Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education

"People act different behind cameras": strangely disturbing cartoon

Via Graham Linehan's blog and Techcrunch is This American Life examining our attitudes to censorship, citizen journalism and how people change when they're behind a camera.

Time for a jerk of the knee: reasons to ban mobiles #54

"Fighting between Millwall and West Ham football fans was planned weeks before the match, the BBC understands.

"A Millwall supporter who organised some of the violence said rival fans arranged to meet via mobile phones."

The same situation within a school: what would the school do?

Pic: Millwall/West Ham

Children See. Children Do.

Children see. Children do. All teachers are aware of this as a concept, many parents, too. If you're a loud, stressed out, unhappy teacher then you'll generally have loud, stressed out and unhappy students in your class.

I put this video on my Facebook profile and it's had a good few comments along the lines of "everyone should see this". It's powerful and uncomfortable, but gives us all food for thought.

The question is, how many schools would show this to parents to remind of their role in the education of their youngsters? How many would drop a link into the next school newsletter? Go on. I dare you. As for forgiveness on this one, rather than permission.

Produced by Australian Child Protection Agency, NAPCAM.

Are you in charge of filtering websites? Then you have some explaining to do.

Common sense will never, it seems sometimes, win the argument over allowing our youngsters access to their tools in a school environment, with most education establishments the world over insisting on blocking and filtering YouTube, Facebook, Bebo and other social networks du jour.

Henry Jenkins outlines how the leader of the Free World came to power thanks to a resurgent interest in politics amongst a generation that we haven't seen since Vietnam. Young people didn't think they could create a change, especially not by voting, but in the end the devices that pushed them to the vote were the very tools that the State currently bans within the State's institutions:

"54.5 percent of Americans ages 18 to 29 voted last November, constituting a larger proportion of the total electorate -- 18 percent -- then Putnam's bowlers, people 65-years-and-older (16 percent). The youth vote was a decisive factor in Obama's victories in several states, including Indiana, North Carolina, and possibly Florida...

"The Obama campaign was able to create an ongoing relationship with these new voters, connecting across every available media platform. Log onto YouTube and Obama was there in political advertisements, news clips, comedy sketches, and music videos, some created by the campaign, some generated by his supporters. Pick up your mobile phone and Obama was there with text messages updating young voters daily. Go to Facebook and Obama was there, creating multiple ways for voters to affiliate with the campaign and each other. Pick up a video game controller and Obama was there, taking out advertisement space inside several popular games. Turn on your Tivo to watch a late night comedy news show and Obama and his people are there, recognizing that The Daily Show or Colbert are the places where young people go to learn more about current events. This new approach to politics came naturally to a candidate who has fought to be able to use his Blackberry and text-messaging as he enters the White House, who regularly listens to his iPod, who knows how to give a Vulcan salute, brags about reading Harry Potter books to his daughters, and who casually talks about catching up on news online. The Obama campaign asked young people to participate, gave them chances to express themselves, enabled them to connect with each other, and allowed them to feel some sense of emotional ownership over the political process.

What has all of this to do with schools? Alas, frequently, very little."

Considering that most countries employ somewhere between 30-50% of the workforce within the public sector this means that Governments, that's politics and not the dry common sense of people living and breathing reality, are regularly doing little more than those working The Great Firewall: blocking the truly sole means of voter engagement and therefore democracy for those that will carry their countries forward into the future.

It's just appalling. Shameful. And while I would understand if this were a new issue on which decision-makers needed some time I'd be more inclined to be supportive and wait out a more sensible response than the existing one of blocking and filtering ad nauseum. But network admins and their managers have had nigh-on four years now to react to the changes around them.

Would anyone making that decision in a Local Authority or Administration care to explain it?

Photo from Joi

Jeff Jarvis on institutions' fear of the net

A beauty from Jeff's What Would Google Do, currently accompanying my commutes:

"Industries and institutions, in their most messianic moments, tend to view the internet in their own image: Retailers thin of the internet as a store... Marketers see it as their means to deliver a brand message. Media companies see it as a medium, assuming that online is about content and distribution...

"The internet explodes [this notion that industries and institutions have some point of control over people]. It abhors centralization. It loves sea level and tears down barriers to entry. It despises secrecy and rewards openness. It favors collaboration over ownership. The once-powerful approach the internet with dread when they realize they cannot control it."

With 4iP we're attempting to amplify a few of those distributed gems rather than trying to ensnare them to channel4.com, better traffic and eyeballs or not. We're insisting, much to the distaste of some, on collaboration over ownership of stuff. Jeff thinks it's the right way forward. I think it's the right way forward.

What about you? What about your institutions? A few on which I'd love a discussion: BBC (especially its news), Glow (Scotland's national intranet), Scottish Government services... any more?

Who's blocked where? Two minutes research engine

I'd hate to bore the fine readers in this establishment with yet more astonishment at the incompetence and laziness of some public sector institutions in their web filtering policies, but on the back of a comment from Peter in my last tirade, I'm encouraging as many of my British public sector chums to take part in Steph's Filtering Test Suite. It takes about 2 minutes to do and will help contribute to an overall picture of where we're at in the UK with filtering in our public institutions.

Arguably, if Steph were up for it, we could take that information regardless of where people were coming from and parse it into a beautiful open format for the likes of, well, me, to pop into glorious shaming technicolour on a Google Map. Anyone up for doing some heavy-lifting?

Exclusive: Some education authorities are truly incompetent

I'm angry. I'm bemused. This is the sight from the school-based computer of one teenager in a Scottish Local Authority as they try to access what is, arguably, one of the best web safety and media literacy sites in the UK, Government and European Union supported and funded. An Education Authority (District) has the site blacklisted as being part of a cult. Uhuh...

The Education Authority hasn't taken the proactive step to make sure this site is free and open to use on its computers, a site that is included in nearly every Government-issued piece of guidance on web safety and media literacy. It's February, more than halfway through the school year, and the issue has only just been noticed. Sites like this form part of an education authority's statutory duties of care to students. Being safe online and being able to access information online is not just an added extra in 2009.

Update: I'm reminded, also, that a summary of reports that was intended to be shared with Local Authorities (I don't know if it ever was), which I produced in my previous employment, included a recommendation from Tanya Byron's report to Government that filtering no longer be done with a top-down approach. It must be collaborative with children, empowering them to take responsibility for their online behaviours (paraphrase).

As such, I'd say this is, or borders on, incompetence. At the very least it's lazy. This is the kind of mistake that shows a systemic lapse in our education establishment's ability to encourage informed and proactive actions from those in educational and technology management. At the very least, I'd like to see that someone, somewhere in the strata of Scottish education management cares enough to make this a rather more public case study of how not to operate. It's only from errors like this that others can learn, after all.

Do I look like a dating website?

Is this for real, or is it some blogging pals having a belated April's fool?

Hi Ewan

I really was impressed with your blog. I have a high quality free dating service and was wondering if you would be interested in doing a review? We target mainly the U.S. , but also Canada, England, Australia and Scotland.

Not sure if you have done any dating site reviews but it does make for interesting reading. It could possibly be the implications of dating sites on relationships and if they really survive.

Look forward to hearing from you!

Dede Watson

Dede. I think not. However, you've got me thinking I really should plug Channel 4's excellent Sexperience season, starting tonight.

Pic: Dating

Video: Cyberbullying is bullying

Bullying happens to most schoolkids at some point in their school careers, not a minority, and cyberbullying makes it easier, quicker, more 24/7 than it has been in the past. But it also makes it potentially more visible and traceable for us to do something about.

I say 'potentially', since most schools still attempt to filter, ban or block the social networks and mobile phones where cyberbullying takes place, making it more difficult for the bullies to bully during school time, for sure, but not really helping teachers and students get to grips 'first person' with the issues at stake. I've even heard Head Teachers and Local Authority managers claim that it "isn't their problem" since the bullying itself isn't happening during school hours, thanks to their filtering. Fireable offense, surely?

This superb clip from Childnet, via Mediasnackers, helps address the impact cyberbullying - well, no, bullying in general - has on teens, and shows the bullies what should happen when they take bullying online or mobile.  It provides the "what would happen if..." scenario that always seems so unclear to the bullied, and therefore so unlikely to the bully. A great discussion starter for a school assembly, film or English class, you can view it on YouTube (and use Zamzar to convert into something more acceptable for school) or request a DVD copy if you're in the UK.

What the updated GTCS professional guidelines really mean

The General Teaching Council for Scotland has updated its guidance on professional standards for teachers to include conduct in online spaces. Far from the "devil machines" attitudes the mainstream press would have most people believe, the actual document presents a common sense approach to interaction online.

The Scotsman, like many other press and media outlets have done, mixes up social networking, email and other online activity. The guidelines, of course, have a much more carefully worded approach. The subtlety in the text will hopefully not be lost:

"be aware of the potential dangers in being alone with a pupil in a private or isolated situation, using common sense and professional judgement to avoid circumstances which are, or could be, perceived to be of an inappropriate nature. This is also the case in connection with social networking websites, outwith the school/college setting and in subject areas such as music, physical education and drama...

"Exercise extreme caution in connection with contact/web cam internet sites (for example chat rooms, message boards, social networking sites and newsgroups) and avoid inappropriate communication with individuals under 18 or with whom you may be in a position of trust."

Not one teacher would see this as controversial, and not one teacher, hopefully, would see this as an inhibitor to make appropriate use of social networking sites in their personal lives. In the same way a teacher has to take responsibilities in their personal life, when they are out and about on a Friday night, for example, a teacher has to take reasonable care not to be seen to be in an inappropriate communication with a youngster.

Common sense, and not a "warning" so much as a reminder of what teachers have been good at, generally, since at least the term 'profession' was applied to our work.
Pic: Teacher-student