| We were recently invited
by ACE IT to participate in ‘The Intergenerational Technology
Project’ of the Mark Scott Leadership for Life Awards - where we
met with a cross-section of third year students from three of
Edinburgh's High Schools; Gillespie's. Boroughmuir and St.
Thomas of Aquin's.
The project consisted of a
series of workshops and discussions held on three consecutive
Mondays in March. The sessions were managed and hosted by the
students themselves and took place in the new state of the art
St. Thomas's High School.
The workshops took the form
of three sessions as follows -
1. The
Use of Technology to construct a presentation to compare and
discuss childhoods of each generation. This brought out the
differences (in that) the older generations played ‘peavers’
and played in the street while today's generation were more
likely to spend time on their computers and holiday in
Spain. This as much as anything illustrates the differences
between the generations.
2. Debates where young and senior teams were given a topic
to research on the internet and then present their ideas and
thoughts, for example on ID cards. This led to a heated
debate between the members of the groups given this topic.
The verdict was for IDs although the difference was only two
votes in the end.
3. The third session was technology based with the use of
smart boards. The following issues were raised by both
generations - vandalism, policing, parental guidance,
boredom, and a lack of facilities.
The outcome
of these discussions was the need for clubs for young people,
school holiday activities at a reasonable charge and an
interchange of ideas between authorities and young people
themselves.
To conclude this session each group was given materials to
construct a lighthouse as a team-building exercise, with varying
results but a lot of fun all round!
All in all this was a very
enlightening and encouraging series of workshops which was
greatly enjoyed by all who participated (young and auld alike).
The success of the initiative was such that there has already
been a great number of calls for the project to be rolled out to
other schools and communities across the Edinburgh area.
For further information on
the Mark Scott Foundation and the Leadership for Life Awards:
Click Here |
