Twitter studies to be part of curriculum

No longer will Twittering be a detentionable offence
No longer will Twittering be a detentionable offence

A planned shake up of the curriculum will see pupils taught 'modern media and web-based skills' as they are prepared to cope with life in the 21st Century.

Sir Jim Rose, the former Ofsted chief, has drawn up the plans in order to overhaul the curriculum and will publish the full details next month.

While core idea such as phonics, history and arithmetic will still make up a great part of the school lesson, learning things like Twitter and Wikipedia skills will become an integral part too.

The Guardian has seen draft plans for the proposal, and it includes core learning areas to take the place of the current standalone subject areas.

Blogging at school

This would mean children would be given blogging, podcasting and social-networking skills as part of their education, with handwriting and keyboard skills given equal precedence.

However, there are some concerns that this is just pandering to a trend, with John Bangs of the NUT stating : "[The proposal] seems to be about trends on the one hand, then political pressure on the other hand - the government didn't want to look like it is scrapping traditional education.

"Computer skills and keyboard skills seem to be as important as handwriting in this. Traditional books and written texts are downplayed in response to web-based learning."

Via The Guardian

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.