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Neža Zidanič

Social networking: teachers blame Facebook and Twitter for pupils' poor grades - Telegraph - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...er-for-pupils-poor-grades.html

education twitter facebook socialnetworking school teachers

shared by Neža Zidanič on 08 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Teachers believe social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are to blame for pupils' poor grades, a study has concluded.
  • Seven in 10 British teachers believe children are becoming more and more obsessed with websites such as Facebook  By Andy Bloxham 10:38AM GMT 18 Nov 2010
  • This research clearly demonstrates that students up and down the country are spending more and more time using social media.
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  • "Rather than relying on life experiences, educational travel and face to face interaction with others, children are becoming obsessed with social networking and this is shaping their attitudes instead.
  • The report concludes that the children with the poorest grades at school are the ones who spent most time on social networking.
  • Seven in 10 British teachers believe children are becoming more and more obsessed with websites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.
  • Half of the 500 teachers polled believe this fixation is affecting the children's ability to concentrate in class.
  • 'They enjoy using this tool but there is a danger that these virtual interactions filter out problematic or emotional issues, which in real life, support social and emotional development. ''Social networking has become so much the norm, for adults and children alike, that non-participation can result in feeling excluded or even socially ostracised. ''The time invested in social media versus real life interpersonal interaction can detract from that available for real human contact and contribute to delayed and/or distorted social and emotional development.''
  • It is also claimed that children who are online at every available opportunity are less willing to communicate with adults.
  • ''Currently there is little empirical research and related guidance on how to integrate social media into school-based learning, although I am aware that many teachers are grappling with this challenge in their day to day practice and some are managing to use this new media very constructively.
donnamariee

Technology in schools: saving money with cloud, open source and consortia | Teacher Net... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...vings-school-cloud-open-source

shared by donnamariee on 01 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • largest elements of a school's budget,
  • with the role of technology as a teaching tool and in society at large growing all the time, the trick is delivering savings without damaging pupils' education or putting them at a disadvantage in the world outside school.
  • open source software,
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  • The change is saving around £3,000 a year in licensing costs, according to the schools' ICT manager Phil Jones.
  • The school has also moved to open source for its virtual learning environment (VLE), now run through Moodle.
  • While open source has brought benefits in terms of flexibility, there is no doubt that the reduced cost is a major attraction, however. "ICT is always a big drain on a school budget, and any way we can save money is a massive help,"
  • Open source is also one of the solutions adopted at Notre Dame High in Sheffield, where it is used for email and management systems, as well as the school's VLE, again on Moodle. One of the advantages of open source is its flexibility, but this is only appealing if the school has the technical know-how to tweak it according to its needs
  • Changes in the educational landscape, such as the emergence and growth of federations, academy chains and clusters of headteachers working together, may resolve this in the future, but in the meantime the benefits of the external support that come from a proprietorial system may outweigh the savings of free software
  • "One of the risks is schools that go very heavily into open source end up with a system that is so bespoke only the school's technical manager can understand it
  • Technology in schools: saving money with cloud, open source and consortia
donnamariee

Better Policy Through Better Information | John O. McGinnis | Cato Unbound - 0 views

www.cato-unbound.org/...icy-through-better-information

shared by donnamariee on 20 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Can Internet activism work?
  • is importantly correct that the Internet can help redress the balance between special and more encompassing interests by reducing the cost of accessing information. Such reduction redounds to the advantage of diffuse groups more than concentrated groups because reduced costs can temper the former groups’ larger problems of coordination.
  • earing that more information may enable citizens to better organize to attack their privileges, they have tried to restrict emerging technologies of free communication as long as these technologies have been around.
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  • In a democratic state like ours, the primary interest groups are not authoritarian cliques, but private actors, like public sector unions and trade associations, which have the leverage to pressure politicians to use public power on their behalf. And, like authoritarian leaders, such groups are desperate to avoid transparency to retain their benefits. A case in point is the opposition of teachers' unions to publishing evaluations of schools and teachers on the Internet. And many interest groups have tried to prevent laws requiring Internet disclosure of campaign contributions.
  • Yet the results of policies are contestable. And it is often hard for citizens who are distracted by many enterprises more interesting than politics to find good information about policies' likely outcomes. Most people also have a better intuitive sense of how policies will affect their short-term interests than the long-term interests of society, even if the long-term effects may be of great personal as well as social benefit.
  • The Internet provides an important mechanism of such social discovery. Because of the greater space and interconnections that the Internet makes available, web-based media, like blogs, can be dispersed and specialized and yet connected with the wider world. As a result of this more decentralized and competitive media, the web generates both more innovative policy ideas and better explanations of policy than were available when mainstream media dominated the flow of political discussion.
  • In short, over time the Internet and allied aspects of the computational revolution can create more focused and more accurate knowledge about the consequences of social policies. This knowledge in turn can help more citizens focus more on what they have in common—their shared goals and policies that may achieve them—rather than on the unsupported intuitions or personal circumstances that may divide them. Of course, some citizens will remain ideologues, impervious to updating on the facts. But democracy moves by changing the middle, not the extremes. Like other mechanisms that increase common knowledge, the Internet can give wing to the better angels of our nature.
  • donnamariee on 20 Mar 13
     
    essaytheme 
Jernej Prodnik

Amazon 'used neo-Nazi guards to keep immigrant workforce under control' in Germany - Eu... - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...ontrol-in-germany-8495843.html

amazon political economy of communication political economy of the internet labour conditions labour work

shared by Jernej Prodnik on 24 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Amazon 'used neo-Nazi guards to keep immigrant workforce under control' in Germany Internet giant investigates abuse claims by foreign workers in its German warehouses Tony Paterson Berlin
  • Amazon is at the centre of a deepening scandal in Germany as the online shopping giant faced claims that it employed security guards with neo-Nazi connections to intimidate its foreign workers. Germany’s ARD television channel made the allegations in a documentary about Amazon’s treatment of more than 5,000 temporary staff from across Europe to work at its German packing and distribution centres.The film showed omnipresent guards from a company named HESS Security wearing black uniforms, boots and with military haircuts. They were employed to keep order at hostels and budget hotels where foreign workers stayed. “Many of the workers are afraid,” the programme-makers said.The documentary provided photographic evidence showing that guards regularly searched the bedrooms and kitchens of foreign staff. “They tell us they are the police here,” a Spanish woman complained. Workers were  allegedly frisked to check they had not walked away with breakfast rolls.
  • Another worker called Maria said she was thrown out of the cramped chalet she shared with five others  because she had dried her wet clothes on a wall heater. She said she was confronted by a muscular, tattooed security man and told to leave. The guards then shone car headlights at her in her chalet while she packed in an apparent attempt to intimidate her.Several guards were shown wearing Thor Steinar clothing – a Berlin-based designer brand synonymous with the far-right in Germany. The Bundesliga football association and the federal parliament have both banned the label because of its neo-Nazi associations. Ironically, Amazon stopped selling the clothing for the same reasons in 2009.ARD suggested that the name “HESS Security” was an allusion to Adolf Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess. It alleged that its director was a man, named only as Uwe L, who associated with football hooligans and convicted neo-Nazis who were known to police. The programme-makers, who booked in at one of the budget hotels where Amazon staff were housed, said they were arrested by HESS Security guards after being caught using cameras. They were ordered to hand over their film and, when they refused, were held for nearly an hour before police arrived and freed them. The film showed HESS guards scuffling with the camera crew and trying to cover their lenses.
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  • ARD said Amazon’s temporary staff worked eight-hour shifts packing goods at the company’s logistics centres in Bad Hersfeld, Konstanz and Augsburg. Many walked up to 17 kilometres per shift and all those taken on could be fired at will. On arrival in Germany, most were told their pay had been cut to below the rate promised when they applied for jobs at Amazon.  “They don’t see any way of complaining,” said Heiner Reimann, a spokesman for the United Services Union (Ver.di). “They are all too frightened of being sent home without a job.”Silvina, a Spanish mother of three in her 50s, who lost her job as an art teacher, was featured in the film. She applied for three months’ work with Amazon to earn some badly needed cash. “It’s like being in a machine and we are just a small part in this machine,” she told the programme.HESS Security did not respond to the allegations made by ARD.Amazon employs 7,700 full-time staff at seven distrubution centres in Germany. The accusations led to the company’s Facebook site being inundated with angry complaints.The company said: “Although the security firm was not contracted by Amazon we are, of course, currently examining the allegations concerning the behaviour of security guards and will take the appropriate measures immediately. We do not tolerate discrimination or intimidation.”
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