Internet safety, Cyberbullying
Well I thought it was a while since I posted - and it's longer than I thought - at least six months.
I've been really busy here in Lancashire, getting to know everybody in the local schools and education, as well as others at national and european levels. My particular interest has been that of cyberbullying, and I travel a lot - speaking to a variety of different audiences. As well as being on the DfES cyberbullying taskforce I am speaking at a few educational conferences soon. So if you want to hear what I have to say come along to say hello:
3rd annual 14-19 Child Protection Conference at Aston University on the 30th january
3rd Annual Protecting Children Update Conference, London, 27th february
Here at the Cyberspace Research Unit we have also been busy writing a new 'University Certificate in Child Safety on the Internet'. This is a 14 week distance learning module and the first of it's kind in the country. It's for teachers and other child service providers, so if you want more details let me know.
Back soon.
Denise
I loved this story so much I copied it word for word from No Man's Blog. Enjoy…
Every person is a story that needs to be toldEvery person is a story. We all carry an unwritten book about in us. Everything is to be found in our lives. We can just produce it. All things are found in everything. As people we are very similar to one another. The greatest drama passes you by without your seeing it.
(Svend Wiig Hansen, Painter of the Human Condition).
This is how I felt when I came across
Grandpa YouTube (better known as Geriatric1927) - the new star on YouTube, 78 years old widower (Peter) from the UK midlands.
As YouTube evolved, we grew accustomed to think of it as a creative playground for the young, tech-savvy or the MySpace generation. With LonelyGirl and Brookers we sort of perceived it, just as any other web 2.0 phenomena, to be the the territory of 16-32 years old who come here to be cool and creative and do all kinds of lip-synching and mash-up wonders.
And then out of nowhere, came Peter, a 78 years old technology enthusiast, who proudly tells of IMing many friends on MSN Messenger and Skype prior to his YouTube experiment where he sits with his eyes closed and with great humility in front of the camera and
"Telling it all" - recounting excerpts from his life story. He is close to tears telling about the thousands of support emails he receives and since I've read about him (via Steve Rubel), 6 hours ago, 52K more views added to his videos.
His video autobiographies been watched more than 200,000 times and if you want to get a sense of the power of WOM check out the stats on his profile - the growth is absolutely amazing - more than 1000 more views added in 30sec (!) with currently more than 9000 people subscribed to get his next video. Check out also the abundance of video responses (e.g.) his diaries sparked - he really managed to move a lot of people.
#4 - Most Viewed Channels (Today)
#17 - Most Viewed Channels (This Week)
#25 - Most Viewed Channels (This Month)
#1 - Most Subscribed Channels (This Week)
#1 - Most Subscribed Channels (This Month)
#7 - Most Subscribed Channels (All Time)
He, I believe, is going to teach us that all of us are heroes and have the power to change our communities, ourselves, and, ultimately, the world
Social Networking
If there was a competition for internet buzzword of the year, then this year’s winner would probably be ‘social networking’. Briefly social networking (SN) is about using a variety of tools to connect to other individuals or groups. Recently SN sites have concentrated on ‘rich media’ tools by encouraging users to share their own content online, including blogs, photos, videos, music, and other digital files. This raises worries about the dangers associated with sharing personal information and online safety issues. Internet based SN sites are not new, but there has been an unprecedented response to them in the last year, with current figures for popular sites such as
MySpace (93,800,857 registered members) and
Bebo (22,000,000 registered members) rising daily. Alongside that increase have been several high-profile incidents relating to the safety of popular social networking sites. For example, a 14-year old girl is currently suing MySpace, alleging that she was sexually abused as the result of another user lying about his true identity. These incidents have raised questions regarding the measures that social networking sites take to protect users, specifically those who are under the age of 18. According to children's charity NCH,
a third of children use blogs and social networking sites (reported on
BBC Online ).
Jessi Hempel
writes in BusinessWeek Online. July 14, 2006:
"Friendster's Patent Possibilities
When Friendster gets a patent on social networking ( No. 7,069,308 ), it's a sign it has gone completely establishment […] How can one patent personal connections and contacts?"
anti-social networks legislationCongressman Fitzpatrick
proposed new legislation in the US Congress to amend the Communications Act 1934.
"to require recipients of universal service support for schools and libraries to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms.
33 Places to Hangout in the Social Networking Era
“Social networks have had giant growth spurts over the past couple of years, and it seems there's one for everyone: from dogs to moms to book-worms to shoppers. Social networks, I think, more than anything give people a place to belong and to hang out. Because of the drastic growth, popularity and craze these days, I created a list for people who have their odd MySpace or Bebo profiles but would like to seek further and discover new ones
Safety Tips for Social Networks- InternetSafetyZone ISZ is exploring several avenues including: a series of summer workshops aimed at identifying how children and young people aged 13-19 yrs make risk assessments about the disclosure of personal information based on their knowledge, use and understanding of web-based SN sites; a series of summer training days aimed at local and national educators/trainers; and a fact-finding exercise with leading industry, charity and government online safety practitioners
- BBC NEWS -- July 4 -- The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) will run a series of workshops in UK for parents, children and teachers. Ceop said it was concerned that children were posting personal details and said one in 12 children met up with someone encountered first online.
Cyberspace Research Unit local campaign
Here in the Cyberspace Research Unit at UCLAN we have a team of researchers with a range of expertise in teaching (children) and training (providers) in Internet safety. Indeed we are at present the UK node for the Home office/EU portal for Internet safety.
We host this UK website at
http://www.InternetSafetyZone.co.uk During the summer months we are planning a locally-based campaign in the Lancashire area about social networking technologies, aimed at both children and any interested groups that would have two strands. The first as a valuable educational tool; and the second, in publicising the information available on our site.
All of our presenters are fully CRB approved, and we would welcome the opportunity to visit and talk to anyone who wants to hear from us. So, f you (or any group or organisationat you know of) would be interested in a visit from the team here at CRU please let me know.
With kindest regards,
Denise
'You know you're lost in cyberspace'
I felt I identified with this post from superspace24:-
You know you're lost in cyberspace when...
1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 4.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.
6. You go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a business manner.
7. You make phone calls from home, you accidentally dial "9" to get an outside line.
8. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies.
10. You learn about your redundancy on the 11 o'clock news.
11. Your boss doesn't have the ability to do your job.
12. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home.
13. Every commercial on television has a website at the bottom of the screen.
14. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.
15. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your coffee.
16. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. :)
17. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.
18. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.
19. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.
20. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list AND NOW U R LOL at yourself.
I have to add one more...and this is true...
21. You are walking in the park with someone you met on the Internet and they call you 'dutypigeon'
Cyberspace Research
Apologies for the delay since my last post but I have started a new job at the
Cyberspace Research Unit at UCLAN and life has been a bit hectic – CRU are in the final stages of developing a site at
InternetSafetyZone in their capacity as the UK node of the 'Safer Internet Plan', (developed in partnership with the European Commission and the Public Awareness sub group of the Home Secretary's Internet Task Force on Child Protection).
"One of the main messages of this site is the importance of communication and cooperation between parents and children in ensuring and enhancing a family's cyber wellness. It is possible to create open lines of communication with children and young people and to discuss a variety of seemingly challenging Internet related topics, whilst maintaining mutual respect for one another's perspectives.
The issue of Cyber wellness is an interesting one:
"Cyberwellness is a holistic term which encompasses not only concerns around safety and security online, but also considers people's psychological and emotional well being, along with stage of development with specific regard to the range of issues that may affect children and young people in their use of new mobile and internet technologies.For children and young people this helping them to realise that when they use the internet and mobile technologies, they are sending, receiving and communicating in a public space. Cyberwellness is about learning the skills to use and communicate with these technologies properly, keeping safe and secure, learning how to publish, disclose and interpret sources of information online and how to respect other users.
My task, as an anthropologist, is to develop a qualitative strategy for evaluating the usability of the project’s website in addition to a more quantitative evaluation. So far I am catching up by reading all the project documentation – a happy task!!
First Days in My New Job
Well I have arrived at the University of central Lancashire in Preston - I had really forgotten the hassle it can be when you start a new job - not with the people - but with travelling, parking, eating, internet access etc. I am driving everyday from Liverpool to Preston (I know...I know...) and I am managing to get lost less often.
More on the job soon when I have found my feet.
