I’ve finished my last essay of the term. It was a report on how to conduct a critical literature review. Hard going!!! But that’s me all finished for this year. Just two modules and a dissertation to go and I will be a Master!
Tomorrow I’m off to the URC Synod of Scotland minister’s conference. They are spending 3 days looking at Risk and I’m leading a session on Thursday morning on Risk and Young People so I want to see what they have already covered. No point in repeating!
In other news Lucky Dave is in Manchester clutching his ticket for the Uefa Cup final tomorrow night where his beloved Rangers take on St Petersburg. I hope Dave, Marc and Sponge have a brilliant time. It was great to see all the cars an buses heading down the motorway towards Manchester today. Good luck tomorrow.
My team, Motherwell, have qualified for next year’s Uefa Cup. Here’s hoping we get just as far!!!
Tonight was the last day of term for my Masters in Research classes. I have a literature review to write and that’s me done for this year. It seems to have gone very quickly and I’ve done ok (Bs for almost everything). I’ve got two more modules to do then my research project and dissertation and that’s me done.
I’ve enjoyed this year. Met some nice people, learned some interesting stuff. Now all I need to do is refine my research topic and get on with it.
RefWorks is genius. It helps you collate all those searches in databases for journal articles and papers and puts them into a bibliography that you can download!!! Why have I just found out about this!!!
Dr Tanya Byron has published her report into safer internet use and gaming. You can read the report HERE. This is the executive summary bullets:
The internet and video games are very popular with children and young people and offer a range of opportunities for fun, learning and development.
But there are concerns over potentially inappropriate material, which range from content (e.g. violence) through to contact and conduct of children in the digital world.
Debates and research in this area can be highly polarised and charged with emotion.
Having considered the evidence I believe we need to move from a discussion about the media ‘causing’ harm to one which focuses on children and young people, what they bring to technology and how we can use our understanding of how they develop to empower them to manage risks and make the digital world safer.
There is a generational digital divide which means that parents do not necessarily feel equipped to help their children in this space – which can lead to fear and a sense of helplessness. This can be compounded by a risk-averse culture where we are inclined to keep our children ‘indoors’ despite their developmental needs to socialise and take risks.
While children are confident with the technology, they are still developing critical evaluation skills and need our help to make wise decisions.
In relation to the internet we need a shared culture of responsibility with families, industry, government and others in the public and third sectors all playing their part to reduce the availability of potentially harmful material, restrict access to it by children and to increase children’s resilience.
I propose that we seek to achieve gains in these three areas by having a national strategy for child internet safety which involves better self-regulation and better provision of information and education for children and families.
In relation to video games, we need to improve on the systems already in place to help parents restrict children’s access to games which are not suitable for their age.
I propose that we seek to do that by reforming the classification system and pooling the efforts of the games industry, retailers, advertisers, console manufacturers and online gaming providers to raise awareness of what is in games and enable better enforcement.
Children and young people need to be empowered to keep themselves safe – this isn’t just about a top-down approach. Children will be children – pushing boundaries and taking risks. At a public swimming pool we have gates, put up signs, have lifeguards and shallow ends, but we also teach children how to swim.
She was interviewed on the BBC news this morning. You can watch it here:
I’ve decided to use the other blog I’ve had lying around doing nothing for a year to record my research and reflect a bit more on my Masters in Research. I’ve written a little about it here and will still post things that are relevant to my work but I think keeping a separate blog might help me to focus a bit more on the one area, using digital tools to engage in and enhance learning of young people.
Leaning and Teaching Scotland have just announced what they think the markers fo excellence in literacy are for the 21st century… and the definition of texts is:novels, short stories, plays, poems, reference texts, the spoken word, charts, maps, graphs and timetables, advertisements, promotional leaflets, comics, newspapers and magazines, CVs, letters and e-mails, films, games and TV programmes, labels, signs and posters, recipes, manuals and instructions, reports and reviews, text messages, blogs and social networking sites, web pages, catalogues and directories. (emphasis added) (ht Ewan)
So, what will that mean for youth work in the 21st century? Informal educators inhabit the world their ‘clients’ live in. We meet people ‘where they are at. How do you think that Christian youth work will engage with this generation of digital natives? And will banning youth workers from texting, instant messaging and Bebo really turn out to be a good idea?
It seems the pressure of being favourites for today’s rugby against france was too much. The game was littered with mistakes, forward passes and bad bounces. We don’t seem to do well when we are fancied to win. Never mind. Back to being underdogs next week when we play wales who beat england yesterday.
In other news, I was at Barrhead URC this morning where I managed to fill the bottom of an upside down goblet with wine. Oops! Apart from that it went really well. Someone even told me I’ll soon be a ‘fully fledged minister’ soon. I know that’s meant as a compliment but it doesn’t half devalue everything else you do!!!
So that’s the end of my ‘week off’. In the coming week I’m
meeting some people to talk about a distance learning youth work course
writing a service for next Sunday at Lanark (which might end up as a podcast if Bryan gets his act together)
coming up with a question for my masters research
organising the Synod of Scotland Youth Forum
meeting a colleague to talk about online learning tools
looking forward to seeing my new nephew for the first time (and giving my sister her birthday card - only two weeks late)
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Football, Life, Masters, Scotland, United Reformed Church, work | Tagged: Football, Motherwell, rangers, soccer, uefa cup | 
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