There’s some fascinating data in the latest Ofcom “UK Children’s media literacy” report, which gives an insight into the lives of children between the ages of 5 and 15. Rather than being a survey which lumps all children together, this report breaks down the data into three age ranges (5-7, 8-11 and 12-15), which roughly correlate to the English Key Stages 1-3. Which means that if you’re a primary school Key Stage 2 teacher, you can use it to understand a little more about the media and ICT use of your students at home.
If you’ve got a burning interest in this area, then you’ll probably want to read the full 84-page report (and appendix), but if it saves time, here’s some of the headline points for 8-11 year olds, and 12-15 year olds.
I’m sure that some of this will come in handy as you discuss parental engagement, and long-term ICT strategy planning – especially as things like the Home Access Programme work to narrow the gap for those who don’t have access to ICT at home.
Before the table of data, here’s my headlines:
A handy table of statistics for your next INSET/parents evening PowerPoint slides!
Overall
Primary 8-11 years old
Secondary 12-15 years old
Lower income households
82%
81%
85%
69%
Children who never use the Internet
1%
7%
Not available (n/a)
Children who only use the Internet at school
9%
n/a
Children who have Internet access in their bedroom
16%
12%
31%
13%
Children who access the Internet from their mobile phone
6%
3%
14%
Regular use of the Internet (almost daily)
54%
78%
Do schoolwork on the Internet at least once a week 1
60%
84%
Use a social network at least once a week 1
Hours per week watching TV 1
16 hours
17 hours
Hours per week using the Internet 1
9 hours
8 hours
14 hours
10 hours
Text messages sent a week
22
103
Internet control/filtering software in use at home 2
43%
49%
41%
1 These percentages are from those who have Internet/TV at home 2 The main reason quoted for those who don’t is that they trust their children to be sensible/responsible (70% in the case of 12-15’s). And only 14% didn’t know how to do it, or didn’t know it was possible.
1 These percentages are from those who have Internet/TV at home
2 The main reason quoted for those who don’t is that they trust their children to be sensible/responsible (70% in the case of 12-15’s). And only 14% didn’t know how to do it, or didn’t know it was possible.
The Ofcom report also asked children a series of questions about online activities, to find out the kinds of activities that they do:
% of children who have…
Setup on page/profile on social network Most popular are Facebook, Bebo, Club Penguin and MySpace
22%
70%
Uploaded photos
11%
53%
Created an avatar
27%
28%
Set up own website
5%
Created and uploaded a video
4%
Set up a blog
2%
15%
Signed an online petition
8%
It shows that in some areas they are creators of content, but the majority are still consumers when it comes to more media that takes more time to create, like videos or blogs.
I also wondered if anybody had done a similar survey of teachers, to find out the differences between students’ use of ICT and their teachers?
Read the full Ofcom report
It’s starting to seem like a soap opera series. I kicked off with the “What’s new in PowerPoint 2010 for teachers” video on Tuesday, and then Ben Nunney contributed “OneNote 2010 for teachers and students”.
Now, for Word 2010, it’s Mark A’Bear’s turn (those of you who know some of the team will now Mark who’s like the wise old owl of the team – a vast store of knowledge and not likely to create a fuss. Unfortunately Mark’s also got an odd sense of very dry humour – which is often aimed at me in the Office. You’ll see what I mean!)
His run through looks very quickly at some of the new things in Word 2010, which teachers will find useful when preparing classroom materials for students.
A Quick Look at Word 2010
PS If you like Mark’s sense of humour, then you’ll be glad to know that he’s doing at least three of the demonstrations at the Fun, Free Friday for Schools event in Reading on 11th June.
Seems to be all about competitions today. Although this one is sponsored by Microsoft in Europe, it’s taken a few weeks for news of it to cross the Channel, so sorry for the delay!
If you’re teaching ICT, then you may have some students who are interested in this competition run by European Schoolnet. It’s an international competition open to all schools in Europe. It’s been running since mid-March, but I’ve only just heard about it – but there’s still just over 3 weeks left to enter. As European Schoolnet say:
Have you ever wanted to test your skills and creativity by building your own software add-on? Are you tempted to customise or improve the functionality of existing programs, create a macro that can be shared with others, or simply have some fun with technology?
Now is your big chance and you can win big prizes for your efforts!
The competition website has a range of resources to help prepare entries (which might make useful curriculum resources even if you’re not entering).
The winners will receive a trip to a “mysterious European city”, and there’s cash prices of €500, €400 and €300 for the winners and runners up (and their schools). With today’s exchange rate, those prizes are even more valuable!
Go the the eSkills competition website
The 4th annual Make IT Happy competition, with a theme of “Get your community online”, is run by the Parliamentary IT Committee and e-skills UK.
It is open to primary schools who have run an innovative, community focused IT project created by 9-11 year olds. You can enter a project your school is already involved in or has been involved in recently, or start a new project specifically for the Make IT Happy competition. Oh, and there are cash prizes for the winning schools at regional and national level.
The nice thing about this competition is that it doesn’t involve filling out lots of forms, but instead the pupils create the entry:
• A podcast • A video • Animation • A radio show • A website • A radio ad
You can find out more about the competition on the Make IT Happy website
As I said yesterday, I’ve roped in a few colleagues to record short demos of the Office 2010 programmes. Ben Nunney pulled out OneNote 2010 from the random draw, and he immediately set off into a curriculum-led world of research and physics. Given that Ben’s an ex-secondary school teacher, I had no doubt that he’d get this sorted quickly, and it puts my PowerPoint demo from yesterday into the shade (as usual). And he managed to get a nice succinct summary of it all within a short 3 minute video.
Using OneNote for revision
We’ve just opened the web booking page for the Fun Free Friday for Schools event. It’s free, and what’s more every product we’ll be demonstrating will be free too – so spending a day with us will hopefully save you even more money.
Find out more, and book your free place
My colleagues, Kristen Weatherby and Stuart Ball, run our UK Partners in Learning programme – a partnership between Microsoft and the education departments in England, Wales and Scotland. Similar programmes run in 110 countries, with their governments, so it is truly a global activity. It’s all about supporting teachers to use ICT in their teaching – which is perhaps now the single biggest gap in the development of ICT in schools in the UK.
Each year, there is a worldwide competition to find teachers who are shining examples of best practice, who have to win a national competition, followed by a regional competition, to get into the world final.
This year, 4 UK winners went through to the European competition, held in Berlin just before Easter. And two of them won awards at European level.
For a really good overview of the winners, read Jack Kenny’s article about the winners and how they developed their projects.
They now get to present their projects at the Worldwide Innovative Educators Forum being held in South Africa later this year (and we’ll continue to have our fingers crossed for a UK worldwide winner again, like last year!)
If you want to know how a teacher in your school can get involved with the Partners in Learning network, and enter the competition next year, then send them over to Kristen and Stuart’s Teachers blog
Read our Teachers blog for more information on the Partners in Learning programme
Now that Office 2010 is so close to the release date, I thought it would be a good time to start sharing a little bit more about the improvements and changes that are most relevant to education. Of course, there’s a pile of written fact sheets and guides – which I’ll share soon – but I thought you might like to actually see it in action. So I’ve roped in a few colleagues to record short demos of the bits they think are most likely to appeal to teachers.
I think I struck lucky in the random draw, as I had to make a video of PowerPoint 2010. Here’s my video – eight and half minutes to try and whizz across some of the key new bits.
A brief look at what's new for teachers in PowerPoint 2010
This is the first time I’ve ever tried to record something like this, and it was very tricky. My first attempt was 20 minutes long, and the second attempt had more “Ums” than you’d believe. This version is attempt number 3. As my wife once said to me “You’ve got a face made for radio, and a voice made for writing”. Judge for yourself!
Whoops – I’ve just realised that I’ve been asking people to email last year’s intern to get free sets of Office posters for their classroom. That explains why the stock hasn’t been going down (especially as plenty of people had ended up on the site after Googling “Free classroom posters”). It’s now been corrected, so if you want to get hold of a set of 8 classroom posters for Office 2007, then you can email Mir Baloch directly (this year’s intern!) to ask for a free set to be posted to you.
Find out more and order the free classroom poster set
ps We are hoping to get some Office 2010 posters shortly – I’ll update you when they’re available
We're running a free Microsoft "Fun, Free Friday for Schools" at the Microsoft Campus in Reading on 11th June 2010.
A lively Q&A after the second Microsoft briefing at the NAACE Conference in Blackpool has led to the Microsoft UK team running a free event for schools on the 11th June 2010, called “Fun Free Friday”. It’s for any staff working with and within schools, so that they can find out all about the free software and resources that Microsoft produces that support teaching and learning.
The agenda for the event runs from 9:30am to 2:30pm with breaks to catch up with colleagues from other schools, and chat with Microsoft staff.
It’s for any staff working with and within schools, so that they can find out all about the free software and resources that Microsoft produce that support teaching and learning.
It will be a fast-paced and fun event, with 3½ hours of rapid demonstrations, featuring a dozen presenters and lots of different free Microsoft software programmes that schools can download and start using in the classroom, school office or IT suite.
Fast paced demonstrations To keep the pace moving rapidly, no demonstration will last more than 15 minutes, and although it won’t be a PowerPoint-free zone, we’ll keep to a limit of a maximum of 2 PowerPoint slides per presenter! Free software for every attendee During the day we will be demonstrating at least 20 pieces of software that can help you to deliver teaching and learning, and absolutely every single one will be free for you to download. Save money with Microsoft We know that you’d like to do more with ICT, but that budgets are tight. That’s exactly why we’re putting on this event – to give you inspiration and ideas to take back to share with everybody in your school. Ideas that will appeal to teachers, IT Co-ordinators and the senior leadership team.
Fast paced demonstrations
To keep the pace moving rapidly, no demonstration will last more than 15 minutes, and although it won’t be a PowerPoint-free zone, we’ll keep to a limit of a maximum of 2 PowerPoint slides per presenter!
Free software for every attendee
During the day we will be demonstrating at least 20 pieces of software that can help you to deliver teaching and learning, and absolutely every single one will be free for you to download.
Save money with Microsoft
We know that you’d like to do more with ICT, but that budgets are tight. That’s exactly why we’re putting on this event – to give you inspiration and ideas to take back to share with everybody in your school. Ideas that will appeal to teachers, IT Co-ordinators and the senior leadership team.
This free event is for advisors, classroom teachers, IT specialists, and school leadership teams. We’ve scheduled this event for the summer term 2010, in time for planning for next academic year.
Here’s the detailed timing of the day, so that you can plan your trip.
9:30 Registration 10:00 Morning sessions 12:00 Lunch and networking 13:00 Afternoon sessions 14:30 Close
9:30 Registration
10:00 Morning sessions
12:00 Lunch and networking
13:00 Afternoon sessions
14:30 Close
We won’t issue an itemised agenda, but some of the products you can expect to see on the day include SkyDrive, Windows Live Movie Maker, Windows Live PhotoGallery, Bing Maps, Photosynth, Pivot, XNA Game Studio, Visual Studio Express, Chemistry Word Add-In, Flashcards, Autocollage, Songsmith, Worldwide Telescope, Windows Live Writer, Maths Worksheet Generator, Office Moodle Add-In, Office Web Apps, Office Ribbon Hero, Bing Search, Microsoft Security Essentials, DeepZoom, Live Sync, Kodu, Digital Storytelling Curriculum Guides, Mouse Mischief, DreamSpark, Microsoft Robotics Studio, Live Family Safety Settings, Microsoft Digital Literacy Curriculum, Windows Live Translator, IE8 Accelerators, PhotoStory 3, Community Clips, Virtual Earth, pptPlex and Live@edu.
And continuing the free theme: if you arrive by public transport, there’s even a free bus from Reading Station to the Microsoft offices.
Book your free place now