Calling all educators!!!!!

This past week I have been posting and posting where I can about my friends questionnaire, asking educators and the the rest to re post, spread the word and complete the questionnaire. A task that is virtually instantaneous to do all of the above mentioned, the nature of Social Networks allows us to do this and I am thankful I am doing my degree in this age, especially when I consider when my mother did her teaching degree, the horror stories she has told me about how hard it was travelling to and calling schools, being turned away etc to collect her research data (as if you don't have enough to do at this difficult time in your own personal education!)

So, quite frankly I am shocked, she hasn't had one result, its five easy questions, I would've of thought anyone who has undertaken this or similar task (as I am sure those who are reading this certainly has) would consider that (albeit not all, no one expects that) people would be willing to help out considering the amount of time and effort is being placed on technology in education, how technology is being pushed and used in education are we therefore not being a little hypocritical??

So please, can you complete this questionnaire http://howe2012.wufoo.com/forms/z7x3k1/ and anyone others that you come across, remember, that person was you once, desperately waiting for these results so that you can spend sleepless night collating, analysing all that lovely data and trying to put it all into a intelligent 500 word paragraph because your lit review is too big =D

Latest Facebook news!!

Its been a busy few weeks for Facebook, a week ago, it signed a 20 year agreement with the US Federal Trade Commission over privacy issues.

Bit of an embaressment that a gap in security has allowed anyone to view photos supposedly marked as "private" and has been used by adults to view pictures of underage users without their knowledge. Interestingly, the gap in security has been there since November, but has only been fixed when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had his pictures targetted on Tuesday.

Facebook could not say how many peoples' private pictures had been viewed as a result of the flaw – and it appears that all users of the social network were able to exploit it, even Zuckerberg posted in the company blog that "we've made a bunch of mistakes" relating to users'

It is clear that there are serious negative and illegal issues surrounding the use of Facebook, surely the UK and other goverments need to start putting more of an interest of safety in soical networking sites.

Should under 13s use Facebook for education??

The founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg  has said that he wants to let children under 13 use it!!!

There are age limits on these SNS from the Chirldren's Online Privacy Protection Act, even though it is estimated that seven and a half million of Facebook's 600 million users are under 13.

Mr. Zuckerberg wants to change the law because of the educational benefits of the site....but what about the risks?? Zuckerberg says that:

"My philosophy is that for education you need to start at a really, really young age. Because of the [legal] restrictions we haven't even begun this learning process."

You can't deny that he is absolutly correct about education, there are numerous studies that are showing that the internet and SNS do have educational benefit, a University found that '

'94 percent used the Internet, 82 percent go online at home and 77 percent had a profile on a social networking site. When asked what they learn from using social networking sites, the students listed technology skills as the top lesson, followed by creativity, being open to new or diverse views and communication skills.'

But these are university students, would SNS be of benefit to children of such a young age?

QR tags for children

I am loving QR tags at the moment, I've been aware of the exsistence for some time, but dismissed them as a new advertising/marketing idea that will fizzle out. Oh how wrong I have been...

For those who don't know, a QR code is Quick Response Code that, when using a smart phone or webcam, you can scan the picture and get information such as websites instantly, here's my blog QR



Found this site today (http://store.safetytat.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=23&products_id=102) it is the safety Tat QR, which is a site where you can design QR codes to hold emergency contact information and then make a transfereable 'tattoo' to stick to your childs arm, then if that child goes missing on a day out and someone finds them, they can scan the code and contact the parents.

My housemate was outraged by this, saying 'just another thing thats turning us all into products...one more step to becoming robots'

My gut reaction was that, 'well you've obviously never lost a child in an amusement park', even if only for 10 seconds, its quite possibly, for me at least, the worse feeling in the world but then it did get me thinking what about the abuse of this marvellous idea, would it encourage kidnappinbg/randoming or have I been watching too many thrillers recently??

What about the use of QR codes in other ways for children, T.G.I Fridays have QR codes on the back of their children's menus to link the children to the Facebook page:

'The menus provide marketers a way to target children and their parents' (http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/software-technology/11004.html)

I know that marketers use children all the time to target their products as a way to nag parents into buying them something or taking them somewhere and I couldn't help but feel uneasy about this quote, especially with 'Facebook' in there, is it right? Or is this just going too far?

And what about the open use of QR tags and pushing them into the children's arena?? How safe are QR tags? By targeting children, we're saying that QR tags are fine for children to use, but are they? You have no idea what's behind a QR tag so should we be openly using them for anyone to abuse??

750 views - Little Gossip

Came across a SNS I've never heard of before, and to be honest, its pretty vile.

Its called Little Gossip and all its function is to allow people to leave comments anonymously about their fellow classmates and/or teachers, here's an example from our very own Plymouth University:

' Name omitted is a big/ugly dog who occupies her time by gossiping about people as well as trying to turn people against them. She needs to grow the hell up. Seems to me that no one actually likes her, besides a few lads and 'her girls'. Everyone else just tolerates her so she doesn't go all physco on them.'

what about this one

'has shagged over 100 people and is a known gonorrhea spreader'

Its a shame to think that cyber bullying is still present, even at this level, I assume that this person has some intelligence as they can spell gonorrhea. Whats worse, is that beside the comments made by students, other people have the opportunity to to decide whether this is a false statment or true and sadly it invariably turns out to be the latter.

What is a laugh on this site is their 'safety tips'....

Do not bully, harass or target other users of LittleGossip community with hate speech or threats. It’s not allowed to imitate other users on LittleGossip. Never post any content on LittleGossip that is obscene, threatening, harassing, libelous, hate-oriented, racist or contains information about an underage. If you have doubts about posting any questionable content, it can indicate that you are close to breaking this rule.

REPORTING GOSSIPS

LittleGossip wants to maintain a positive vibe on the site. Every gossip on the site can be removed in return for one positive / light-hearted / funny post. In order to delete the gossip please click ‘Report’ button. You can submit one piece of gossip about yourself or anyone you know and get the gossip you reported removed. Please note, we have sophisticated monitoring systems in place and if gossip submitted doesn't make sense then the gossip you were trying to remove will come back.

If gonorrhea spreader isn't obscene then what is and how that is a positive vibe beats me, I'm sure the VICTIMS because they are victims of cyber bullying don;t find this light-hearted, in fact I doubt that they even know its on this site, because I've certainly never heard of this SNS before.

I found in an article that in December of last year the site closed down and reopend saying that the site is only for adults...hmmm...thats why in the list there are sixth forms....so the site is open to 16 year olds? Even without the age/adult arguement, what about vunerable adults??? Perfect quote from a concerned father:

"It's cyber-bullying at its worst," he said. "Seriously, kids are going to take their lives because of this site."

I couldn't agree more, in another article the head of James Allen’s Girls’ School in Dulwich, South East London had this to say:

‘I’m just so angry that this vehicle for cyber-bullying exists. I can’t imagine what kind of person wants to set up a site like this. It must be some kind of sick person.’

Sums it all up really...truely sad and disgusting

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1340570/LittleGossip-com-Teachers-horror-website-private-school-cyber-bullies.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12074838
http://www.littlegossip.com/

720 view - 'Pole-dancing' primary school teachers =D

I remembered this article from a few months ago, probably because I had such a strong reaction to it:

Shock! horror! Primary school teachers drink alcohol!! Clearly they cannot be fit to teach!!

What a load of sh....

Unfortunately, a teachers Facebook page hadn't been set to the full privacy settings, again I reiterate what I've already said in the past, that privacy issue can be a right pain in the bum, you have to mess about with it for ages, I've even had to get people delete me and check its all blocked up!

The group went out on a hen night, where the time honoured tradition of dressing up in a mini army/sailor/burlesque (on this occasion it was army) outfit and playing on poles was dutifully carried out by the group, then the 'OMG what was I doing' pictures appeared and by Monday 'back to work' mode set in and they went about their jobs.

Unfortunately, a parent of a pupil at the school saw the pictures, printed them off  and post them through neighbours doors including this letter:

‘If you are as appalled as I am by these images which these tramps post freely for the world to see, how safe are our children? What does this tell you about this school and how it is being run? These women teach my children, but not for much longer'

Of course I agree about the profile privacy issue, but it was caught and dealt with appropriately, but for goodness sake!!!....really

REALLY!!! I come from a military town and as a result have a few friends who have done tours in Iraq/Afghanistan and I'll tell you know, you should see the pictures of what they get up to!! (If I get some more comments I'll post your one, how they get into that position with a helicopter would send you head spinning)....does this mean their not fit to be in the armed services, because their profiles aren't set to privacy, anyone can look at those pictures...so is it a gender issue or what job your doing issue????

Another thing about this article that got me going was the note written on it!! What aggression and malice in those threats!! Again, quick to judge without taking the foresight to think how you sound! Excellent example (again) to your children, instead of dealing with the issue in an appropriate manner, dealing with the issue in a completely childish way.

Also, what are your children doing on Facebook at that age anyway, and what are the chances of them actually seeing this 'awful, trampy picture' of them enjoying a hen night, most appalling image they could see, I'm sure no parent would ever allow their children to see anything like this, or maybe we should start keeping our newspapers on the top shelf where no child can see on a DAILY basis of all sorts of issues, not the least a group shout of their teachers holding a glass of wine....

690 views - Parents cyber bullying teachers!!

Found this interesting article about teachers being abused online by parents!!

 The National Association of Headteachers (NAHT) is telling its members to be more willing to take on the adult bullies after receiving a number calls from teachers who have been cyberbullied. According to NAHT the majority of complaints are about parents using the SNS to criticise teachers and their school's leadership.

A parent spoke about her use of Facebook to slander the school:

"For three days, I vented my anger and my spleen on my Facebook page. If they had come to speak to me and make those appointments I wouldn't have had to use the Internet to get my point across. No-one at the school was listening.

Ha, and we wonder where cyber bullying comes from, what sort of message does this send to her child, she is scarily oblivious to the sort of character she is showing herself to be. SNS are not for ignorant people to discuss subjects in a completely inappropriate way, yes 3 days is a bit excessive, but what was happening during those 3 days in school? Are you sure the situation wasn't being noted? Instead of throwing your toys out of the pram and stamping your feet realise that schools don't revolve around you and your needs, yes bullying is an awful situation but as the saying goes, you can't fight fire with fire.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12162063