Learning ideas, resources & professional reflection since 2011
Ofcom’s 2018 study of where teenagers go to get their news is very insightful and just as interesting is where the adults (parents) go.
What are the implications? Here are our initial thoughts.
Related:
One of the major criticisms of social media is that it’s disconnecting us, as individuals, from society and from real physical interactions.
But if a key element of ‘tribe’ is communication and connectivity then the digital world arguably holds unlimited bounds for tribes.
If the internet has heralded the death of distance, what do these new kind of tribes look like? And do we relate to each other in different ways now that so much of our lives are lived online?
[panel style=”panel-info”] [panel-header] Tribe: Listen to the broadcast (30 mins)
[/panel-header]
[panel-content]
[/panel-content]
[/panel]
In this episode of The Digital Human (BBC Radio 4.), Aleks Krotoski asks if rather than separating us, the digital world is helping us revive old tribal connections. It’s a fascinating way to look at schools and their parental communities for many reasons so do have a listen.
The Social School Award was just launched on 11th May at the Lancashire Association of School Business Managers Conference.
The Social School Award is designed for schools who have embraced social media for connecting, promoting and engaging with others in lots of different ways.
A collaboration between John Bidder and David Mitchell over the last year has led to what is now such a wonderful opportunity for any school who has taken the initiative, led the way and come up with new & innovative ways to communicate.
If you want to get started and see whether your school could apply for this exciting Award that rewards your boldness in recent years you can start with the 5 step self assessment process today.
NEW BOLTON MARCH 2017 WORKSHOP VENUES ANNOUNCED
Here’s something that not a lot of people know.
There’s a goal in mind for the web and that is to enable every website address to begin with https:// instead of http:// so that the data that passes between site and sender/visitor is encrypted. Google are big supporters of it amongst others.
Here’s something that not a lot of people know either.
This is the how the various web browsers that people use globally compare and yes, back there in the distance is Internet Explore & Edge with Chrome beating way out in front.
Source: https://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php
Why are these ‘pub trivia’ facts important?
Well, at the end of January this year, Google’s latest version of Chrome (v56) (the dead popular one) will ultimately start telling visitors to your school website whether it’s secure or not.
What are the benefits of going secure?
What can your school do about it?
Your web site host will have a very easy and quick method of applying a security certificate to your website thus making it secure for visitors and site managers. It’s pretty rare that the school tech support would touch this job so unless they’re the person who built and hosted your website we suggest leaving them well alone. This Google site has a technical guide for how to implement an SSL so if your tech is the person they may want this link. Schools who have a Blippit Site are already compliant with SSL in place.
Our suggestion would be to get the ball rolling tomorrow with a quick email to your provider saying:
“Hi,
We’d like you to apply an SSL certificate to our school website please. We’d like to do this for 12 months initially and need this in place by February or March at the latest. Can you let us know what we need to do on our part to do this e.g. forward an email from the certificate issuing authority to you when it comes?
Thanks,
<School Who Knows What They’re Talking About>”
What happens if we don’t get a security certificate applied to the school website?
Nothing!
You can carry on as you are and everything will stay the same. The main issue is that the world’s most widely used web browser will start telling visitors that your site is not secure and in this day and age that’s probably not what you want.
Good luck & support a more secure web!
Further Reading:
LetsEncrypt runs the certificate authority that issues free SSL certificates so cost is no longer a barrier to using HTTPS and both Google and Mozilla to actively promote and recommend the use of HTTPS as standard.
The last literacy-focused app publishing lesson with Year 2 happened last week. Both during and after the lesson we learned a lot about how the writing process was affected, even in more reluctant writers, by the addition of app publishing.
Though the focus was so clearly writing improvement, when the children were asked, the prospect of Mummy or Daddy having the app on their phones was also featuring large in their minds.
You can get the Viking App Template from Blippit Academy and get The Year 2 Project app from Planet Blippit.
Listen now to part 2 with Assistant Head & Literacy Leader Mrs Emma Smallshaw, from Salesbury Primary in Lancashire, in action with her Year 2 class and reflecting afterwards with John Bidder from Blippit about the process as a whole and next steps.
[well type=””]We’ve been focusing on how the process of improving non-chronological report writing could combine with publishing a mobile app using Blippit’s App Maker.
One of the most striking factors was the effect of telling the children that their app would be seen by the world; this would include mum & dad on their mobile phones too. We’ve always believed in the positive effect of having an authentic audience and what was clear was that these children, at such a young age, were highly motivated at the thought.
What you’ll get a sense of in the video is the absolute focus on literacy and writing improvement. What was less easy to capture was the willingness of the children to ‘fix’ their writing to make it better. This is the ‘norm’ for these children it seems and dealing with being told that there’s ‘a problem with’ some part of their writing was not a problem for them. You can get the Viking App Template from Blippit Academy.
Listen to Assistant Head & Literacy Leader Mrs Emma Smallshaw, from Salesbury Primary in Lancashire, in action with her class and reflecting afterwards about the process so far.
You can also read and listen to Part 2 of this project and if you prefer YouTube you can catch the project playlist here.
Refer-to-Pharmacy allows hospital pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to refer people directly to their community pharmacist for free NHS services such as the New Medicine Service or a Discharge Medication Review.
We’ve been working with Alistair Gray, Clinical Services Lead Pharmacist at East Lancashire Health Trust, on an idea to help spread of the word about Refer-to-Pharmacy. After an initial chat, Alistair quickly saw the potential of having an app, that he had complete control over, to aggregate sources of news, project updates, video, talks/events and so on for anyone wanting to know more about the project.
With an hour’s training he very quickly made a really convincing job of the first ever ‘Refer to Pharmacy’ app and incredibly within 24 hours a QR Code and link were added to the latest print run design of the new R2P brochure. We feel confident that having an eye for detail, Alistair’s app will continue to evolve – in fact it’s at version 11 at time of writing!
The gallery was not found!Blippit is really happy and proud to support awareness raising of such a great project with it’s roots firmly in the NHS. The fact that Refer-To-Pharmacy is being picked up internationally now too is a really positive sign.
For a change we thought you might find these app stats interesting as we roll into the weekend. These are the estimated number of global app downloads in May 2016.
You will find more statistics at Statista
This week Blippit Social met up with NW based Kidsafe for a chat about safeguarding, child exploitation and the importance of not keeping experiences inside that give a child a ‘yucky feeling’ as Kidsafe describe it.
Blippit Social’s approach & beliefs about the importance of schools having a social approach to parental engagement complement Kidsafe’s work well which is why we’ve some interesting ideas bubbling in the pipeline now that will mean good things for schools in the future.
