Steamcast on the education of the future

On 12 April 2023, the Director of the New Technology Division Magdalena Hajduk took part in a panel discussion with prof. Marlena Plebańska and Paweł Łaszkiewicz from the Mazovian Self-Government Teacher Training Center, on the topic: “STEAMCAST – code the history of the future”.

The discussion was opened by P. Łaszkiewicz with the provocative statement that “the last place he would look for the presence of new technologies is the IPN”. The basis for such a superficial image is the decidedly inadequate knowledge of the Institute’s activities among young people, which reduces its extensive scientific, investigative and educational activities to the function of an old-fashioned archive. Director M. Hajduk painted a diametrically different picture by talking about the New Technology Division, which in just two years of existence can already boast a number of completed projects combining its educational mission with the use of the latest technologies.

Prof. M. Plebańska confirmed that young people look at the world in a different way and that new technologies, whether we like it or not, “are the key that can open their curiosity, introduce them to other worlds”, including the world of history, in particular the past of our country.

The discussion looked at ways of effectively teaching history. On the one hand, the use of new technologies is to convince young people that it is worth learning about the past; on the other hand, teachers need to be persuaded to change the way they teach. An incentive to follow the path set by technological progress is the convergence, confirmed by experience and objectified by research, of values that older and younger generations live by. We only differ in the way we express them, in the need for different “access paths”. Director Hajduk emphasised that the numerous meetings with young people during presentations of the Division’s projects or the organisation of e.g. programming competitions (hackathons) clearly prove that young people are willing to cooperate in creating history lessons.

In summary, the educational mission of the IPN, i.e. passing on the memory of the past, is achievable on two conditions: the organisation of training for teachers on the use of new technologies, and the use of the language of the younger generation in education. Young people, if given a choice, will definitely choose wisely.