If your child is a digital native immersed in their games, messages and photos, going back to school and into the classroom can feel like a retrograde step. School, in an ideal world, is the environment for our children to learn and create.
However, if we are raising a generation of digital natives how do we engage our children in learning in this environment?
In the best schools, teachers and classmates make stuff happen together: with collaboration, motivation and using different tools for learning. Sounds like great training for the adult world of work, doesn't it?
With over 3 million new jobs to be created in the app economy in the next 5 years, a likely consequence of this is that our children will be consumers or creators of this economy. Digitally savvy or not - the best help we can give them in school is to encourage them to engage with the technology.
Founders4Schools (F4S) has launched the Appathon, as part of their CREATE! Campaign, precisely to do that. Schoolchildren of all ages - from primary to secondary - are being encouraged to create their own Apps, which will be developed in an Appathon as part of Silicon Valley Comes To The UK (SVC2UK).
The F4S campaign encourages children to work together and create (but not fully design and spec out) an App, which can go to the SVC2UK Appathon. There, university students will choose the Apps with the most impact to compete for top prizes such as a 10% royalty on a successful App that is launched into the iTunes store.
Engaging and creating apps with impact opens up the possibility - that going back to school isn't so bad, after all.