Connecting to create educational communities - Main contents

(Ewan McIntosh the CEO of NoTosh Limited, provides this second-last of the summer guest posts to my blog.)

Pervasive broadband isn’t just about digging up roads. It’s about digging up the reason why, too

I, like many others, have returned from summer holidays spent reading, playing by the pool, or dragging small children around hot foreign cities in the search for culture. The only inconvenience of not being connected through my smartphone has been to lose my top ratings in the location-based game foursquare. Otherwise, staying disconnected was, really, part of the reason we went holidaying in remotest Brittany, France.

But back in my day job, connectivity is my lifeblood. Every job I’ve had in the past decade has been won, not through job interviews and application forms, but through social networks, blogs and word of mouse. Without connectivity I’d not have the home I live in now, I’d not have the opportunity with which I’ve been blessed, and I’d certainly not have made as strong a set of friendships as I can claim today.

For me, and for many others, being connected is not really a technological consideration at all: it has become a social one. Without knowing too much about how it works, we are now in the luxuriant position of not having to care how it works, either: we just expect mobile internet technology to work at home and, from this summer, we’re increasingly expecting it to work across Europe in a seamless mobile stream of wall updates, emails, YouTube videos of our friends on even sunnier beaches than us. We know that when we power down for a couple of weeks, or don’t want to pay the slightly higher fees, that we are without access largely through choice, rather than technological or pricing constraint.

But a large minority of the population are not just dispassionate about the tech: they’re not even seeing the social, educational advantage of being connected to the internet. 80% of those in Europe who are not yet connected and not using the internet are choosing to live in perpetual digital silence. Why? Because the internet, frankly, doesn’t interest them enough.

So, while Government ministers responsible for infrastructure maybe can’t resist the photo opportunity, hard-hat clad, to dig up another piece of road to lay empowering pipes, might we not better fund, better support and better laud the efforts of a much quieter group of instigators of a most vital pillar in this digital revolution: the classroom teacher?

Schools have without a doubt the most valuable role in creating the 100% digital coverage and use that the EU aspires to, yet the responsibility for getting the finesse and thinking required to get this right lies largely with individual enthusiastic teachers. There are information packs, professional development offerings, different curricular approaches galore. But what is failing is the connection back home. Every one of those eagerly connected children in our schools knows one of those remaining offline, one of those people who does not see the point of connecting.

If there is one thing schools can do this academic year it is to reach out to the community, not for financial handouts or school concerts, but to reach out to bring them in, to learn alongside their young people about what the internet can offer them. Through the passions, expertise and enthusiasm of our young people and the organisational power of Europe’s schools we have, perhaps, the most compelling opportunity to get Europe 100% connected.