GrumbleDook

I have nothing to declare ... except my [insert comment] Hopefully it will clean up a number of areas.

So you are stating that this, and any reports that it pulls from (and I am presuming that you are referring to the reports from Tanya Byron) have no research background and no peer review? Can you qualify how you are able to make that statement? Presuming you will follow the established methods for doing so... Can you also clarify who you would expect the peers to be when reviewing such reports?

You say you know the document not to be research, but then say it has to adhere to those standards? This report pulls in research from the previous reports yet these are not admissible to you? Are you questioning the previous research that formed the basis of such reports? Really struggling to see your point on this.

Diablo III for my occasional foray into the hack and slash world ... not going back to WoW ... nor other similar ... not until the little ones grow up a lot more and I get a life!

You are saying that published guidance by a Govt body should show you all the behind the scenes working on it? Every person that reviewed, fed back, argued, etc? It is not published by an un-named person. It is not a research paper. It is a Govt document based on their guidance and instruction. They have shown how they have gathered it and why they had done it. Please do not mistake this for academic research. Also, do not mistake academic research for publications that are always peer-reviewed and/or are free of bias. People have said that this report is too blue skies? I think expecting academic research to be free of bias would fall under that too.

Address a range of points in this post, not just the above statement. The document references 3 reports, one from OFSTED and 2 from Prof Tanya Bryon ... all three of those reports have a body of other materials behind them which is both extensive and has stood up to a lot of discussion in the past. Before anyone goes on about the categories and how they are used, these are pretty similar to previous recommendations from the NEN, and those (and I gather these) have been part of discussions with the main filtering providers out there. Yes, there is the emphasis on education of learners rather than purely relying on a walled garden or avoiding risk completely. Yes, that will fly in the face from advice from folk like Dr Brian Bandey who is a strong advocate of ensure ALARP at *all* times. Yes, this does mean that more responsibility has to be taken on by the school and classroom teachers for classroom management. It clearly states the risk ... Unless there is a full programme of support and guidance for senior leaders, governors, teachers and education staff around safe and responsible use of the internet for themselves and for their students, schools will still be reluctant to engage with social media technologies and the wider teaching and learning opportunities presented on the web. The Welsh Government recognises that there is a challenge for local authorities to deliver the proposed standards and for some schools in embracing the full range of opportunities offered if the standards are adopted. It is expected that the categories identified in this document will change over time and it is therefore vital that these standards are reviewed with stakeholders annually to ensure they continue to be fit for purpose. And I don't think they differ that much to anything anyone else has previously said around this. They are not saying things are perfect ... they are saying that this is work in progress and it is based on a lot of investigations from a range of folk including friends at SWGfL, Estyn and those dealing with curriculum change. The report reads very similar to materials that used to come from Becta and perhaps people are not used to being advised anymore. There is the odd category that I would query but I can understand why each has been recommended as it has ... Personally ... it is a good report and well done to those involve for actually getting something out there ... even if it is just to spark of the discussions and thought processes again.

You missed out Manglement We cannot give you the details of this category as we have yet to receive authorisation from manglement about their present status. They are putting together a working group on this. No work will be done but there is the hope that it will result in a significant serious of questions that can then be raised to a committee. Another working group will have to establish whether that the committee is needed and should they decide it (the committee) is not then a committee will be raised to look at why the original working group had raised questions that did not need a committee to answer them. Should the originally proposed committee be established it may or may not contain people who would be in the second committee, which would have looked at why the original committee was not formed. At no point should anyone presume that just because the members of the proposed committee and the members of the committee looking into the failed proposal to raise the original committee are the same people, that they would presume that they are the same committees. They are not ... and if people are still confused we will need to raise a working group to look for the correct questions to raise to a committee to see why people fail to understand this simple exercise in Manglement.

Considering the time it takes to do a migration will mean that the site has to go down ... and then dealing with any migration issues ... Still, could be worse ... could be back with DragonflyCMS.

They have to cough up. We have a particular font we use for the Welsh Government ... we have to get the licence for it ourselves. How they recharge that back to you is their business though.

Ooohhh yes ... Lease not loan. When running Laptop schemes it was not unknown for some schools to providing a HP scheme for parents to buy. There were ways round this, such as the parents being able to purchase 'refurbished' kit from the lease company as write down of assets, where the kit was the original laptop (some providers did make it a refurbished unit though). It is an interesting area so make sure you get advice to show that the scheme is both legal and ethical. Leasing is a good way of spreading payments, and on some deals it can work out cheaper (e.g. the additional cost of the lease is less than the interest you get from retaining the capital in the bank as 'surplus') ... a good Business Manager will be aware of these tricks.

To some extent, if it ends up as TFI Friday with cars then it will get me watching again. I haven't bothered with the last 2 series of TG as the humour has been spoilt by the attitudes and language used. It is one thing to be a comedian who pushes the boundaries because they they are testing the audiences' limits ... But those 3 just got to be schoolboy style offensive. Getting Guy would be a treat, but Chris already has lots of connections in the car world. Just have to trust him to bring the right people in. As a TYG/TOG I can say he has done the right thing with the radio 2 breakfast slot.

Really, I thought we were more advanced that that. I thought things had moved from the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers to IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service

Ok, a few things we can assume. 1 - in all probability, the finger printer reader that is usually attached to catering payment points (i.e. tills) is set as a reader ... it scans the finger, sends the noted string to the system and asks is there a match. If this child had refused the request to provide a sample finger print to allow the system to identify them ... the reader would pretty much go, "Computer says no!", so there isn't any agenda of the dinner lady trying to forcibly take a fingerprint and put it on the system. 2 - if the parents are that bothered by the dinner lady then contacting the police and pressing for a charge of assault could have been done ... It doesn't appear to have been so we might want to take some of the story with a pinch of salt from that side. Having seen colleagues being accused of assault and seeing what actually happened ... I know that perspective changes quite a lot depending on who you are talking to. 3 - Yes, the child and parents have a right to refuse the request ... and remember, it is just that, a request. The phrasing from the child, the parent and the journalist is antagonistic, sensationalist and almost worthy of the Daily Fail or a Panorama investigation into the use of Tiddlywinks in schools. And I wonder if the dear child has their biometrics scanned elsewhere and is happy to share a mountain of personal data all over the internet and with global corporations, but is scared that a school will be targeted to help provide police with evidence if a warrant is produced to access data? Remember that a warrant has to be justifiable, has to have a significant chance of gaining evidence that can be used to obtain a successful prosecution and if repeated requests for warrants are made which do not result in solid evidence then it is not unknown for warrants to be refused. As much as you can't waste the Police's time, they cannot waste a Judge's time either.

Resistance is Futile!

Found it ... http://www.edugeek.net/forums/general-edugeek-news-announcements/4171-edugeek-south-conference.html So, it was Corby, Rochdale, Camden, Corby, Chorley / Preston ad infinitum! (with the occasional workshop ... TaskIT, Microsoft, Becta, etc)

Not really ... the dates are correct but we are missing the entry for the Camden CLC one ... some of the materials were hosted on the old EG platform, some on EMBC flusters, some on RussDev's site ... all with the intention of combining at some point.

Oh yes ... Debbie ... She was asked to talk about IT professionals being recognised for being professionals and it was taken as an attack on everything from attire to accent. It was actually a number of points about how we have to conform to what everyone else thinks if normal to even start being accepted as professionals ... and once that is there it removes a barrier that some SLT and Teachers had/have about folk doing IT, making them more likely to listen to what you are saying and even praise the direction you are going in. This was based on recent surveys of SLT in schools deemed successful for IT and those struggling. Or was it that she just called you scum? ;-)

Must have been the 4th one ... I thought the Rochdale one was after Camden ... but possibly not. Corby, Rochdale, Camden, Corby or Corby, Camden, Rochdale, Corby ... Anyone else remember? Colin Small (can't find his EG handle) ?

and I pretended to drop it IIRC :-) {quick edit} It was the 3rd conference IIRC ... the first one was in Corby, the second was hosted by Colin Small in Camden, then back to Corby, before starting them rest off up north! Now, that wasn't me! You mean this one? https://www.facebook.com/edugeek.net/photos/a.10155700823125105.1073741840.257758620104/10155700823165105/?type=3&theater ... yes ... we all know who to blame for that! Oh yes ... the rabid person who threatened me, you, Chris and every user who posted on a thread with being sued ... and since he was in the process of suing Jim Gamble he was happy to add more people on to the list! I *had* to be suited and booted ... school policy.

ART!!! Now there was a guy who could shake Moodle about. Yes, those early days at BETT and conferences were rough and ready, with all sorts of folk pitching in. One day, when I have a few hours spare (and not when I am waiting for software to update so I can get back to work) I will try to list everyone who helped out in the beginning. A few weeks ago I even found a copy of the schedule for the first conference (kindly produced by @russdev, IIRC) where some of the prizes where donated by O'Reilly!

Yep, and I am looking forward to the new version of EG so that I can delve into the National Archives and retrieve as much of the relevant stuff that is still available to be reused under Open Government Licence.

There have been a number of good forums and groups over the years and they tend to drift off for a few reasons. 1- They were set up for one purpose alone and once that had been fulfilled, or replaced with a different purpose, then the group drifted away. To be honest, this can be a good thing or bad thing. A group is set up to do a task, works on it, produces something as a report or output and then the group is archived. The downside is that not a lot of archiving happened, even on things like the Becta forums. We have lost a lot of good conversations as a result. 2 - The person setting it up is doing it on their own as they have seen a possible gap, but there isn't enough of a groundswell to sustain it and so you rely on one person driving. Sometimes they don't let others play either ... So we *all* have to be very thankful that @Dos_Box not only let others play ... He has encouraged it. 3 - The person driving moves on. There have been a number of good groups out there where the person hosting and driving things has had to pull the plug due to their existing employer or a new employer. ICTTechnician.com was one example, where the owner went to work for Becta so had to toe the line to some extent, and where other 'active' members have had to scale back involvement due to work commitments or pressure. Because EduGeek is scaled very well it can lose key people and adapt ... because @Dos_Box has allowed it to grow that way. Just think, in 10 years we could be talking about that search engine thing, Google, and wondering what happened to it.

The music service worries me a bit, as I can see them ditching iTunes Music Match ... A very handy service even if it does muck up assigning things as audiobooks. You make an audiobook in GarageBand, export to iTunes and it is a music track. You are left unable to changed the type to an audiobook so it is the right area. You have to turn off iTMM to do it and if iTunes has already uploaded it then when you turn iTMM back on it changes the audiobook back to a music track. Frustrating, and the 3 support calls on it have eventually resulted in being shipped between the GarageBand team, the iTunes team and the iTunes Store team. Eventually one of the customer service team (I'd complained about the rudeness and arrogance of the last iTunes Store support 'manager' I spoke with .... A story for another day) did a bit of research, even spoke to an ADE, and came back with a little programme he had found that allows you to package mp3s as iTunes compatible audiobooks. It means they don't get upload to the iTMM service, but I am happy with that anyway. Now I can see that the iTMM service will go because a) I am sure that the revenue is not that big, b) the music industry would be happier with royalties from a streaming, subscription service where all tracks are treated equally and c) it gets rid of pirated, poor-quality tracks being changed to high qualities, DRM free tracks.

Mainly interest for performance improvements and improvements to search

Following on from @elsiegee40 , I joined a few weeks after EG started ... mainly because one of the newsgroups went very quiet ... turns out that some of the techie regulars had started to investigate a new forum. I think it was @Roberto that pointed me over here ... And the first person I spotted was @russdev. How did everyone else discover EG?