be yet to hit the streets. If we are to achieve the quantum leap to the significant use of renewable energy, time has to be invested in educating children on the full implications of climate change. Their enthusiasm, untainted by our old ways will have a huge benefit in the rate of change towards renewable energy.

A central theme of the latest educational thinking is the integration of subject areas. Renewable energy can have no better application. Energy is a highly practical example where topics interlace many areas of the National Curriculum. Maths, English, science, geography and history all play a part in building a child’s essential knowledge bank in the cause and effects of climate change and green energy. Ideally, learning seen by children to be fun holds their attention and greatly improves the learning curve. The use of educational games to support green energy education will help feed their interest and imagination more than can be achieved by text books alone.

There is also the benefit of the child’s influence and enthusiasm at home in the immediate future. How often are we corrected by our children on issues they are learning at school? The eagerness of the young can be very infectious and a great way to prick the conscience. And despite the growth in awareness and renewable energy schemes that now exist we certainly have a long way to go. We need to make the choice between hot and cold, vastly more focused.

By Alistair Owens keen2learn

Great news! We have been able get Ed Tech products on board. Educational Technology Ltd who are behind the Ed Tech brand were insistent we underwent all manner of reviews to show we could handle their products and we passed all with flying colours.

Already in wide use in schools as teaching resources in literacy and numeracy, parents, teachers and schools  can now get these products on-line from keen2learn. They cover all manner of front of class teaching aids to help children learn Numeracy, Literacy, Science and Early Years.

Can we really blame the kids who turn off education? This survey is a real eye-opener, and if it isn’t what the heck are we doing? Take a look at this article by Barbara Pytel

ByAlistair Owens Keen2learn
Now I always tend to listen to an ex insiders view. They are blessed with a viewpoint unfettered by politics and recrimination. They say it as it is. So it comes as  a shock to hear that Chris Woodhead,  who stepped down as chief inspector of schools in 2000, said that Ofsted has become “part of the problem” in the education system. Ouch! “Ofsted is largely an irrelevance these days. The inspectors spend a few minutes within classrooms, they don’t see every teacher teach, it is an exercise driven by the analysis of the data,” he told The Economist.

So if the ex top guy is openly critical of the system there probably really is a huge issue just below the surface. We can land men on the moon (when the world could afford it) but we still can’t organise the schooling of children. Instead we send in the education police in a frantic attempt to audit the performance who have no the time to finish the job. Schools are torn apart and left to their own devices to solve the issue. School governors sack the head as a sacrifice to show alacrity in the report then realise nobody really wants to take over in a situation that could be terminal.

Why not enlist the skill of the Ofsted inspectors to solve the problem. I’ve banged on about this before; by all means select schools that re failing, but don’t report on the failing and then run. Stay put and help the teaching resources put a plan into action to resolve them. In commerce these guys are called business angels. They are called in by ailing companies to help put things right. Anybody can be a critic, we need  the guy who can turn things around and hand it back working. Wonder if Gordon Ramsay is free at the moment. OK we may need to rewrite the English curriculum afterwards but I’m certain he would shake things up with a plan rather than writing a quick report and running away.

By Alistair Owens www.keen2learn.co.uk

There is an essential need to get children on side to influence the future use of energy. The effects of climate change are gaining pace and our legacy to the next generation looks appalling. The clock is ticking and our children will need to hit the ground running to have measurable and immediate effect. Educational curriculum in renewable energy must be reinforced to ensure this happens.

To emphasise the significance of renewable energy it may be easier for kids to understand energy falls into one of two groups. Hot energy and cold energy.

Hot energy  involves the use of Heat to convert a fuel into energy in power stations. The fuel used; coal, oil or radio active is Hauled great distances – also using fuel in the transport process. The by-product of the hot energy group is Hazardous waste in the form of Hydrocarbons and spent nuclear fuel. History will recall the legacy handed to future generations.

Hot energy summary:

* heat,
* hauled,
* hydrocarbons,
* hazardous.

Cold energy – the green group. Cold, as there is no heat source used, Clean because there are no emissions, Continuing – as long as the planet exists and Climate friendly because there is no fuel excavated or waste product to be disposed. In this group are solar, wind turbine, tide and wave energy. It is clean, producing no gasses from combustion and no heat is involved (apart from the small amount occurring in the generator itself) Hydroelectric power also falls into this group, but we have excluded it as there is some inevitable environmental damage in the production of dams ( and also it is a nuisance having a H power in the C category!) Similarly geothermal is a green form of energy and should be in the cold list- but involves heat and limited to locations that have geothermal activity.

Cold energy summary:

* cold
* clean
* continuing source
* climate friendly

In ten years the current negative effects on the climate will have progressed significantly. Politicians and pressure groups have a huge task to convince let alone convert the population. Progress will inevitably be ponderously slow. OK it may rain a little more and temperatures are perhaps out of seasonable kilter but do we really need to worry? The lights are still on, and there’s fuel at the petrol station. Ambivalence is set to prevail. We need another severe shortage to focus the attention. Price rises merely isolate the lower paid. The saviours of the planet may be yet to hit the streets. If we are to achieve the quantum leap to the significance use of renewable energy time has to be invested in educating children on the full implications of climate change.  Their enthusiasm, untainted by our old ways will have a huge benefit in the rate of change towards renewable energy.

Energy is a fascinating subject interlacing many areas of the National Curriculum. As a central theme of the latest educational policy, renewable energy can have no better application. Maths, English, Science, Geography and History all play a part in building a child’s essential knowledge bank in climate change and green energy. Ideally, learning seen by children to be fun holds their attention and greatly improves the learning curve. The use of educational games to support green energy will help feed their interest and imagination more than text books.

There is also the benefit of child influence at home. How often are we corrected by our children on issues they are learning at school? The enthusiasm of the young can be very infectious and a great way to prick the conscience. And we certainly need to make the choice between hot and cold, bad and good forms of energy vastly more focused.

Learning that is fun attracts children’s attention far more than any text book can. “Crystal Rain Forest” has become a top seller educational maths games for parents wanting to help their children aged 7 – 11 years old.

The topical theme of the game gives a double benefit. The setting is in the last remaining rain forest on the planet Oglo. It is rapidly disappearing as the Cut and Run Saw Mill gang hack their way through it for profit and greed. Children playing the game have to focus their Logo and Maths skills to find a way to stop the destruction and save the forest!

The Crystal Rain Forest V2 is the newly updated package from Sherston. This enhanced version of the best selling and award winning educational adventure into Logo, (the educational computing language first created in 1967).

The new version has three brand new activities added to this stunning version of the classic multimedia adventure. It combines the winning format of previous editions with new features such as Talking Logo. The carefully structured program effectively introduces, develops and teaches Logo in conjunction with mathematical problem solving skills. But above all it is fun.

Children who love playing this maths game at school now have the chance to play it at home with their parents. Alistair Owens of keen2learn said “The game is really popular as it encourages children to enjoy maths and they are learning all the time they are playing the game. It also lets parents see progress and join in the school work fun. Now how often can you say that about normal homework?”

Exams and SAT tests in school are in turmoil. The logic behind their original form was sound.  They provided a measure of a child’s performance allowing the teacher to focus on the weaker player. But they also judged a teacher and the schools performance. This led to the inevitable manipulation of the tests to improve the schools score. It also led to an undesirable consequence known as “teach to test.”

Exams have become easier is the annual cry as SAT and GCSE results are published each year. Not so; but teachers have certainly become more adroit at the focus needed to maximise results. And why not, their livelihood depends on it. A failing school generally sees the Headteacher removed at the year end. Nothing like a bit of stress to focus the mind, but the outcome of this phenomena are children primarily groomed to pass tests leaving them sadly lacking in the educational bandwidth needed for adult life. Schooling has become test and score orientated and educational games that enrich and stimulate fun learning have taken second place.

At this time of year schools are SAT’s drilling. The entire focus for a few hundred thousand kids and tens of thousands of teachers is to getting the best score not necessarily the best education. Not a happy situation. Instead of needy schools getting extra support, the head is fired, successors are difficult to find as no one wants the job, and many schools run rudderless. Currently 1,648 primary schools are in the lamentable position of being below standard.  Around 2,500 schools are running without a Headteacher – some have been in this situation for over a year. The irony is any solution would benefit from a single mined radical shakeup, but this would  be led by a Secretary of state who by nature of the appointment is transitory. Successive Educational secretaries have tried and failed to introduce the ideal teaching resources. Their role inevitably centres on repairs rather than  redesign.

Regrettably the educational act of 1987, et al., has failed to introduce a scheme that has lasting relevance. Constant repairs have left the educational journey road full of detours and potholes. Nobody likes driving along it and the alumni suffer dreadfully in their preparation to start adult careers in a now global market.  Their education has taught them to drive at 50 miles per hour on back roads when their counterparts overseas are being trained for motorway travel.

The conflict surrounding Statutory Assessment Test’s  lies in the combined effect of both children and teachers  being tested. But if they were removed what would be the replacement? Rolling assessments when the child is ready, al la the driving test will place more pressure on the busy teaching resources. Of greater concern is the introduction of yet another change. Hard on the heels of adjustments to SAT’s of last year are further changes and more controversy.

School days are the best days of your life, so states the old maxim. It seems, however, these days are long forgotten and the crucial fun element in learning has become embroiled in a running conflict with the hierarchy. The role of fun induces interest and participation.  More importantly it can engage parents in the practice function. One of the greatest forms of learning support to boost progress in classroom activities are the educational games children can play with their parents.

Alistair Owens keen2learn

A recent UK government report shows 50 percent of children in some areas had speech and language difficulties. Sir Jim Rose recommends formal lessons in spoken English in a series of adjustments to the key stages of the National Curriculum

Sir Jim Rose, the former head of Ofsted, has been commissioned by the government to review the National Curriculum in primary schools. Amongst his findings was the stark statistic that children in the 7-11 year old group from poorer families had an average vocabulary of 500 words. An appreciably lower total than the 6000 word vocabulary found in children from affluent families.

A limited vocabulary impacts significantly on the learning process. Unless corrected through more effective teaching resources the initial deficiency can track with the child until they leave school.   But communication is a two way street. Effective speaking is half the solution, learning to listen is equally important.

The inability to express their thoughts and undeveloped listening skills effectively leads to frustration. Poor understanding prevents children trying to comprehend causes, effects and consequences, and impacts significantly in the learning process.

Academic progress is limited and children find themselves disadvantaged in the job market. Unable to express themselves in conversation or on the telephone leave employers reluctant to offer employment. Sir Jim Rose’s recommendations include advice that teachers pay particular attention to speaking and listening skills in children. Without this basic building block children will suffer an impaired education unable to grasp abstract concepts or effectively express their thoughts. Poor communication can ultimately lead to potential conflict and missed opportunities in later life that is the birthright of all children.

Do not, my friend, keep children to their studies by compulsion, but by play.

- Plato

Plato (428 BC – 348 BC), was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of natural philosophy, science, and Western philosophy. Plato was originally a student of Socrates, and was as much influenced by his thinking as by what he saw as his teacher’s unjust death.

The culture of our modern world is showing marked ethical decline. Any recovery in the damage incurred will take time and energy to resolve. Effective correction to remove entrenched attitudes may therefore fall to the next generation to resolve through additional teaching resources.

If the current situation is to be corrected greater emphasis is needed on the role of citizenship in the educational programme within the National Curriculum. To equip young minds for the future in the aftermath of the current global recession, arguably created by greed and a decline in ethics, citizenship should be elevated to equal the status of numeracy and literacy in the curriculum.

As an indication of the size of the challenge the following are suggested as examples of the collapse in ethical values. Perhaps the greatest concern is the sheer number of examples that could have appeared in the list. This selection is the current personal view of the author who is open to suggestions. The list is intended to be dynamic and he intends to update it each month based on feedback. To contact Alistair Owens please visit www.keen2learn.co.uk.

1.    Greed in the banking industry: Incompetence, driven by the incentive of huge personal commissions moved banks from a pillar of society to abject loathing and distrust in just one year. Bank loans now have the opposite meaning.

2.    Sir Fred Goodwin:  (ex head of Royal Bank of Scotland) Stands to be recorded in history as the focus of the  unacceptable face of greed by retaining massive pension rights in deference to the vast holes he helped create in everybody else’s pensionable prospects.

3.    Disruptive behaviour in schools by children: Possibly the single greatest drain in teaching capacity. A huge proportion of time and energy is lost in dealing with a few miscreants who show little respect to the learning process, or the concept of authority.

4.    Abusive behaviour by parents towards teachers: Parents entering the classroom, making abusive phone calls or letters sets an appalling example to their children.

5.    Benefit cheats: The significant mass of people who believe the state owes them a living, and then steal funds paid by their hard working fellow citizens.

6.    Joy Riding: The use of euphemisms to mask criminal behaviour. Joy riding is theft; inevitably leaving insurance companies to pay the bill, the car owner to pick up increased insurance premiums and suffer a loss of transport. It is not just children having some adolescent fun.

7.    Excessive Professional Fees: Incredulous to think £30m was taken personally in government fees in one year by one solicitor to arrange claims for ex miners. Or the Leeman Bros financial consultants who were paid £100m in the first six months after the collapse of the bank. Or the court case to resolve the theft of £1.8m in a bank raid which has so far cost £24m in legal fees and is still ongoing.

8.    Litter and Fly Tipping: The highways, byways, streets and seas that are strewn with litter cast aside by people who think their rubbish actually belongs to everyone else who should pay for its removal.

9.    Supermarkets: Years of market dominance has closed local shops, introduced the concept of designer foods flown in from the other side of the world, and bought land that now lies idle just to prevent the competition opening in the same area

10.    Paparazzi: Influenced by the high commission potential, the paparazzi have predominately abandoned any ethical approach to their work, creating an often abusive attitude impinging on the privacy of others. Epitomised by the recent publication of photographs of secret documents that could have jeopardised the security of the nation. The government official involved resigned, the photographer, or editor who published the document did not.