Ofcom’s Media Literacy e-bulletin – September

The September edition of Ofcom’s e-bulletin has just been published.

Selected features:

  • NIACE’s analysis of the Digital Britain Report
  • Futurelab call for ideas (for new ways of learning)
  • Media Literacy teacher training resources from the Media Education Association
  • Young people want advice about online privacy
  • Northern Ireland – WIMPS mobile launched (Where is My Public Servant)
  • European Media Literacy Conference – 21 to 24 October

The full e-bulletin can be accessed on the Ofcom website.

Also, Martha Lane Fox, Champion for Digital Inclusion, will be launching ‘Race Online for 2012’ week commencing 12 October.  This is a challenge to get disadvantaged people online in time f or the Olympics.  Follow her on twitter for the latest on this and other news.

Lord Carter speaking on his Digital Britain report

Here are two youtube videos of Lord Carter speaking on his Digital Britian report.  There are six in total on youtube.

A users guide to Digital Britain

Increasing online participation

Digital Inclusion Statistics

This is a presentation delivered by Helen Milner to the National Digital Inclusion Conference in London on the 27 April 2009.  The slides contain a number of key statistics on the digital divide in the UK which you may find useful.

Facebook Breaks for Staff!

Employment lawyers believe that staff should receive social networking breaks to address productivity losses.  This is an issue that is only going to increase in the future given the popularity of social media.

Organisations are taking different approaches depending on their work environment, but some sort of break may be a positive move.  Either way it’s one for the Acceptable Use Policy!

Read more …

Web 2.0 in teaching and learning

Web 2.0 and social media are everywhere on the internet and the idea of sharing and collaborating now seems to be the norm.  We know it is used extensively by media literate internet users; is constantly in the news; and has all sizes of organisations scrambling to embrace it as a means of connecting with their clients and customers.

One area of particular interest, to this blog, is web 2.0 and social media within learning.  In a previous post I had drawn your attention to its use within the classroom and last week a colleague of mine discovered the work of John Larkin.  He has created a great resource on Web 2.0 in teaching and learning that could form the basis of many workshops in the classroom.

“John Larkin is an educator and instructional designer presently living in Australia. He has a rich experience in the development and application of educational technologies in primary, secondary, tertiary and corporate educational fields.
About John

One of the benefits of John’s work is that he has made it available under a Creative Commons licence (some rights reserved) so others can share it.  If you believe his work will be of benefit to you it may be worth sending him a quick email.

10 Rules for Social Media in Corporate Communication

The Quadriga University of Applied Sciences are organising a conference in Amsterdam on the 22/23 Oct on Web 2.0 and social media.  The conference entitled ‘Online Communication: Decoding the Digital Revolution – Trends and Tools in Corporate Communication’ will showcase the necessary toolkit to deal with online communication methods and social media.

Probably most of us will not be fortunate enough to attend what appears to be a very good conference but we can benefit from the 10 rules for social media they have made available on the conference website along with the agenda etc.

I’ve summarised these below but would encourage you to read them in full on their website.

1-Question
… before you do engage in Social Media, make sure to question every step and tool at least twice and make sure one of those is through the glass of prospective users.

2-Prepare
Deal with your issues before engaging in online conversations, prepare your answers to difficult questions and make sure to train all of your employees who will be entering the Web 2.0 world in your company’s name in these same issues.

3-Plan
… it is important to have a strategy that you can refer to, and pre-defined goals that can help you decide, at any given moment, which action (including non-action) would be most effective.

4-Monitor
The fact that you … have only decided to go for a blog … does not mean that you don’t have to monitor all other Social Media websites.

5-Be authentic
Participation in Social Media requires you to make the best out of your social skills and, even if you are doing for your company, spice it up with a bit of the real you.

6-Dont be all 1.0 about it
If you don’t have the time to read what others are writing, react, reply and link relevant content, then you are not engaging in a conversation, you are just wasting your time.

7-React /Don’t React
… being a part of a conversation does not mean you have to react every single time.

8-Kiss and Tell
Links and recommendations are the currency in social media. But be a wise linker: if you link to everything, your readers will stop following your links, rendering them worthless.

9-Be coherent
The goals of your social media strategy must match the goals of your overall communication strategy, both internally and externally.

10-Evaluate
Finally, keep evaluating how you are doing.

Embracing social media is clearly something many companies recognise as very important and therefore wish to adopt the correct approach before they start conversations with their customers.  It is therefore in everyone’s interest that more people (and potential customers) become media literate.

Can social media help you find a job?

The City University London thinks it can: Using social media to find a job.

The article features Linkedin, a professional orientated social network for making contacts etc, and using Twitter for job hunting.

If you’re not familiar with Linkedin take a few minutes to watch this video by Commoncraft.

Event: Tackling Social Exclusion Through Technology

A digitial inclusion event, titled Delivering Digital Inclusion: Tackling Social Exclusion Through Technology, is being held in London on the 9th December (9am – 4.30pm).

The event will enable discussion on a wide range of areas and is influenced by Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report and the government’s ongoing digital agenda.  Martha Lane Fox, the government’s Digital Inclusion Champion, has been invited as the keynote speaker.

For more details and an early agenda visit the event home page at insidegovernment.

UK’s Digital Inclusion Champion: Martha Lane Fox

Martha Lane Fox is the UK Government’s Digital Inclusion Champion and has been tasked with getting as many of the 17 million people who are not online to use the internet by the time of the Olympics in 2012.  She is especially interested on focusing on the 6 million who cannot afford internet access.

She hopes to achieve this by encouraging people to help others get online and through drawing on public and private schemes already up and running around the UK.

In a recent blog post entitled ‘My mission – Digital Inclusion‘ she has stated:

“Most of us strive to live in a more equal society and I strongly believe that digital skills are now part of creating equality.”

“With good peer to peer training and mentoring and with more mainstream stories of the transformative effects of technology that help to bring the computer alive I think the UK has the chance to become a real digital leader and close the dangerous digital divide once and for all.”

Referring to the 17m people in the UK  who are not online and of those the 6m who are socially and economically vulnerable she believes:

“… that by not taking action to help this group learn about the web, we are rapidly creating a sub class of people who are unable to have the same choices in their lives as those who are web literate.”

You can follow her progress at these online spaces:

Related Reading:

Ofcom Poll: What do you think of blogs?

Ofcom are currently running a poll to capture your view on blogging. (What is blogging?)

The Poll Question: What do you think of blogs? Are they:

  • The way forward for journalism
  • Hit and miss – some are great, some less so
  • Self-opinionated, amateurish twaddle

To vote, you can find the poll on the lower right hand column of the Ofcom home page.

So far journalism is in the lead with 50% of the vote.

Previous polls include: (Ofcom poll archive)

  • How do you get your breaking news?  “News Websites” – 39% of the vote
  • When was TV’s golden age?  “The 80s” – 29% of the vote
  • Which communication service could you not live without?  “Internet” – 62% of the vote

Clearly digital participantion is becoming very important in our lives.