How can you use digital tools for education?

• Who is this post for? Anyone who teaches kids, be they teachers or parents helping with homework
• What does it discuss? How to use Twitter, Pinterest etc in an educational environment
• How does it benefit you? See digital tools through kids’ eyes and in a positive light

I’d been looking for some inspiration on how to utilise some of our most commonly used tools in an educational environment and stumbled across what look like a couple of very useful resources. They are both US-based but that’s irrelevant (though if anyone can point us in the direction of similar resources in the UK we’d love to shout about them).

The first is a series of guides from Edudemic that you can read online and give fantastic sets of advice in the form of infographics, terminology, how to become an authority on the subject, tips for use, rules etc. We’re very impressed on first reading, especially as the advice is free. You can read all the guides here

The second is a paid resource but looks pretty comprehensive from where we are sitting as Jennifer Gonzalez, author of the rather wonderful site Cult of Pedagogy, has produced a 210-page Teacher’s Guide to Tech, described in her own words as “a digital binder, a 210-page interactive PDF that you can store on your home computer, work computer, even on a tablet or smartphone. It contains clear descriptions of over 100 tech tools (almost all of them free), divided into 30 categories, with links to over 100 videos showing how the tools work, practical ideas for using each tool in the classroom, a glossary of over 80 tech terms, and a clickable table of contents and index that help you navigate through the binder with ease“. Helpfully the resource is updated as new tools come to be widely adopted.

Do let us know what digital tools you have found useful from an educational perspective or ask us if you’d like any particular aspect of education looked at.

How to boost your home Wi-Fi connection

• Who is this post for? Anyone with Wi-Fi at home
• What does it discuss? A short video giving you tips to boost strength of connection
• How does it benefit you? No more slow-loading pages and videos!

I live in a small rural village, in a small 3-floor house. There’s no 3G or 4G phone signal available and there’s no high-speed broadband available either. Therefore it’s vitally important that our Wi-Fi connection is maximised all over the house. I already have a booster on the top floor as the router is on the ground floor. This and other tips for boosting your Wi-Fi strength, including a very handy Blue-Peter style trick with some cardboard and tin-foil, are included in this useful, brief video:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34848853/embed

 

 

Should we support the building of wind turbines?

• Who is this post for? Everyone
• What does it discuss? The potential of wind power to meet our energy demands
• How does it benefit you? Fresh perspective on an issue that causes fierce debate

Renewable energy…we all know its important, indeed crucial to our future on this planet. We know the oil will one day run out or at least become impossible to extract from the ground.  It’s not surprising that then that many of us support renewable energy initiatives – until we see planning permission to build wind turbines somewhere near our home at which point we are up in arms about damaging our landscape (or possibly house price if it alters the view).

So just how important are wind turbines to a future relying heavily on renewable energy? Consider that countries who have invested in wind power generation, such as Denmark, Scotland and Spain, now regularly meet or come close to meeting the country’s entire daily electricity demand through wind power (especially in windier winter months), with the ability to store excess energy for future use.

Read this fascinating article in the Guardian here, enjoy the debate that then flows in the comments underneath the article, and then ask yourself if the UK Government is right to withdraw its support for onshore wind farms.  This one will run and run..

 

How to avoid going to the doctors surgery

• Who is this post for? Everyone
• What does it discuss? How mobile health services are revolutionising healthcare
• How does it benefit you? No waiting for an appointment, quicker diagnosis, reduced travel, reduced time off work

I’ve been a user of the frankly awesome Babylon health service for a few months now. I was getting frustrated just at trying to get through to the local doctors surgery by phone, let alone being given inconvenient appointment times and then having to wait way, way past the appointment time in the surgery itself.

I was talking to a friend about how bad the entire experience is and they recommended I take a look at Babylon Health. As this video explains, you can ask questions, submit pictures etc and within minutes a doctor will talk to you over a video link to discuss diagnosis and next steps. The service doesn’t profess or aim to replace doctors in any way; indeed what it does is find a much better way of quickly connecting you to a helpful, needed, human doctor!

It’s a subscription service which you access via a smartphone app. For a monthly subscription of £4.99 ($7.55/€7.99) you get unlimited medical consultations by text and video. Once you’ve had the online exchange, a doctor can text a prescription to your nearest pharmacy and if necessary, arrange a referral for a real-world consultation.

Take a look at the video http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34900170/embed

and if you want to read an extended article, do so here

Do share your experience of Babylon Health or let us know of any other services that have reduced inconvenience when it comes to healthcare.

 

Changing Kenya’s education by mobile phone

Unsurprisingly, it’s often cited that what holds back the economic progression of some of the world’s less affluent nations is the state of its education. This is a problem that’s rarely to do with the quality of the educators but more to do with the logistics and associated costs. For example, if a child lives in a rural village it may be impossible to practically travel to the place of education due to poor transport infrastructure.

Which makes this report from the BBC all the more inspirational. Read about an education program that aims to make “50 million students in Africa smarter” via the use of mobile phones, and then share freely!

Have you seen any other successful education programs with mobile phones at their heart?

In Google We Trust?

• Who is this post for? Parents
• What does it discuss? Internet safety
• How does it benefit you? Information for your decision making about online safety

Online safety for children is understandably a subject many parents are passionate about, and this week saw the release of a report from Ofcom that looks into the attitudes of both parents and children on the subject. 

We’ve pulled out the topline stats in the video above and you can see the main report here.

The report highlights that children are becoming more trusting of what they see online, but sometimes lack the understanding to decide whether it is true or impartial. But it does not spread gloom about allowing children the freedom to go online – it shows:

• 97% of children aged 8-15 recall advice they’ve been given, particularly from parents
• The large majority (84%) of children aged 8-15 also say they would tell their parents, another family member or a teacher if they saw something online they found worrying, nasty or offensive.

The report highlights a parents’ role in managing children’s Internet access to ensure safety. As James Thickett, Ofcom’s Director of Research, said: “The internet allows children to learn, discover different points of view and stay connected with friends and family. But these digital natives still need help to develop the know-how they need to navigate the online world.”

If you have concerns or want to learn more, there are a number of good, practical online resources – here are a selection we have found:

NSPCC, which includes crowdsourced views on social networks to get the views of other parents

Google, which provides a number of online safety tools

Internet Matters, which has lots of advice and information

If you have seen any other good resources on the subject of online safety, or have any personal experiences you would like to share please let us know.

 

Why was ‘Rise of the Robots’ named the most important business book of the year?

• Who is this post for? Everyone
• What does it discuss? The winner of the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year
• How does it benefit you? Increased awareness regarding the future safety of your job and income, and solutions to protect it

Last week we wrote about how to start evaluating if your job is at threat due to it being automated in the future. This week we look at the recent winner of the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year, for it gives a more comprehensive overview of the very near future and offers advice and solutions to prepare for it.

There are many who believe this to be a time in our human history when market forces should not be allowed to blindly prevail, and that public policy should dictate the future of our working lives. As the author of the book Martin Ford says himself, “I’m not arguing that the technology is a bad thing. It could be a great thing if the robots did all our jobs and we didn’t have to work. The problem is that your job and income are packaged together. So if you lose your job, you also lose your income, and we don’t have a very good system in place to deal with that.”

Read more about the book here

We’d be really interested to hear your thoughts upon reading the book. Are Ford’s solutions practical or viable? Only time and collective debate will tell.

And the point of Twitter is?

In my experience, Twitter is a service that many people fail to see the value in.  They say things like, “why do I want to hear what somebody had for breakfast?”.

Maybe that’s valid if you really want to follow some z-list celeb but I think Twitter is the ultimate broadcaster. It enables me to follow all my favourite news services and I have complete control over what I see. I think if more people understood that, then the service would gain far broader appeal – for instance we gain inspiration for much of the content here on Better by easily being able to see what people and companies are doing that’s better for others all around the world.

Which makes it the sadder that Twitter’s first TV ad left so many of its target audience – people who aren’t currently using Twitter – confused as to what the hell is the point of Twitter. And looking at the ad, you can easily see why. #Fail

Check out the story and view the ad here

 

Sometimes it’s not the technology that fails…..

You can’t always take technology too seriously. Being given a GoPro to capture your holiday to Las Vegas is a great idea…but as this video we saw online this week shows, it’s not always the technology that fails.

Pointing the camera in the wrong direction may limit the Vegas views but can make a funny (and quite sweet) video.

 

How phone dependent have we become?

• Who is this post for? Everyone
• What does it discuss? It talks about a photo series warning us of over-dependence on smartphones
• How does it benefit you? Fresh perspective

Smartphones are central to our lives, beyond just chatting and texting. In observation of this behaviour, photographer Kamil Kotarba has created a photo series satirising just how phone dependent we’ve become.

“It’s pretty trivial, but I was motivated by observing my behaviour and the behaviour of people who surround me,” Kotarba told The Huffington Post. “I’ve noticed that,  involuntarily, I use my smartphone every now and again. Without any reason, just to check Facebook’s newsfeed, watch Instagram photos or just slide finger across the screen, thoughtlessly. The technology changed my daily behavior.”

Kotarba posed his friends in public spaces holding their phones, then photographed the space again without any subjects in it. He superimposed the two images together in Photoshop.

In the resulting series, “Hide and Seek,” Kotarba depicts bodiless hands hovering above couches, floating in men’s restrooms. Each is clutching a smartphone, making the artist’s statement clear: our phones haven’t just become extensions of ourselves. They’ve replaced our individual identities.

But, Kotarba said, he didn’t mean for his series to come across as preachy. “I just tried to take portraits of the phenomenon, and provoke reflection,” he says.