Gastblog - de revolutie in het onderwijs (en) - Hoofdinhoud

Today a guest blog from Gilles Babinet, French Digital Champion

“A major revolution is occurring in the field of education. A revolution that will change the way we teach and learn forever. This major change is at least as important as the one that happened during the second half of the 19th century when some European countries decided school would become mandatory until 12 years old.

You may be wondering: what is this change I am talking about? What will education look like after it has changed? Education is just about to become massively ubiquitous, totally free and more compelling to kids - thanks to the rise of more interactive teaching methods and, above all, the notion of gamification.

What we want is to make sure every kid has enough skills to be a proactive and happy citizen of the 21st century. One of the most important skills that kids have to master is coding: in an emerging digital society, it is consistent and necessary to learn this new language. Not every child needs to become a programmer, but they need to understand what will drive tomorrow’s world; and also get their minds and thinking abilities used to this powerful “reasoning grammar”. For those who have not been able or who have not got the opportunity to learn the “3 Rs” (Reading, Writing, Arithmetic), it is also a way to get back in the game.

As a digital champion, I am happy to launch an initiative of that kind in France. With the support of Agir Pour L’Ecole, we will soon launch a programming platform that will provide free, easy-access and powerful learning tools to let kids of any type of background learn to code.”