#roné

[learnersvoice-blog]

The Summit

My expectations for the summit: I am really excited about being part of summit of this magnitude! The amount of knowledgeable and experienced people is absolutely fantastic. Firstly I hope to have a lot of fun!! Thinking creatively and innovatively can only amount to great fun! Secondly I look forward to having some great, challenging, insightful and inspiring conversations with people of various ages and involved in various sectors. I am really passionate about merging the gap between local schools and the communities within which they are situated. I believe that the improvement of schools are a collective responsibility and that people from all sectors of the community therefore have to take up ownership of their local school. I hope to learn a lot about the challenges of trying to bridge that gap and how one should go about to change people's mindsets. Thirdly I'm hoping to connect with people who have the same passion as I am and discuss possibilities of collaboration in future.  Lastly, I hope that I will have the opportunity to also contribute to the conference by raising my opinion and joining in the discussions.

What would you like to see happen as a result of WISE: I hope that my participation in WISE will help me to join a network of innovators and leaders in education of which I will stay a part after the conference. I hope that this network will continue to give me networking and discussion opportunities such as I will have during the conference. Furthermore I hope that I will leave the conference with lasting enthusiasm and confidence which will enable me to make a large-scale difference back home.

The Project that I am currently involved with: Serving our Schools Inspired by my passion stated above, I have been working together with my farther to create a platform which can connect local schools with people from all sectors in the community. We have created a website (www.servingourschools.org) which gives schools the possibility to state their needs and members of the community to state what resources they have to contribute. Schools cannot be expected to solve all the problems in the community. Because community problems manifest in schools, communities should take responsibility for helping to address these issues.

[learnersvoice-blog]

"Teach students to do what a computer cannot do"

Since the first day François Taddei mentioned the concept at our first meeting on social entrepreneurship that education needs to train people to do what computers cannot do, the idea has intrigued me. Since then it has also resurfaced numerous times during sessions at the WISE conference.

The reasoning behind this statement is, that computers these days are such good sources of information, that we do not need graduates who have only learned to memorise content. If that is the only skill they have been taught through their education, it would be better to appoint a computer which would be much better at recollecting information than a human could ever be. The same goes for calculating skill.

Another problem with a content approach is that we memorize content which will only remain relevant until new information is available. As Ms. Carol BELLAMY put it in the Rethinking Education in Development debate, the "role of education is not to impose knowledge, because knowledge continually evolves".

The question we have to ask, therefore, is how we can equip graduates with skills that can distinguish them from the skills computers have and help them to effectively utilize computers to achieve even more. At the same debate mentioned earlier the importance of entrepreneurial skills, critical thinking skills and problem solving in education was mentioned. It seems that these are the skills which will help students to perform and make a difference after studies, rather than mere memorising and calculating skill.

The big challenge we face, however, is that education is still very much driven by exams and assessment and how do we go about assessing these kind of skills? In the debate on Motivating and Engaging students, Mr Tim Rylands pointed out that assessment remains an important way to take students forward. We cannot do away with assessment, but how do we transform it so that it doesn't steer education away from teaching learners and students the necessary skills.

This is what has kept me thinking for the past couple of days and I look forward to explore possible solutions in future.

[learnersvoice-blog]

Expectations for the Summit- Roné McFarlance

My expectations for the summit:

I am really excited about being part of summit of this magnitude! The amount of knowledgeable and experienced people is absolutely fantastic. Firstly I hope to have a lot of fun!! Thinking creatively and innovatively can only amount to great fun! Secondly I look forward to having some great, challenging, insightful and inspiring conversations with people of various ages and involved in various sectors. I am really passionate about merging the gap between local schools and the communities within which they are situated. I believe that the improvement of schools are a collective responsibility and that people from all sectors of the community therefore have to take up ownership of their local school. I hope to learn a lot about the challenges of trying to bridge that gap and how one should go about to change people's mindsets. Thirdly I'm hoping to connect with people who have the same passion as I am and discuss possibilities of collaboration in future.  Lastly, I hope that I will have the opportunity to also contribute to the conference by raising my opinion and joining in the discussions.

What would you like to see happen as a result of WISE: I hope that my participation in WISE will help me to join a network of innovators and leaders in education of which I will stay a part after the conference. I hope that this network will continue to give me networking and discussion opportunities such as I will have during the conference. Furthermore I hope that I will leave the conference with lasting enthusiasm and confidence which will enable me to make a large-scale difference back home.

The Project that I am currently involved with: Serving our Schools Inspired by my passion stated above, I have been working together with my farther to create a platform which can connect local schools with people from all sectors in the community. We have created a website (www.servingourschools.org) which gives schools the possibility to state their needs and members of the community to state what resources they have to contribute. Schools cannot be expected to solve all the problems in the community. Because community problems manifest in schools, communities should take responsibility for helping to address these issues.