3 ways of maintaining privacy

silhouettesHer Majesty The Queen of England serves as an inspirational role model in terms of personal privacy. Despite being in the public eye for 60 years, she has managed to keep her personal opinions to herself. Almost nobody knows, for example, what her favourite tea is (although Smokey Earl Grey has been hinted at). Yet there are many people who seem to announce to the world each time they blow their nose!

The balance between public and private is, of course, a personal choice, and one made more difficult by other people openly talking about one’s activities or tagging one’s photos, and much standard business advice. But if you do want to be fairly private while maintaining a strong online presence, here are some suggestions. You may like to share and discuss these with students, who are also striving to get this balance correct.

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Comments

Sorry about my lack of response to comments recently. I will rectify that sson. Thanks for being patient.

An example of how technology changes things

P1000244I have found the Never Seconds debacle quite interesting. Story in a nutshell, in case you missed it: nine-year-old Martha Payne writes a daily blog in which she uploads a picture of her school lunch and reviews it. Argylle and Bute Council has some sort of nervous breakdown and issues an edict telling Martha that she isn’t allowed to take photos of her lunch, because catering staff are now in fear of their jobs. As a consequence, Martha’s blog gets over 5 million page views in just a few days, the number of comments on her posts soars from around 30 to over 2,300 in two days, and Argyll and Bute rescind the ban.

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Interesting times in ICT

ICT RIPThe phrase “May you live in interesting times” is usually cited as a sort of curse, but can you imagine the opposite, ie living in boring times? Fortunately, especially here in England there is no danger of that for a while, at least in the world of ICT. Here are a few snippets of news which I won’t comment on at the moment because I like to cogitate, reflect, and then cogitate some more before pontificating. As I said in a previous article (10 Obligations of Bloggers), quoting Salvator Rosa, I believe in the adage “Be silent, unless what you have to say is better than silence”.

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Mobile phones in education revisited

cell phoneThe most popular article on the ICT in Education website is one by a 17 year-old student called The Importance Of Mobile Phones In Education. To give you an idea of its popularity, I would estimate that it has been viewed at least 30,000 times since it was published back in July 2010. So the question is, why is it so popular?

Is it because it was written by a student? Well, there is no doubt that student articles receive a lot of attention, but not usually this much.

Is it because it is about mobile phones? I don’t think so: I have written about mobile phones before, and again, the articles haven’t attracted 30,000 views as far as I know.

I think the answer lies in the combination: an article about mobile phones written by a student who appears to be surgically attached to one.

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Computer programming and the trouble with collective nostalgia

cameramanLord Puttnam said something every interesting at an E-Learning Foundation Conference. Having been a film producer, he said that up to about ten years ago, to be a successful cinematographer you had to be able to take a camera apart and put it together. Now, none of those sort of skills  are required: you need a whole different set of skills in order to find employment in that occupation.

I believe a similar thing is true in the realm of “digital education”. Almost nobody needs a gasp of computer programming, and even fewer need to know how computers actually work.

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What is the appropriate form of address in email?

Letters backHere is the text of a note from the Post Office, quoted in “Berry and Co”, which was written by Dornford Yates and published in 1920:

Sir

I beg leave to inform you that your telegram handed in at the Grosvenor Street Post Office at 10.2 am on the 26th June addressed to Reply paid Hamilton Smythe Fair Lawns Torquay has not been delivered for the reason indicated below.

ADDRESS NOT KNOWN

I am, Sir, Your obedient servant,

WB

Postmaster

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The joy of not knowing

Kate RussellWhat teachers and other educators do best is, by and large, tell people stuff. It can be unsettling to not know things, so it’s no doubt natural to assume that if we don’t like it, then neither will others. So we tell people. But is it OK to not know the answers if you’re an ICT teacher? Here are a few thoughts about that, followed by a video featuring Kate Russell.

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Some notes on failing with ICT

FailFailure seems to be the zeitgeist  at the moment. At several conferences I’ve attended recently at least one of the presenters has displayed the Samuel Beckett quotation:

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

At the Pelecon 12 conference there was even a “Confessional”, in which delegates could go in and record themselves talking about one of their mistakes. Here are a few of my thoughts on failure, especially as it pertains to ICT.

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Internet safety report

two young girls laughing behind another girls backConcentrating purely on web filtering to keep kids safe online is a bit like looking for your keys under a lamp post because, although you lost them somewhere else, it’s lighter there. A third of children in Europe access the internet from a mobile device, according a new report:

33 % of 9 to 16 year-olds who go online say they do so using a mobile phone or other handheld device.

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A 21st century skills paradox

specs-beforeEvery time I attend an educational ICT conference, at least one of the speakers talks about how little we know about the future. The refrain goes something like this:

  1. Kids entering school now will be leaving to join the world of work in around 2030.
  2. We can’t predict what the world is going to be like even in five years’ time, let alone 20.
  3. Therefore we need to teach kids 21st century skills (working as part of a team etc).

This all sounds profound and straightforward, but it really isn’t.

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What makes a good ICT role model?

Teen Tech Week QuizIn England we have a weekly soap set in a school called Waterloo Road. This has everything you would hope not to find in a school: inappropriate behaviour, theft, even attempted murder – and that’s just the staff. The kids are pretty OK by comparison: teenaged pregnancy, illegal drug-taking and gangs. Strangely enough, there doesn’t seem to be more than 30 kids on roll, judging by the number of people who attend whole-school assemblies. But my main interest is this: what (good) use of technology is shown in this programme?

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ICT: Irrelevant Curriculum Today?

ICT teacher Nigel Willetts discusses ICT qualifications and their associated syllabuses. This is a longer-than-usual article, but it's a great rant read. Enjoy!

I apologise in advance. What follows is a rant! Terry was forewarned! However, the purpose of such a rant is to instigate a debate with regard to what we, as ICT teachers/specialists are expected to deliver and examine our pupils on in our schools. The focus is firmly on the GCSE/AS and A2 ICT curriculum. I am not even sure if I have any tangible answers myself, but, in my experience of educationalists, we all love a good rant/debate, don’t we?

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Should the ICT Programme of Study be disapplied?

Children & Young People's Committee / Y Pwyllgor Plant a Phobl IfancYesterday I submitted my response to the English Government’s consultation on the issue of whether the ICT Programme of Study should be disapplied from September 2012. The consultation period ends today.  I think responding is a very important thing to do, for reasons I’ll go into in a moment, but first, an explanation to readers not living in England, or a reminder to those who are.

In a nutshell, and somewhat paraphrasing, Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education in England, said:

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Learning with Technology – What the Research says

I attended a short but intense event run by the London Knowledge Lab. It’s amazing what you can pack into two hours if you organise it well. The seminar comprised a couple of brief talks, followed by a kind of organised free-for-all in which attendees were encouraged to spend around ten minutes looking at each of several demonstrations of work in progress. I haven’t had time to explore everything I saw or heard about, so here are some general bullet points which may prove useful.
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