One of the pleasures of DL+ Week is observing students as they experience activities in a less structured environment. What does it look like to line up in preparation of assembling your own sandwich? To sit around a fire and chat? To look on as a classmate pushes their limits in some new endeavour?

Beyond the activities themselves, there is also plenty of downtime, in which students socialise with each other, as well as with teachers and camp leaders. What does this look like? How does it feel? And how is it different to everyday life.

Invariably, year after year, we find ourselves marvelling at the ability of our children to slip into the rhythm of such occasions. Conversations ebb and flow, groupings shift, jokes are shared, challenges are bested and relationships are formed. Of course, this happens at school too, but the time and space afforded by Deep Learning in general, and DL+ Week specifically, bring these elements to the fore. What we see in this context is very much the “human” in Human Technologies, and it is a delight to behold.

Several years ago we started to notice the gradual encroachment of smartphones into this space. Growing out of the days when we did not need a clear policy on this matter, we started to find smartphones appearing in students’ hands, pockets and bags during DL+ Week. The impact of this change was quickly evident, mostly in the ways that smartphones disrupted the easy, natural engagements that we so loved to observe in our students. Quality relationships need time, and boredom, to develop, and smartphones reduce both of these important qualities.

And so it is, today, that DL+ Week is a relatively smartphone free occasion. Of course, some activities, like School Media, benefit from these devices..but most do not. And so we invite our students to leave phones at home, or to entrust them to their teachers, in order to experience the abundant joys of time spent together.