ICT has become such a part of everyday life and work that it is now seen as one of the Key Skills. It is possible to use the Internet to find training materials.

Here is a link to a website that gives online training for Key Skills.

Take the level 1 ICT skills practice test and see how you get on. You dont have to do the whole test, I just would like to know what you think about it.

Last lesson we all made nominations fo the Ace Awards. Can you now decide which is you favourite for each category and send me the link using del.icio.us.

The Awards is a project that we are all working on together.

We are working as a group.

Here is a link to a network I have set up for us to work as a group.

http://stroudace.ning.com/

Register on the site and we will work on it next lesson.

For the rest of this lesson write an entry in your blog called “ACE Awards”.

• Describe the group
• Describe your nominations for each category
• Say why you have chosen each nomination

See you next week!

We had a new support worker in class last lesson, who didn’t know a lot about Social Networking. 

                                    ”My kid’s use it but it isn’t for me. Is it?”

Let’s convince her by showing her some of the best uses.

This lesson I am going to take nominations for the ACE  Awards.   Look at the categories below

• Best Music Video
• Best Fundraising Video
• Best News Story
• Funniest Video
• Most inspiring Blog Entry

I’ve put my nominations into each category. Look on the Internet to find your nominations and add a comment telling me your choice (remember to put in the URL so I can find it).

After break we will all view the categories together and decide on the winners.

Advice on Safety from the YouTube Team

Some Things Are Better Left Private.Posting videos of yourself, your friends, or your family can be fun and exciting. You never know who will find it—it might even get featured on the front page, or wind up on the top of the Most Viewed! If your video is personal, consider marking it private so that only your friends and those you share it with can view it.

Protect Your Secret Identity!If you do post public videos, make sure there isn’t anything in them that could help a stranger figure out who you are or where you live. Personal information like your telephone number or home address should NEVER be shared with other users. Watch out for things like license plate numbers on cars or images of the outside of your home which might accidentally appear in the background of a video and help a stranger to track you down.

Remember, YouTube employees will never ask you for your password, email address, or other account information. Don’t be fooled if someone contacts you pretending to be from YouTube!

Keep Your Cool, Keep YouTube Safe.Whether it’s a flame war, cyberbullying, or people being just plain mean, comments can get pretty rough sometimes. When you post a video you can choose whether you want to let people comment on your videos at all. If someone leaves a comment on your video that is mean or bothers you, you can always delete the comment. Another option is to have comments “kinda” on, which means that you get to approve or remove people’s comments before they appear on the site.

YouTube doesn’t allow videos with nudity, graphic violence or hate. If you come across a video like this, click the link on the video to flag it as Inappropriate and submit the form on the next page to report it to YouTube.

YouTube has literally MILLIONS of viewers every day and just like in the real world, most of the people are good, but some aren’t. So please take care to protect yourself and your fellow users by keeping personal videos private, your identity a secret, your comments clean, and by using the flagging system to report abuse.

YouTube video diaries (vblogs) give us a glimpse into other peoples lives. These are a few glimpes that have inspired me.

Cory “MrSafetyMan” Williams, who wrote “The Mean Kitty Song” has ADD/ADHD. A few of you have been diagnosed with this “disorder”.

There is a blog tag game going around the Internet both on ordinary blogs and vblogs. If you get tagged you have to say 5 things about yourself that your readers might not know and then you have to tag 5 other bloggers to do the same. We will play this game next lesson, so spend the week thinking about what you are going to write about when you are tagged.

This is how I came across Lisa Lavie. It was so nice to come across someone with such a positive energy that is why I am nominating her for this category. If you come across a YouTube video you like, click on the name of the User who uploaded it and you will get access to their channel. If you subscribe to their channel you will be notified when they add any new videos. I’ve subscribed to Lisa’s to witness a Star in the making.

Amanda Baggs has Autism. She made a vblog to show other people her language. She can’t speak but is lucky enough to be able to type at 150 words a minute. The new technology means that now we are priviledged to have access to her world. Halfway through the video she gives us a translation using her keyboard to speak for her.

Here is her Wikipedia Entry which has a link to her excellent blog ballastexistenz

What makes you laugh?

Cory “Mr SafetyMan” Williams has 2 nominations from me. One in the most inspiring category for “The truth about my disorder” and the following.

Go Sparta

Last week we experienced an earth tremor. I was awake so experienced it as did many other’s Im sure. I checked out Youtube to see if anyone happened to be making a vbolg entry at the time.

Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely created by its Residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by millions of Residents from around the globe.

Here is a news report from the Metaverse TV channel

So my nomination is:

YouTube gives all fundraisers a chance to get donations from people all over the world.  My nominations is

One of the most popular uses of Youtube is watching your favorite artists. Anyone can record themselves and get a following. One of my favorite guitarists is Fretkiller. No-one knows who he is.

John Martyn will always have first place in my heart though. I’ve loved his music from the first moment I heard it.

May you never