Archive for the ‘Internet’ Category

For the past week a sizeable contingent of people from the West Midlands have been in Austin, Texas for South by South West (SXSW), a large festival/trade show for all things interactive.  Reports back indicate that the region was punching well above its weight in terms of its presence at the event.

And there’s a fantastic little site popped up to pull together all the content that has been produced while people are over there.  Head over to Heart of Austin to see what has been going on

Recently read an article which reported that Alzheimer’s could be staved off by becoming web-savvy.  Dr Gary Small, an expert on ageing at the University of California, Los Angeles, said “Our findings point to an association between routine internet searching and neural circuitry activation in older adults.

Google, more than ordinary reading, stimulated the brain regions controlling language, reading, memory and vision.”

The study of UCLA’s Memory & Ageing Research Centre, used 24 adults aged 55 - 76, half of whom were used to performing web searches.  Dr Small added:  “it seems people who are more adept with internet technology are likely to remain mentally agile.”

If the above is true, I think the DB team must be the exception to the rule as we all seem to be suffering from one mental dysfunction  or another, but just not Alzheimer’s!

France & Germany line up to bash Internet Explorer

Here’s a link to the article that might be of interest to you!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/18/browser_hole/

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!

Last Tuesday I helped to launch Birmingham’s e-Safety Strategy on behalf of Birmingham Safeguarding Children Board.  My presentation, which is below, talked about the different work that Digital Birmingham has done around the Home Access agenda and then covered Social Networking Sites as a new technology being used by young people that professionals don’t always have a full understanding of.



So I spoke about the Aston Pride project to provide computers in the homes of primary and secondary school children and also the Computers for Pupils grant which has been used by the city to launch 40-50 Birmingham e-Learning Foundation schemes in Secondary Schools across the city. The latter means that more money is coming back in to the system to help provide kit to more kids. More - e-Safety Strategy Launch event

Last Thursday, myself and Matt Butler from Birmingham BEST went down to London for a Local Government Information Unit (LGiU) event about Social Media and councils.  It was a mixture of talks and panels about how politicians can use social media, which tended towards the campaigning value rather than talking with constituents, and possible usages of social media within local government.

Because there was a lot of content, I’m going to split these posts up between the political and council based bits with this one concentrating on the politics side.

The first keynote speaker was Iain Dale, the Conservative political blogger.  He was a very engaging speaker, often because he spoke of the effects that his blogging had made upon his personal life.  It had already become obvious that at least one person had strong opinions about him before he stood up as they had called him a liar on the Twitterfall in the room.  Iain used this opportunity to say how he had been targeted by some people he considered to be political obsessives as a result of his writing. More - Local Government and Social Media event - Political

The BBC’s Breathing Spaces project was aimed at getting people out and about in nature as well as setting up projects to create their own Breathing Spaces.  Examples they gave were of putting up a bird feeder or taking part in the inaugural National Moth Night on 18th-19th September (we’re thinking of leaving the light on for them tonight).

Aston Hall - A Breathing Space which is local to the Digital Birmingham office

An extension of this is Open Air, which uses Google’s Gears browser add-on  to do some clever location finding gubbins.  So, if you go to the site it checks where it thinks you are and then tells you about the closest Breathing Spaces. It also provides a weather forecast for your area.

More - BBC Open Air: location aware Breathing Spaces

Birmingham Bulletin the City’s own e-mail alert service delivered a great news story today into my in-box which I have to tell you all.  Birmingham has got its very own digitally enabled news site.  You must visit www.Birminghamnewsroom.com as its a one stop shop for all the news from the City Council.  

No more do I have to go hunting for information across various websites to get the latest news.  It has rss feeds, video, twitter, flickr and links to Birmingham own Youtube channel.   It is great to see that the City is at the forefront of embracing new technologies and social media and this can only enhance Birmingham reputation as a leading digital city.

4iP, Channel 4’s innovation fund for digital media, has started announcing its grant awards and it’s good to see that Birmingham has a part in them.

Will Perrin’s Talk About Local is a collaboration with UK Online Centres to establish a network of tools with support for individuals and community groups to set up their own online presence.  Because of the strength of blogging talent in Birmingham, more particularly the many people using social media to increase civic engagement and give people a voice in their community, Talk About Local will be doing a lot of it’s early work in the Midlands.  Much of this will be in Birmingham but the Black Country and Stoke should get a look in as well. More - 4iP Projects Announced