Butterfly42

It cannot have escaped your notice that here in England the Byron Review looking at the risks to children from exposure to potentially harmful or inappropriate material on the Internet and in video games is now published. At last after lots of publicity this morning by those who have read it and discussion and speculation based on their comments the Review is finally on line (midday) for all to read. Final Report: Safer Children in a Digital World (Full) The Full Report also contains a glossary, bibliography, details of the Review process, and a list of key contributors to the Review. So the first read will be Safer Children in a Digital World (Executive Summary) and really readable is the children and young person report - will you show it to the children Safer Children in a Digital World – A summary for Children and Young People So have a look at it. what do you think? Will this make using social technologies easier for you in school. Leave a comment.

As I am twittering and twhirling away here while glancing through some infrequently read blogs from around the globe and I've found a good reason to Twitter - I can listen to my plants!!!! Must tell Prince Charles! ( for non UK royalist he has been known to mention talking to his plants.. but then who doesn't?) However, is it real or is it a spoof.. will it be another example to use when talking about the validity of content on the internet.. I'm off to investigate let me know if you get the answer before me! PS it might be true there are photographs on flikr !

It was indeed a beautiful day in Derbyshire with plenty of enthusiasm from the teachers about getting out their mobile technologies and having a go. The use of mobiles phones is always something to talk about and different schools have different approaches to mobile phones in school but they are useful tools and won't go away. As well as the Spinvox phone to blog entries below we also did some simple data handling on the spot. My mobile phone was connected to the laptop, wired in this case and everyone sent me a text message giving their favourite colour. as they popped up we could see the trends there.. bit worrying about all the black :-) We looked briefly at Teachers TV mobile phones, mobile minds which is incidentally broadcast live on Friday this week 28th March. Lots about the PDA including the applications from Wildkey that are really worth looking into to support an outdoor curriculum. As ever I've extended the event by providing on line reminders of links...

As the discussions developed one teacher commented " ICT it's fantastic way of putting the world at your finger tips. As long as you've got knack (and the kit)." :-) spoken through SpinVox

one delegate alredy has soem experience of using PDA with more able children.. "Hi. The children find the PDA is very interesting. They learn quicker than adults, at what they achieve." spoken through SpinVox

"It's a beautiful day here in Derbyshire at the Hayes Conference Centre, where I'm about to meet a group of teachers, here for a teacher day. They are really very interested in PDA's and how they can support learning and raise attainment. I'm waiting very excitedly for them to come through the door any minute now." spoken through SpinVox

Today we hear of the death of Arthur C. Clarke and within a very short time people were recognising and mourning his passing. Like many of us I’m sure, it was through reading Arthur C Clarke ( and others of his time) from an early age that I knew about the power of information and communications technology before I experienced it and had my hands on it... What was your favourite book/story? Equally we all recognise at a times his 1961 third law, ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ From marveling at the ease of global communication, accepting that a plastic box of frozen gunge comes out of the microwave as a hot meal (?), treasuring the 3D image of a baby in the womb to wondering which god I have offended when a set of identical spec laptops from the same company each respond to the same piece of software in their own idiosyncratic way. It is magic! In this Youtube video from December last year he talks about communications a...

I have to share this.... Youtube has a video of Micheal Rosen acting the story of Going on a Bear Hunt. It is, as you would expect lively, exciting and inspirational and holds attention till the end. I had not come across this before until a PGCE student shared this after she had observed her mentor using it. The digital native who visits me occasional ( 22 months) stopped trying to wrestle me for the mouse to watch this and despite not having seen the story before joined in some actions especially putting his hands around his mouth too make cave sounds. This video is the next best thing to actually having Micheal in the classroom.

They arrived.....nine children and three adults and lots of things to talk about. The children bright, shiny and confident talked us through , with a little help from the adults, the ICT use in their school and illustrated the independence of use through out. There was much to tell and show, heres a flavour. We heard about ICT in school assembly, two large screens in the hall and in-school prepared DVDs of music and images, there was the lovely stop frame animation, using clay figures, of the Easter Story. They demonstrated how the Wii is used in the breakfast club. We saw how the foundation stage have an early years desktop and we tried out a favourite activity, Big Cat phonics. We found about about a school water activity event through a video made by the children which illustrated the excitement and fun of the whole thing. The children shared their own personal pages with use, illustrating their interests and experiences though video clips, sound story's and text and ...

It's the final SLICT conference in Birmingham, Celebrating Success In his keynote Chris Poole BSF Business Manager at Microsoft is stressing to us that it's not about the technology but the experience. He is also wondering out loud about ICT transforming learning. His initial hypotheses is that true transformation is not happening in schools and this partly about the fear of schools loosing control and letting children take control of their own learning. He's using one of the videos A vision of students today illustrating that young people are in another digital world and dumbing down when they go to school. Why is this new to people...why haven't the people here noticed the changes..? This presentation is following the usual path in challenging people to change in the 21st century and is certainly engaging people around me. But will there be a capacity to change..There are lots of us who are working very hard to help it happen. But I have some childre...

By an assistant in a bookshop on a Sunday morning, when asked were a particular picture book title might be on these shelves......"go down to the desk and somebody will find it on the computer for you. " spoken through SpinVox

Heard in a book shop on Sunday morning. "We've got plenty of video games, we're here to look at books." Heard in a book shop on Sunday morning. "We've got video games at home but I want you to be reading books." spoken through SpinVox

WW1: Experiences of an English Soldier - real primary source historical information about WWI. "This blog is made up of transcripts of Harry Lamin's letters from the first World War. The letters will be posted exactly 90 years after they were written. To find out Harry's fate, follow the blog!"

Wonderful .... I want to be there now! The Singing Ringing Tree