You title is a little misleading. “Open source” should be in inverted commas as the term was being used as an analogy, not in its literal sense. Michael Gove was not saying that open source should occupy a privileged place in the curriculum but simply that the government itself was not going to mandate what the curriculum should be in this area. This is a response to the widely perceived failure of the current, government-specified “ICT” curriculum.

Even if he isn’t going to prescribe a curriculum, what Gove wants to see is clear: more academic computer science. If awarding bodies could produce appropriate courses, Gove held out the prospect that these could be contained as an option within the clutch of rigorous “core” subjects which are allowed to count towards an “English Baccalaureate”. The difficulty (and one very good reason why Gove might have ducked the challenge of imposing such a curriculum) lies in finding enough teachers capable of teaching such a demanding subject – in Britain we can hardly find enough Maths teachers.

When you describe Gove as “unpopular”, you should add “with the teaching unions” – in most of what I would regard as the serious press (excluding the left-leaning Guardian), he is feted as one of the most successful and cerebral of current UK ministers. See e.g. article at http://www.economist.com/node/18561268.

Just as the government is not going to prescribe the new computer studies curriculum, so there is going to be much less direction (e.g. through ring-fenced funding) on how (or even the extent to which) technology should be used in schools. Education technology suppliers must provide solutions which schools decide are worth buying. Gove’s positive words about education technology does not mean that the government is going to continue to try and pick winners, throwing a lot of taxpayers’ money at technologies which (in the UK at least) have done little over the last decade to raise standards.

Glad to know this has added to students enthusiasm Tony. They were indeed very good questions and think that the learning that comes from thinking up the questions to ask are underrated. Think I have written before on the laziness that survey web sites like Survey Monkey have introduced into research.

Would be excellent if the paper was to be presented at the PLE conference on Aveira in July.

Thanks for your cooperation and for a great interview. This just “sky-rocketed” their enthusiasm with the activity. Let’s see how their paper comes out.

Cheers,

http://www.newsroom101.com/longleaf/ggrow/SSDL/Model.html#Figure1

His original article and follow up are also available:

http://www.newsroom101.com/longleaf/ggrow/SSDL/SSDLIndex.html

Thanks for this and I am really glad you support the way we have opened up the site. We are trying to continue our innovative work particularly at a time when schools and young people need us most. If you have any other thoughts and comments we would love to hear from you.

Cheers

Dave Arnold