Brits say yes to blogs, ho-hum to history

Or, as The BBC puts it in their lead-in:

Primary school pupils should learn how to blog and use internet sites like Twitter and Wikipedia and spend less time studying history, it is claimed.

The British primary school curriculum has undergone review, and the resulting recommendations put greater emphasis on information literacy. The report apparently identifies six key areas of learning:

* understanding English, communication and languages
* mathematical understanding
* scientific and technological understanding
* human, social and environmental understanding
* understanding physical health and well-being
* understanding the arts and design

This is for primary school, but it overlaps quite a lot with what folks like the New London group have recommended for higher education, especially greater attention to design and to ecologies.

It's also significant to remember that British educational innovations have a history of bleeding into composition studies, most notably the work of James Britton and his associates. So perhaps some borrowing might happen again?


(via Heidi on Facebook)