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Technologies for Humanity: Bridging the gaps. 

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Technologies for Humanity: Bridging the gaps. 

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We live in a digital world, tackling its challenges and embracing its opportunities every day (Jackman et al. 2021); therefore, there has never been a better time to dive deep into the relationship between digital technologies and the humanity of today.

Throughout history, technology has been met with resistance and embracement within different societies, classes, cultures and ethnic groups. There have always been winners and losers to changes and reformations; therefore, assumptions of future developments could continue to be just as problematic and complex unless we address common issues globally to move towards a more sustainable, democratic and fair global community.

One initiative I will discuss is the BBC Micro:bit project.

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The BBC Micro:bit project was set up in the 1980s to inspire a new generation to be involved in technological advances in coding and computer programming. It also responded to the significant skills shortage, with 1.4 million digital professionals needed within the following 5 years (Micro:bit 2020).  Over the years, it gained momentum in reaching over 60 countries worldwide in a collective effort to grow international collaborations, share ideas, and solve contextual problems in real-life situations in their environment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UFqqh4Fwjg

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The project provided different experiences in addressing social inequalities as follows:

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The project provided different experiences in addressing social inequalities as follows:

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Pros:

·       Gender gap: get girls into science and technology

·       Skills: focused application of hands-on technologies.

·       Available to all pupils/clubs/cultural diversity/financial position

·       Global community sharing good practice, diversity awareness

·       Hands-on experience in learning

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Is Micro:Bit fostering Cultural Diversity?

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Is Micro:Bit fostering Cultural Diversity?

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Cons:

·       Lack of physical resources and parts not working- unfinished projects

·       Knowledge and training of the teachers

·       Pupils without internet access were marginalised, disempowered

·       Initially, the government owned the project and therefore funded it centrally with some private company partnerships, asking questions about how ethical or political the project is and future implications on potential outcomes.

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Critics of the Micro:bit project argue that it upholds the social divide between global countries and communities. For example, countries without internet access could not interact with other global communities and were therefore excluded from the project, thus maintaining the global status of more developed Western countries.  Moreover, it could be said that the ‘company partnerships’, are exploiting the project by advertising their ‘brand’ globally in order to influence people and global market forces. In addition, the implications on the teacher's workload delivering the project and skills. Once more asking the question, in the infancy of the project, who was involved? Teachers, politicians, companies? And to what extent?

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Whichever stance we take on the Micro:bit project, the learners involved must remain the most important elements and the learning taken from such projects as learning new technological skills, thinking sustainability about the future and developing an inclusive global learning community.

https://microbit.org/impact/case-studies/do-your-bit/

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As the pace at which technology rapidly evolves, no doubt learning digital skills needs to be embedded in society. By engaging with technology at an early age, embracing it and identifying its strengths and pitfalls, society can enhance future pioneering space exploration and surgical procedures and become a world that is fair, democratic and sustainable.

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CNBC International. (2023). Three decades after inventing the web, Tim Berners-Lee has some ideas on how to fix itLinks to an external site. [Audio podcast episode 41. Available from: https://podcasts.apple.com. [Accessed: 5/3/25]

Hård, M, Jamison, A, & Hård, M (2005), Hubris and Hybrids : A Cultural History of Technology and Science, Taylor & Francis Group, Oxford. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [Accessed: 4/3/25].

Hobbs, R (2017), Create to Learn : Introduction to Digital Literacy, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, Newark. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [Accessed: 3/3/25].

Jackman, J.A, D.A. Gentile, N.-J. Cho, Y. Park (2021) Addressing the digital skills gap for future education. Nature Human Behaviour. doi: 10.1038/s41562-021-01074-z. PMID: 33707657.

Microbit.org. (2020) Milestones for the BBC micro:bit [Online] Available from https://microbit.org. [Accessed 5/3/25]

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If you have any comments, please add them below.

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Teachers and students, how much lesson time is given to technology in one week?