Archive for December, 2009

It has been widely reported that British singer, Lily Allen, has decided to de-activate all of her social networking profiles (Twitter, MySpace etc) because she believes she has become addicted to the phenomenon.  Many press photographs of her over the last couple of years have usually shown her with a PDA of some description, updating her profiles.

However, the initial explanation for this was that Allen used MySpace to promote her music when she first started out.  This is done by a lot of musicians wanting to get their singles noticed.  But for Allen, and many others, it appears that their use of digital devices and social networks has taken over their lives.

So, for many of her fans, Lily Allen will not be as visible any more - but as her music is known widely and critically acclaimed, she has perhaps used these forums as much as she has needed to.  It is interesting to hear about ‘celebrities’ admitting their over-use of social networks, or the internet and digital devices in general.  It has brought more attention to this issue, as an individual must balance their existence in the digital and real world.

With the e-christmas cards doing the rounds, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to send out our own personalised message. So this is a once only, because I don’t think I’ll be able to persuade the team to do this again - well at least not the singing Santa version. Hope you have a great christmas!
 Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Viddler video.

Thought it would be good to share with you our December headline report that we circulate to stakeholders and interested parties. It provides an update on Computers for Pupis (CfP) initiative which has seen over 18,500 computing devices rolled out to secondary schools across Birmingham; Work with Will Perrin on a Talk About Local bespoke programme to target key communities, Online school admissions idTV development; the digital business campaign - Cafelicious and the Healthy Way to Learn IT project that has demonstrated some significant outcomes in terms of developing language skills and diabetes awareness in the Aston pride community. If you would like any further information on any of these initiatives then please get in touch.

Well, it may be 5 years too late but at last Central Government has decided to catch up with the times and revise the primary school curriculum to include Internet Safety and prepare our children for the digital age.

It has long been the belief of IT educationalists that there is no point in restricting young people’s access to the wealth of information held on “t’internet”.  But, wouldn’t it be better preparing our future generations by providing them with the knowledge and understanding of not only the benefits, but the dangers of “t’internet” and enabling them to make informed decisions and judgements for themselves.  Because we all know, if you tell a young person not to do something … the likelihood is that they WILL go and do exactly what you’ve told them not to!

More - How Birmingham City Council is performing

Birmingham City Council have just unveiled a new and exciting database which pulls together all research & consultation projects they (and all Be Birmingham partners) undertake throughout the year, and gives Birmingham people a greater chance to get their voices heard.  The Be Heard database is an easy to use system which allows the user to search for key words or topics of interest.  There is a simple video which walks you through how to use the system, and a consultation calendar which shows when key pieces of research are planned.  The best bit though, is the database allows you receive email alerts when topics that interest you are due to happen.