New government watchdog to keep kids safe on the net

Following the Byron report, the Government has founded The UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS), an internet watchdog that aims to help protect children from "harmful" web content, such as cyber-bullying and violent video games. There seem to be a lot of big organisations involved, but I hope they have a few independent individuals who actually know what they are talking about.

After ten years running a website full of user-generated by children I am well aware of the dangers and go to great lengths to ensure that children are safe on my site and on any others that they might go to. All content on Kids on the Net is pre-moderated and stripped of anything that could uniquely identify a child.

If the new organisation aims to teach children about web dangers, target harmful net content and establish a code of conduct for sites featuring material uploaded by users, I hope they incorporate some of the excellent materials and websites already out there and that the code of practice is sensible and practical.

Children's web watchdog launched from the BBC.

Monster Motel hits the headlines!

Kids on the Net features today in the Leicester Mercury. In one of those strange but heartwarming Internet stories, a monster ("Fat Gourg") created by a seven-year-old, Luke, during a writing workshop at a Leicestershire primary school led by KotN editor Helen Whitehead in 1999 has become something of a cult figure for a group of French artists and cartoonists.

"In 2003, the drawing was discovered on the website by famous French online cartoonist Pierre Primen. The 25-year-old raved about Fat Gourg on Primsworld, his website dedicated to funny cartoons and drawings, which gets 50,000 visitors a day, sparking instant adulation. Every year, thousands of fans gather in groups on August 8 - the "eight" symbolising his fat body - for Fat Gourg Day.

"He has a Friends Reunited profile, where he is listed as single and retired, and there is a Facebook page dedicated to finding Luke."

Now the hunt is on to find Luke. His French fans "would like to know if Luke remembers drawing this monster. If he does, I guess we have to thank him for all the fun Fat Gourg has brought to us, and we have millions of questions to ask him about this character. We also have to offer him a statue to pay tribute to his oeuvre!"

Fat Gourg can be found in the Monster Motel on the Kids on the Net website. Children worldwide are invited to contribute their own monsters to this ongoing project.

JISC collections for schools: online subscription respources

This JISC project launched in April 2008 and offers "The highest quality online subscription resources at the lowest ever prices."

For the first time, schools can benefit from nationally-negotiated terms for a range of specially-selected and high quality online subscription services - from newspaper archives and image databanks to catalogue of invaluable resources covering history, science, art and music, modern languages and much, much more.

Some of the benefits include:

• the discounted pricing on offer enables schools to offer cost-effective, 24x7 access to trusted and regularly updated online resources - already widely available in further education colleges - in many cases for the first time.
• remote access is available, so teachers and learners at subscribing schools can access the resources from wherever they are.
• there is no limit on the number of teachers or learners who can access a resource simultaneously.

Kids on the Net at the Education Show, Birmingham, UK

Helen Whitehead of Kids on the Net will be giving a seminar at the Education Show in Birmingham on 1st March 2008.

If you're coming to the show why not come along and say hi?

Meanwhile - I'm looking for feedback from teachers and young writers who have used the site - to include in the seminar. Have you used Kids on the Net with your class or group? Have you used Adventure Island, written kennings or book reviews or any other writing? The Kids on the Net website is provided free to YOU. We need to attract sponsors so it can stay that way. To that end, can you help me promote it at the Education Show? Can you help with any of the following:

1) Some comments via email from the children about how they enjoyed the writing project and what they felt they learned. (include first names and year group, which should be perfectly safe privacy-wise)
OR (better)
2) Some comments recorded on a sound recorder (audio files) of children answering the same questions (first names could be included, again). It would be nice if I could publish these on the site, and I think there's probably no problem with audio as privacy is maintained.

The following options would require more permission from parents etc.:
3) Videos of the children talking about the project (this could be strictly for use at the seminar and with other private teacher groups, or we could ask for permission to use them on the Kids on the Net teachers' website)
4) Best option of all - bring a small group of children to the Education Show to talk at the seminar about how you and they worked on the project.

Alternatively I would be very pleased to welcome any teacher to the Education Show to join me at the seminar and say how you worked with Kids on the Net and how you felt the children got on.

Please let me know by email to info@kidsonthenet.com

I'm happy to answer any questions.

New writing on Kids on the Net

All writing submitted to Kids on the Net up to 5 pm BST, 20th June 2007, has been published.

More added to poems, stories, creative nonfiction, All About Me, book reviews, opinions, writing about friends and animals, haiku and kennings

If your writing hasn't appeared then it's probably because it wasn't edited well enough. Please, writers, check, redraft and edit your work before you submit it, as our editors rarely have time to correct every spelling mistake, add a story's worth of capital letters, and so on.

Scrap tests for under-16s?

The BBC is reporting on a Call to scrap tests for under-16s

Apparently the General Teaching Council (GTC) believes the tests are failing to raise standards and placing "added stress" on pupils, teachers and parents.

It's true that there are stresses - even though exams and tests are part of students' lives. The problem is that national tests have consequences for the schools and the schools can't help but put pressure on the kids.

But as my daughter said immediately she saw the news item: "what about those who take their GCSEs at 15?" - she was, herself, 15 when she took her GCSEs. I'm guessing they don't mean that though: they mean anyone under Year 11. But it pays to remember sometimes that children are as much as a year different in age during the same test. My son is a case in point - a whole year older than his sister (minus three weeks!) at each point - and how different his path through school is!

More people seem to want to delay school than to get children in ahead of their age, but as someone myself who was a "year ahead" (I was a September birthday too), I would like to see children grouped according to ability and maturity and not strictly by age.

What do you think?

What's the latest on Kids on the Net?

More added to poems, stories, All About Me (including some children from Istanbul in Turkey who would love you to reply to them), book reviews, writing about friends and a collection of "What am I?" poems from a school in Brunei. There's a great collection of poems from Newport News, Virginia, USA

We have now moved to our new server! Hopefully you will find the website both faster and more reliable!

And have you seen the latest Adventure Island submitted by Millfield School, UK?
Island of Lost Time

Scratch your own multimedia

MIT's Media Lab have created a free programming tool called Scratch. It allows anyone to create their own animated stories, video games and interactive artworks by easily blending images, sound and video. (I see nothing about text.)

BBC News report
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6647011.stm

Scratch
http://weblogs.media.mit.edu/llk/scratch/

Teachers' TV programme

Teachers' TV is showing the "Just Write" programme about alternative endings which features the Kids' Castle website.

Friday 3rd Feb - 9.45am Teachers' TV

Teachers' TV is available on Sky Guide 592, Telewest channel 240, ntl channel 803, FREEVIEW channel 88, HomeChoice channel 845 and KIT channel 70

Teachers' TV website