‘Most people’s purchases influenced by social networks’

The Telegraph reports that the majority of consumers now consult ‘friends’ or ‘followers’ on social networks, such as Facebook, before choosing to purchase a new item, according to research firm Gartner.

The report, which polled nearly 4,000 consumers across 10 major global markets during Q4 2009, discovered that people play different roles when it comes to recommending products online to friends within their social network. People broadly fell into three categories: ‘Connectors’, ‘Mavens’ or ‘Salesmen’.

‘Connectors’, Gartner said are those who “perform a bridging function between disparate groups of people” and enjoy introducing people to each other”.

‘Mavens’ are “knowledge exchangers or information brokers”. They are experts in particular area and people go to them for advice. But they are not people who wish to convince people to buy certain items; they are more interested in acquiring new knowledge.

And finally there are ‘Salesmen’, who have “extensive social connections” and possess the personality trait that impels people around them to act on information in highly directed ways”.

“Our survey results showed that one-fifth of the consumer population is composed of ‘Salesmen,’ ‘Connectors’ and ‘Mavens.’ These are three roles that are key influencers in the purchasing activities of 74 per cent of the population,” said Nick Ingelbrecht, research director at Gartner.

“Salesmen’ and Connectors are the most effective social network influencers and the most important groups for targeted marketing based on social network analysis.”

Gartner, on the basis of the report, is now advising companies, with products to sell, to actively engage with these different people on social networks, as “social networks have become a critical but underutilised, aspect of the marketing process”.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7910697/Most-peoples-purchases-influenced-by-social-networks.html

BlackBerrys pose ’security risk’ say UAE authorities

The BBC reports that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has said that it could move to restrict or monitor BlackBerry mobile phones, as they pose a “national security risk”.

The region’s telecoms regulator said “BlackBerry operates beyond the jurisdiction of national legislation” as it stores its data offshore. It said it was concerned that misuse may have “serious social, judicial and national security repercussions”.

Critics branded the moves as “repressive”.

The media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders told BBC News that while the UAE was playing a “technological leadership role in the Arab world” this was backed by “repressive laws” and a “general trend of intensified surveillance”.

“Last April, the daily Emarat al Yaoum reported on an interior ministry plan to check the identity of anyone using the internet in public places,” said the organisation’s Lucie Morillon. Many mobile phones are already monitored, she said.

The UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority has taken issue with the encrypted networks used by Research in Motion (RIM) – the makers of the Blackberry handset. These make it difficult for governments to monitor communications.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10761210

Sex, death and government oppression: how Channel 4 is re-inventing the educational video game

The Guardian reports on how three years ago the channel radically re-thought its approach to programming for teenage audiences – the results could be about to shock those who don’t realise where interactive educational content is going…

Three years ago Janey Walker, then head of education commissioning at Channel 4, came to an important realisation. At the time, the channel was broadcasting its education content as part of the morning schedule and most of it was going out during term time. Challenging and confrontational programmes like Crip on a Trip and Gay to Z were being aimed straight at teenagers – but the teenagers were at school missing it all.

Meanwhile, this fickle target audience was beginning to watch less broadcast television anyway. Alternative entertainment options like mobile phones, games and social networking were drawing young audiences away from terrestrial TV. Sticking out a few edgy documentaries during school time just wasn’t cutting it anymore.

So Walker decided to switch her budget to the online space, where she could reach teenagers whenever they were available. She also employed two multiplatform commissioners: Matt Locke, to handle digital TV projects, and Alice Taylor, previously Vice President of Digital Content for BBC Worldwide. Taylor is a keen gamer with an excellent blog on games theory, and her remit was to transfer a substantial part of the channel’s annual £6m budget to interactive and online projects.

“We don’t do standard curriculum, we don’t do key stages, it’s a lot more zeitgeist-y than that,” she explains. “We generally look at what gets you from 14 to19 in one piece. So big themes that started in 2009 are things like privacy and security while online – and offline as well, actually. Financial management is going to be big next year. We look at careers, citizenship, I want to explore belief and death. It’s fun, broad themes.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2010/jul/26/educational-games-channel-4-privates

British newspaper helps trap online predator

The News of the World recently undertook an operation to trap a paedophile who was using the web to groom a 13 year old girl.

Sameer Jusab, 30, bombarded the girl with inappropriate and explicit messages in a chatroom called No Adults. Jusab thought he was speaking to Karene, a vulnerable schoolgirl, but it was actually an undercover reporter from the newspaper.

The evidence was passed straight to child protection officers and Jusab was hauled before the courts. A judge at the town’s crown court ordered he join a sex offenders’ re-education group as part of a three-year community order and banned him from using the internet or working with children under 16 for five years.

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/880300/News-of-the-World-victory-We-nail-pervert-on-web.html

China may shut porn fiction websites

China’s press watchdog has threatened to shut down more than 120 websites offering pornographic fiction, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Thursday. An official with the General Administration of Press and Publication said websites which failed to remove the content would be taken offline.

The crackdown comes as China continues to tighten control over its booming Internet sector. Since the second half of last year, it has introduced new regulations on online pornography.

Late last year China cracked down on mobile websites offering pornography downloads and more recently it barred online game companies from using lewd marketing tactics to attract users.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/china-may-shut-porn-fiction-websites-2028168.html

Using computers to teach children with no teachers

A 10-year experiment that started with Indian slum children being given access to computers has produced a new concept for education, a conference has heard.

Professor Sugata Mitra first introduced children in a Delhi slum to computers in 1999. He has watched the children teach themselves – and others – how to use the machines and gather information. Follow up experiments suggest children around the world can learn complex tasks quickly with little supervision.

“I think we have stumbled across a self-organising system with learning as an emergent behaviour,” he told the TED Global (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference.

Professor Mitra’s work began when he was working for a software company and decided to embed a computer in the wall of his office in Delhi that was facing a slum.

“The children barely went to school, they didn’t know any English, they had never seen a computer before and they didn’t know what the internet was.”

To his surprise, the children quickly figured out how to use the computers and access the internet. “I repeated the experiment across India and noticed that children will learn to do what they want to learn to do.”

He saw children teaching each other how to use the computer and picking up new skills. One group in Rajasthan, he said, learnt how to record and play music on the computer within four hours of it arriving in their village.

“At the end of it we concluded that groups of children can lean to use computers on their own irrespective of who or where they are,” he said. His experiments then become more ambitious and more global.

In Cambodia, for example, he left a simple maths game for children to play with.

“No child would play with it inside the classroom. If you leave it on the pavement and all the adults go away then they will show off to one another about what they can do,” said Prof Mitra, who now works at Newcastle University in the UK.

Access the rest of the article online at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10663353

Education journalist and broadcaster Mike Baker has written an interesting article for the education section of the BBC website.

He questions if the “government’s attitude to computer technology in schools taking us back to a “dark age” of chalk-and-talk…”

That is the fear of many in education who think the coalition government’s actions are turning back the clock on recent developments in the use of computers for learning.

First there was the decision to abolish Becta, the agency that advises schools on Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Then there were speeches on the curriculum given by the new Education Secretary, Michael Gove, which focused entirely on traditional subjects and were silent about ICT.

Then the government scrapped the Rose Review recommendations for primary schools, which had proposed putting ICT at the core of the curriculum. And just this week, the Schools Minister, Nick Gibb, in a major speech on the curriculum, did not mention ICT at all.

But for many the straw that broke the camel’s back was an announcement slipped out quietly as part of the government’s “free schools” policy.

This said that to provide capital for these new parent-run schools, the government was taking £50m from the Harnessing Technology Fund for schools. This fund provides money to improve schools’ broadband connectivity, computer hardware and software and the sums involved represent a quarter of the total investment fund.

This came as a nasty shock to Mike Prince, head of Staveley CE primary school in Cumbria. He regards a fast broadband connection as essential not only to children’s learning, but also for keeping in touch with parents in a rural area. He says “to have the rug pulled on us mid-year leads me to think it’s either being done unwittingly or, more sinisterly, because the government has decided that these things are no longer important”.

After the recent push for parental engagement and rural schools connectivity, he says, it “feels like we are on the edge of the dark age”. Others too have detected more to this than simply the need to make financial savings.

Before the election, Merlin John – a journalist who specialises in technology and learning – tried to get details of the Conservatives’ policy on ICT. However, after a series of e-mail exchanges over almost two years, he failed to receive anything concrete from Conservative Party headquarters.

So, the question that is worrying many in education is whether the government is making these cuts reluctantly in order to avoid hitting core school budgets or whether it is indifferent, or even hostile, to ICT in education?

Access the rest of this article at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/10495726.stm

Regular visitors to our parental control blog are now probably well aware of the many risks the internet can pose to children. We hope we’ve managed to provide parents with useful information to keep them aware of the different threats and how to protect their kids online.

But for those of you who want to get more involved with learning about e-safety, there are workshops available that provide training to parents, teachers and corporate organisations. We would particularly recommend i-PAT (Internet Parental Awareness Training), a group that runs courses in schools for teachers and parents.

We were kindly invited by i-PAT to attend one of their recent internet safety sessions in Bristol.  This particular talk was hosted by a primary school for the parents, and had obviously sparked a great deal of interest due to the high level of attendance.

The presentation covered four main topics surrounding internet safety for children: cyberbullying, inappropriate material, grooming and identity theft. The interactive nature of the talk was very engaging, with parents being questioned about various aspects of the web to test their existing knowledge and asked how they would respond in different scenarios with their children in mind . Parents were also asked to outline their key concerns with their children being online. These were identified as; viewing pornographic content, cyberbullying, having their email / social network accounts hacked into and being groomed by sexual predators. Many of the parents also expressed concern about being out of touch with the internet today, explaining that it was a struggle to keep up with its continually evolving nature.

i-PAT recommended that parents draw up a contract with their children about internet safety. For example, this could include a child telling their father when they are going to spend time on a site like Habbo Hotel, so he is aware if what they are doing. Parents are also recommended to sit with their child and get them to explain how the site works, watching whilst they use it. If the child sticks to the contract, then they can be rewarded with an extra 10 minutes on the site tomorrow. However, if they break the rules then parents can threaten to block the site as a punishment.

The session continued to outline the other topics, with an interactive quiz to get parents discussing issues and informative film clips to demonstrate problems such as cyberbullying.

There’s certainly a lot to fit in for a presentation that only lasts a couple of hours, but i-PAT covered a wide range of topics in a very informative, engaging manner. We would certainly recommend their workshops for schools, teachers and parents – in fact, anyone who has involvement with children. For further information about i-PAT and to contact the team, visit their website at: http://www.i-pat.org.uk/.

The BBC reports that the so-called $100 laptop has undergone a facelift in order to be used by secondary school children.

The machines, designed by One Laptop per Child (OLPC), are based on the original XO laptop, which was built for primary school children. The new computers feature a larger keyboard and upgraded software.

Uruguay, which has already distributed nearly 400,000 XO laptops to primary schools, has ordered 90,000 of the new laptops, known as the XO-HS. It has also ordered 10,000 machines designed by rival Intel, which makes the Classmate PC, also developed for children.

“We want to see how students react and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of each,” said Miguel Brechner, director of the Technological Laboratory of Uruguay, who is in charge of the country’s Plan Ceibal (Education Connect) project.

The government scheme has given many people in the country their first taste of computers and the internet. It has delivered 380,000 XO laptops to primary school students and nearly 20,000 to teachers.

“Uruguay is the only deployment that is complete,” Kalil Nicolas of the OLPC Association, told BBC News. “They have full saturation of their primary schools.”

The 90,000 XO-HS machines will be rolled out to some of Uruguay’s 230,000 high school students. “We are expanding our reach,” said Mr Nicolas. “We still want to focus on 6-12 year olds – and motivate them – but they need a laptop to grow into.”

Deliveries of the new laptops will begin in September 2010. Mr Nicolas said that they would also be offered to other countries interested in connecting high-school students.

The original XO laptop was designed specifically for children in the developing world and featured a rugged design aimed at keeping out water and dust, a sunlight-readable display and open source software. It was designed by OLPC, a spin out from US university MIT.

The organisation originally aimed to sell the green and white machines in lots of one million to governments in developing countries for $100 each.

Access the original article online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10309116.stm

The Telegraph reports on a leading expert’s comment that children should be banned from using computers in schools until they are nine-years-old because the early use of technology is destroying their attention span.

The premature introduction and overuse of technology is damaging young children whose brains are not yet fully formed, according to Dr Aric Sigman, a psychologist and author.

As a result, the “nappy curriculum” – the statutory rules introduced in 2008 which dictate that toddlers should be introduced to computers as early as 22 months of age – is “subverting the development of children’s cognitive skills”.

Speaking to a conference of childcare specialists yesterday, the academic said children needed to use the three dimensional, real world to learn.

“There is evidence to show that introducing information and communication technology (ICT) in the early years actually subverts the very skills that Government ministers said they want children to develop, such as the ability to pay attention for sustained periods,” said Mr Sigman.

“There is a conflict between multitasking and sustained attention. These things cannot and should not be developed at the same time. Sustained attention must be the building block.

“The big problems we are seeing now with children who do not read, or who find it difficult to pay attention to the teacher, or to communicate, are down to attention damage that we are finding in all age groups.”

The controversial Early Years Foundation Stage, which sets dozens of learning goals for children from their first year to the age of five, says that computers should be introduced from 22 months and that from 40 months children should be able to “perform simple ICT functions, such as select a channel on the TV remote control and use a mouse and keyboard to use age-appropriate software”.

Primary schoolchildren have at least one ICT lesson a week and computer use is widespread in other subjects. Research evidence on the effect of ICT on children’s learning, social development and health is mixed but the debate is becoming increasingly polarised.

In the US a number of studies show that age-appropriate software can bring benefits in areas like language development. Other research suggests that prolonged television and computer viewing stunts brain development.

Mr Sigman said that while screen technology can be an important tool in learning, it should feature in schools much later than it does at the moment. “It must be introduced and used judiciously at much later ages – ideally at least age nine – or it can subvert the development of the cognitive skills and curiosity it was intended to foster and enhance,” said the author of Remotely Controlled: How Television is Damaging Our Lives.

“We risk infantilising the child’s mind by spoon-feeding it with strong audio-visual sensations.”

The psychologist dismissed arguments used by some academics and the education technology industry to justify exposing very young children to computer use.

“The rationale behind it is that children are interested in these things and that it is the world that children are growing up in. Therefore we must have them getting to grips with it at 22 months,” he said. “Children might be interested in alcohol, hand guns and pornography – that doesn’t mean we should give them access to these things. Just because children are interested in something, it does not mean by any stretch of the imagination, that it is in their interests to expose them to these things. Children may well be good at using technology but monkeys can learn to use new technology, it is not necessarily something to strive for in itself.”

Access the original article online at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/primaryeducation/7823259/Ban-computers-from-schools-until-children-reach-age-9-says-expert.html

ICT for Education reports on some research by the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA.) The study found that schools see technology such as games consoles and smartphones as playing an important role in primary-aged children’s education. BESA’s research analysed responses from 406 primary schools about ICT use by pupils at school and at home. The results illustrate which technologies schools consider most beneficial to pupils, and which technology pupils enjoy using the most.

While the majority of schools indicated internet access at home and at school are the most beneficial technology for pupils, three quarters also identify home access to educational games consoles like Nintendo DS as being helpful to children’s educational development. Teachers are more likely to prefer pupils having access to a mobile games console over a mobile phone.

Ray Barker, director of BESA comments, “Our research has found that teachers have very different opinions when it comes to the use of mobile phones by primary school aged children. On the one hand, 39% stated that children should not have access out of school to mobile phones, while another 29% of teachers said the ideal situation would be if all pupils had access to a mobile.”

Schools also believe that children’s preference for technology both at home and at school is evolving quickly, mirroring rapid changes in technology. Barker continues: “According to schools, laptops are the most popular computer type amongst children, followed by desktop PCs. However, by 2015, educators feel that this will be replaced by a move towards netbooks and smartphones.”

Educators who participated said that just under half of all pupils prefer shared desktop PCs at present, while a third enjoy sharing full sized laptops. By 2015, educators expect pupils’ preference for desktop PCs and laptops to drop dramatically, with 69% of pupils desiring their own netbooks, and another 13% favouring smartphones. Only 4% of schools use netbooks in ICT suites now.

Most of the schools surveyed said home computers are used for personal revision involving free online and resources paid for by parents. Some 64% of schools issue teacher-directed homework that requires computer access at home. Another third said PCs are used at home for teacher-directed homework linked to a learning platform. Interestingly, only a quarter of schools believe that most pupils use computers for entertainment and social networking exclusively, and not for educational activities too.

Access the original article online at: http://www.ictforeducation.co.uk/English__Primary_research.html

Protecting private data has always been an important issue, but none more so when it comes to the personal details of our children. There have been two news stories this week regarding the concern surrounding the storage of young peoples’ data…

Many of us may still consider biometric technology as quite futuristic and something often seen in films. However, it’s actually being used quite widely in education today, with about 30% of secondary schools asking children to swipe a fingerprint for registration and to borrow library books.

Some have likened this new technology to a ‘Big Brother’ environment, as thousands of pupils have their fingerprint data recorded and many without parental permission. There have been reports of schools such as the Capital City Academy in North London ‘frogmarching’ pupils to be fingerprinted, causing an uproar as parent’s were not consulted first.  The school had to apologise and delete all fingerprints that were taken without consent.

The Education Secretary Michael Gove has pledged to ban schools from fingerprinting pupils unless they have first obtained explicit parental permission.

Alex Deane, director of campaign group Big Brother Watch, commented, “the use of fingerprinting in schools is disproportionate and intrusive – in some cases, parents aren’t even asked whether they agree with it. Schools are not equipped to hold this sort of unique and personal data. By taking it for trivial purposes schools are jeopardising the privacy of the students for the rest of their lives.”

The Information Commissioner’s Office states: “There is nothing explicit in the Data Protection Act to require schools to seek consent from all parents before implementing a fingerprinting application. However, unless schools can be certain that all children understand the implications of giving their fingerprints, they must fully involve parents in order to ensure that the information is obtained fairly.”

Schools insist biometric systems are not a concern because they do not store children’s actual fingerprints. The finger scan machines create a mathematical algorithm which cannot be converted back into an image of a fingerprint.

Elsewhere in the news, we heard yesterday that the ContactPoint database, which lists personal details of all 11 million children in England, will be scrapped by the new government.

The computerised database scheme cost £224 million. Although it was designed to protect children from harm, it caused many concerns about state snooping and large-scale costs.

Tim Loughton, the Children’s Minister, promised an end to ContactPoint as part of a fresh review of the role of social workers in protecting endangered children.

The ContactPoint database came about after the murder of eight-year-old Victoria Climbie in 2000, intending to make sure no child in danger could ever again go unnoticed by authorities.

But a large number of people – around 400,000 – have had access to ContactPoint records, which include details regarding sex, drug and mental health problems. 50,000 people, such as politicians and celebrities, were to be allowed to keep their identities and details about their children off the system.

The main issue with both the biometric process and central database records is the actual storage of the data. If the records are stored for a period of time, this increases the chance of unauthorised individuals accessing private details or the information being accidentally leaked out. Organisations that handle children’s’ private data need to ensure that details are only stored if absolutely necessary and that they remain securely locked down and accessible only to a minimum number of people.

The PTA (Parent Teacher Association) of the US is joining forces with Facebook to teach schools. parents and children about online safety.

Together, the National PTA and Facebook will work together to develop a program that will offer information and support about such issues as cyberbullying, good online citizenship and internet security.

Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt  commented that the plan is not just to educate kids about being on Facebook, but about being online. “The sooner we can get instilling responsible behavior, the better.”

The PTA will reach out to local parent-teacher groups to promote the program, while Facebook plans to do the same on its site.

Anne Collier, co-director of Connectsafely.org, a forum about online safety issues, said the deal combining Facebook’s broad reach and the PTA’s relationship with schools and parents “makes a lot of sense. Citizenship online and offline needs to be a part of the child’s life,” she said. “It needs to be taught at school and at home — it’s not just a digital thing.”

Access the PTA’s official press release about the partnership here: http://www.pwrnewmedia.com/2010/pta_00610/index.html