web analytics

What do Young People Expect from ICT?

I came across a report that the JISC have commissioned involving a survey of 16 – 18 year old children who aim to attend University. The report identifies that the use of technology is an intrinsic part of these peoples lives. 80% of those surveyed agreed with the statement that they “like to keep up to date with technology and use it as much as possible for study and in their free time”. Also two thirds make use of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

For me this makes interesting reading as we are rolling out Glow to all Scottish schools. Glow has the potential will bring ICT into the classroom in a way that potentially extends the learning landscape for pupils by facilitate access to content and online community services which have been specifically designed with Education in mind. I fully expect that over the next few years will start to see our young people using ICT to a far greater extent as a vehicle for learning that has been the case in previous time.

Judging my by own observation of my own family, there is no doubt that they seem to be able to adapt to and adopt ICT without too much guidance from the older generation. In fact sometimes intervention and advice from us ‘old fogies’ is not seen to be helpful as it is already available from their online community contacts who seem to have enhanced credibility 😉 Nothing new there!!

Of course the Internet, like the ‘real world’ can be a dangerous place, so I welcome the advent of Glow which has been setup to provide a safe and accountable environment where teachers and young people can interact both in the the classroom and at home. This will open up new opportunities for young people to develop skills and attitudes that will make then ready to get the best from life both in the real and virtual contexts.

You can access the JISC briefing paper and report here by clicking here

The following report commissioned by the Scottish Government also make interesting reading click here.

Memories from the past

A former colleague from Northern College of Education sent me a link to the following video which caused me to reminis about the period of time (16 years) I worked for this organization. The video features a sequence of pictures of the Gardyne Road building which was one of the two Northern College Campuses – that other was in Aberdeen which was my main base. The Aberdeen campus is now a mere memory as it was sold by Aberdeen University for residential property development after Northern College was de-merged and merged with Aberdeen university as its Faculty of Education.

Looked for a picture of the Aberdeen Campus and could not find one but Google Maps show an aerial view see below


View Larger Map

Knowing that this will be updated in due course here is a static view of the above image so it can be preserved.

Link to a useful summary of the history of the Colleges of Education in Aberdeen and Dundee.

A link to the Closure Notice

Crovie – more information

There is a fair bit is history about Crovie (which I have always pronounced as ‘Crivie’) so I thought it would be worth providing some links to provide some additional context to my last post. When you Google for Crovie you will find many links to cottage lets but I have tried to pull together more informational web sites. Here they are 😉

Multi-Map of Crovie

An interesting descriptive page about Crovie

A page which clarifies the pronunciation of the word Crovie

Undiscovered Scotland: The Ultimate Online Guide

A Web page just about Crovie

Crovie on Wikipedia

A panorama from the end of Crovie Pier

A photo gallery of Crovie

The Crovie Preservation Society

An online Jigsaw of Crovie

Dolphin Stranded at Crovie

End of the Pier Show – bi-annual art show

Some very nice views of Gardenstown and surrounding area

Holiday – Crovie October 2007

We have just returned from a very enjoyable and relaxing holiday at Crovie.

Crovie is a coastal village on the Moray Firth coast of Aberdeenshire. It was like taking a few steps back in time I have to say. For a start you cannot drive your car to the door of the cottage – you have to carry your belongings along a narrow path which is between the houses and the beach and is at times no more then about 1.5 meters wide. A wheel barrow is provided for each house to assist with this process. Here is a picture of the cottage taken just as we were arriving. We stayed in the terracotta coloured one.

The cottage was very comfortable inside as can be seen in the next photo.

Most nights we were treated to a stunning sunset which we tried to capture with the camera. To be honest the camera simply does not do the scene any real justice – here is one of my attempts.

We had a really enjoyable week and certainly managed to ‘chill’ a lot! A delight to be in a location where mobile phones don’t really work very well. It’s amazing how much we seem to depend on that technology these days! I suspect that we will be back there again sometime in the not too distant future 😉

To see some more photos Click Here

T – Shirts – thing of the future ;-)

Check this article out which provides details of a new dimension to clothing. The T Shirt featured cans sense if there is a WiFi network in the near vicinity and also indicate what the signal strength of it is.

Click here to read more

Also linked into the article is another story about how BT is encouraging its broadband subscribers share their connection with other nearby WiFi users. The methodology sounds pretty feasible with a wireless router configured to have two WiFi network one which is private for the owners use and an open on which can be used by any member of the ‘Fon’ community. I would hope that this means that some one if tracking the use of this open service so that any misuse can be attributed to the visitor not the owner ( should any take place). Also how is the host user compensated for traffic usage if the visitor starts using the host bandwidth to perform large downloads – is this free??? There is scope for further investigation here.

Click here to read more

In view of my previous posts about the quality of broadband service in some places in the UK I am not actually convinced that this would actually a very attractive approach. Lets face it if a home user is subscribed to an ADSL service then they are already contending for up stream bandwidth!!! I we know the sort of effect that this can have on the user experience. This could introduce another level of contention on the link up to the DSLAM at the Local Exchange. I don’t think I will be rushing to subscribe. Mind you I suppose this could be a good thing for friendly visitor to the home – but then I can give them access and already do without making my network open to all an sundry!