“Only a fool wants war, but once a war starts, it cannot be fought half-heartedly” – Bernard Cornwell
Excalibur, much like modern technology, is about making magic by pulling metal out of rocks. When we say in our mission statement that our choice of weapon is words, Excalibur is that weapon.
With plans to launch in early 2026, Excalibur is our technology education initiative, focused on providing open-source materials and programs for teachers, public servants and the general public.
technologics
Much too long have we a) considered coding lessons “teaching technology” and b) considered software the pinnacle of technology. We advocate for the paradigm shift towards **technologics**, teaching the basis of technology, the origin story, the philosophy, the essence.
We teach young children how many stamens and anthers sweet peas have — not because we aim to mould them into experts on Northern European flora, but because we want them to understand the patterns of life.
The patterns of life, however, vastly feature strings of technology. Omitting teaching the basis of technology from the curricula in the same way we teach physics, mathematics, linguistics etc forms a wide wisdom gap that can later be filled by ignorance, or worse, malignance. Especially as the technologies of the future shift at the pace of not years, but months and sometimes weeks, it is more important to understand the underlying rules and harness the human aspects, rather than memorise algorithms.
Our goal is simple:
_teach technology from the perspective of social sciences, philosophy, humanities and human history
_teaching robotics to kindergarteners opens up an avenue to discuss ethics and humanities in technology from a very early age, through play
_every human has the right to know how technology works on abstract pattern level
_the prerequisite of digital liberties is digital understanding
_devise materials for technologics and advocate adding it to national curricula
Siret has written about this in Geenius (text in Estonian).
Digital Round Table 