IPDCTalks - Speaker Cable Green's full speech on SDG 4: Education. Howard Rheingold. "Thinking Like the Web": A Conversation with Jon Udell. The End of Higher Education: A Discussion About Purpose. What is Web Literacy? Threshold Concepts and the Possibilities of the Open Web. Social Capital and PLNs: Discovering, Building, and Cultivating Networks of Learners. Connected Courses | Active Co-Learning in Higher-Ed. Lego and maths: building blocks for an education? Birchfield school in rural Shropshire is the first school in the world to teach maths to five-year-olds using a programme supported by one of the best known brand names on the planet. There’s only one catch. “It worries me that the children go home and tell their parents they’ve been playing with Lego,” says Emma Grant-King, the year 1 teacher at Birchfield, as she watches her young charges, busy with their set maths task to solve questions using hens made from Lego bricks and counting nests of Lego eggs.
One of Grant-King’s pupils, Sebastian, has no such reservations. “I love it,” he says, as he and classmate Amar carefully move the white eggs between Lego nests and write answers in their worksheets. Primary schools have been using Lego informally for decades. René Lydiksen, managing director of Lego Education Europe, hopes Birchfield school will be the first of many. “I fully understand some of the concerns, because we are owned by a toy company.