Mrs Cotton in Kenya

This week, despite the political upheavals in Kenya, which have resulted in more than 1000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of people displaced from their homes, the intrepid Colette Cotton (left), International Coordinator for Intuitive Media visited Peponi School in Nairobi.

Colette flew out with her teddy bear, Smarty. and rhinoceros mascots to help the teachers and children who are keen contributors to SchoolNet Global and SuperClubsPLUS. See Smarty's Blog on BBC World Class.

Our Kenyan colleagues have been through very rough times recently and Peponi school was closed for a while to keep the children from danger. One of our colleagues in Kenya wrote:

"It has been the most terrifying time of mine and the children's lives. All around the school there was gunfire. We are not sure when the school will open again."

But things are calming down now and school is almost back to normal. In fact schools across Nairobi have just lifted their ban on travel, so ICT coordinators from 20 schools made their way to Peponi across very rough roads for an ICT conference with Colette on 22nd February. Judging by their feedback, they found it most valuable:

"I hope you are fine. I just want to thank you once more for your INSET. It was quite informative and ignited in us, a desire to make full use of ICT in our schools and classrooms. I teach in the secondary section of Braeburn High school, Nairobi. I will be grateful if you could register our school and me as members of GoldStarCafe." - David Otukh

"Dear Colette, thanks for the most useful Inset I have attended in Kenya. It was great not just to hear about it but also have a chance to use it and see the kids using it too. I have sent off for SuperClubsPLUS passwords for all the Year 5 and 6 pupils." - Rachael Redman

Children updating their SuperClubsPLUS Home Pages

Peponi school student explores SuperClubsPLUS

Peponi children contribute to the global project pages
and join an international forum with UK pupils.

Colette visited the Karura refugee camp and sent this message back to the UK through her SuperClubsPLUS blog:

"Lucy decided that we should visit Karura Camp in Runda - for people displaced after the recent fighting, I held on tightly as we drove along the red bumpy track to the camp. We said ‘Jambo, Habari’ (hello, how are you?) and asked who was in charge, we were taken to Nickolas and John. We told them that some schools in the UK and Peponi in Nairobi, had been raising money for the camps and we asked what provisions the people needed most.

"They were really helpful and told us this was a small camp of only 250 people with 91 children and were quite happy to show us around. As usual, I took loads of photos. The little children loved the camera and seemed to come from everywhere.

"They had been given one tent for each family, charcoal for their fires and flour to cook their meal for the day - Uguli and Skuma Wiki (Porridge and Kale). A stand pipe had been installed and the women were drawing water. They were also making ‘Chai’ (tea) to drink.

"It was really sad seeing people living like this, but the camp was clean and there was medical care and enough basic food. Once families feel safe to leave the camp they will be given £19 to help them rebuild their homes and lives.

"As we left, the children waved goodbye. We felt that we were so very privileged to have so much. We will be returning with some provisions later in the week." - Colette Cotton, 20 February 2008.

Younger children play in Karura refugee camp

The team at Intuitive Media would like to pay tribute to Colette's courage and dedication and her irrepressible passion for bringing children and teachers together - even (or especially!) in troubled parts of the world.

Australia Says Sorry

Last week, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered an historic apology to Aborigines for past policies which resulted in thousands of children being forcibly taken from their families.

Children have been reacting to this event in the One World Zone in SuperClubsPLUS and GoldStarCafe as well as asking questions of teachers in Australia. One Australian teacher described the moment when Kevin Rudd apologised:

"I was really surprised how strongly everyone in Australia felt - people crowded into public spaces like Federation Square in Melbourne - to watch the Prime Minister say sorry on massive screens. And there was lots of crying and clapping during his speech. I felt proud to be an Australian when he said sorry."

Another said:

"So many people here in Australia have been waiting so long for our government to say 'sorry' - some children who were stolen from their mothers 40 or 50 years ago have been waiting their whole lives."

Some children felt that it wasn't enough to apologise:

"They are cruel. I am not very happy."

"There's no point in sorry anymore because families don't have their sons and daughters"

"I think they should get money or at least something."

The One World Zone is part of SuperClubsPLUS and GoldStarCafe and is sponsored by DFID.

My Safety Online

The potential dangers of the Internet for children are well documented and understood by adults. But do children understand the dangers?

Intuitive Media’s survey in February 2008 was a contribution to European Safer Internet Day. The research with 2,287 children aged 6 to 14 reveals that the large majority of children in IM’s communities have a good grasp of the dangers, know how to protect themselves and know where to go for help if something goes wrong.

While it’s very difficult for children to exchange dangerous personal information in IM’s communities, 11% children admit they have tried and 10% to 18% have given personal data away outside their Safe Social Learning Communities.

It's interesting to compare this with the findings of the UK Kids Go Online research in 2004:

"Moreover, nearly half (46%) of children and young people say that they have given out personal information, such as their hobbies (27%), email address (24%), full name (17%), age (17%), name of their school (9%) phone number (7%) or sent a photograph (7%), to strangers on the Internet." - UK Kids Go Online, LSE, 2004

Download the full presentation from Intuitive Media.

Personalized & Commercialized

The Children’s Plan identifies the early commercialization of children’s lives as an issue we need to address:

“However, some evidence suggests that the combination of a lowering in the age at which children begin to engage with the commercial world, along with an increase in the quantity of commercial messages targeted at children, may have some outcomes which are detrimental for children’s well being.”

We’ve done some small scale research which showed that children rather enjoy having their own personal money; many enjoy shopping; some shop online and they say that having enough money is a factor in their happiness and well being.

However we’ve also found that the technology is allowing some children to be commercially exploited on a scale not previously possible. When children are unsupervised online on their bedroom PC, or communicating privately on their mobile phones, there is opportunity for expensive mistakes.

Is that the bill for my daily horoscope?

We’ve discovered, for example, children who have been lured into mobile phone ring tone and download scams and found themselves unwittingly running up bills for services they didn’t want. They were consequently shocked when parents faced them with mobile phone bills for hundreds of pounds.

Selling has become so cleverly embedded in online technology, that it has even sneaked into the applications children use every day. Who would have dreamed even a few years ago that when we chose a track to play from our laptop’s music library, that the program would proactively tempt us to buy more music like the track we’ve chosen - but that’s exactly what iTunes does. It’s insidious, clever, seductive and almost irresistible. So, how do children cope when listening and buying are so symbiotically welded together.

Clearly there are issues we need to address and it’s essential that we begin to understand how children are relating to this intimately personalized commerce.