UK – 14th January, 2008 – A free service to help start-ups and small businesses increase their productivity and competitiveness through technology is now available to companies based in Yorkshire & Humber, the South East and the South West regions of England.

The Business IT Guide was developed by e-skills UK in collaboration with market leaders such as Oracle, EDS, IBM, Accenture, Cisco, Microsoft, HP, Smart421 and BT, and has been tested extensively with small businesses.

The Guide is a user friendly online tool that helps businesses access a wide range of high quality, independent advice to help them fully exploit technology.  Advice includes:

• everything a new business needs to know – from complying with legislation to security;
• where to go for trusted information;
• how to properly introduce and manage technology;
• how to deal with the resource implications: cost, training, time; and
• how to plan for growth and changing needs.

There are five separate routes to advice and information via the Guide:

1. a self help tool – designed to help those unsure of their ICT needs;
2. facts – designed to encourage people to take action;
3. hot tips – designed to have an immediate impact;
4. The Guide library – with all 72 Business IT Guides listed; and
5. search facilities.

Keri-Ann Davies, Business Adviser for the Welsh Assembly Government, said:

“In the past I have made use of the Business Link website and found the best practice IT advice very useful.  The Business IT Guide seems to provide more advanced information than was previously available through Business Link, and also includes the built in search facilities and links.  I found it extremely informative.”

“e-Learning can also greatly enhance a small businesses acquisition of skills and delivery of training”, said Sean Griffin, Co-Founder of Learn Skills, the web-based skills and compliance training company, “and it is for that reason that we are developing training programs tailored to the needs of both SMEs and new start-ups.”

Source: e-skills Passport Winter newsletter

UK – 5th September, 2008 -  Teachers are split over the merits of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom, according to research conducted for ntl:Telewest Business. Half of teachers questioned believe that Web 2.0 applications, such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Wikipedia are valuable educational tools, yet the rest felt they are a distraction with no real academic benefit.

Tech-savvy parents are the biggest advocates of Web 2.0 in schools and colleges.

This confusion over the advantages of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom can be linked to teachers being in the dark when it comes to next generation applications. A fifth of all teachers polled felt that when it came to Web 2.0 tools, they lacked the knowledge or training to integrate them into their lessons. Another key barrier to their adoption in the classroom proved to be security concerns. Almost a quarter of teachers worry about the amount of personal information that students disclose online and their behaviour when using social networking sites.

Tech-savvy parents are the biggest advocates of Web 2.0 technologies, with two thirds of parents feeling that the tools were useful for engaging and teaching children as they encouraged creativity and helped students to develop their communications skills.

Dave Alderson, Public Sector Specialist, ntl:Telewest Business, said: “Web 2.0 has really crept up on the school system as social networking sites,blogs and YouTube have become a global phenomenon in a relatively short space of time. Many of today’s pupils live and breathe this technology, using applications such as instant messaging, Facebook, MySpace and Wikipedia every day to create content, communicate and collaborate with people worldwide. Whilst security is a valid concern, there are measures that can be put in place to address this.”

“Schools and colleges need to ask themselves if they are living up to the expectations of the digital generation. The interactive and collaborative nature of Web 2.0 tools is ideal for engaging children in the classroom and nurtures the skills and enthusiasm they have developed at home.”

According to the study, next generation applications are now an integral part of children’s personal lives:
- 54 per cent of 13 to 18 year-olds use YouTube in their spare time
- Half use social networking sites
- 47 per cent use Wikipedia

When children were asked what Web 2.0 tools would be useful at school:
- 44 per cent stated Wikipedia
- 35 per cent chose instant messaging
- 34 per cent said YouTube

However, less than a fifth of teachers used Wikipedia as a resource in classrooms and only five per cent used YouTube. Even general internet information sites only scored 14 per cent of teachers’ votes, despite the fact that almost a third felt the internet had added the most value to education.

Mr Alderson added: “Our study reveals that there is a Web 2.0 chasm between the tools that children would like to see in the classroom and what teachers are actually using. The key to using these tools effectively though, is having the right infrastructure to deliver them. Schools and colleges need to have a robust Next Generation Network (NGN) in place that can provide sufficient bandwidth and resilience to support media-rich applications and offer the necessary foundation for a collaborative, digital environment.

“Some schools and colleges are in the early stages of adoption and it is only a matter of time before Web 2.0 takes on a more extensive role in the classroom. Whether using YouTube to view the latest videos from around the world in geography, or visiting Facebook sites to collaborate with other students, schools need a provider that can help them plan, design, and implement the technology required to deliver to the digital generation, the interactive education they demand.”

LM Research interviewed 1,500 teachers, parents and students nationwide. The teachers were based at secondary schools, sixth form colleges and Further Education colleges. The parents questioned had children aged 13 to 18 years old and the children surveyed were aged 13 to 18 years old.

Source PublicTechnology.Net, for all you need to know concerning UK Public Sector ICT & e-Government news.

“These results would highlight a need for teachers to expand their understanding of ICT, outside of the standard ECDL Certificate to web-based tools that are freely available today”, said Sean Griffin, Co-Founder of Learn Skills, web-based skills and compliance training company,  “and teachers should set aside some hours of CPD to address this teacher training issue.”