Paul Shoesmith

Google's recent decision to launch a secure search facility caused major problems for educational internet service providers such as Regional Broadband Consortia and local authorities, and in the US introduced problems for school districts and states that could even affect their e-Rate funding, as reported on eSchoolNews .  So they are to be commended for responding relatively quickly to the problems they had introduced.  But have they gone far enough? Delivering a safe Internet experience to schools has always been challenging.  I spent 5 years doing it, and it was the hardest part of educational internet service provision to get right.  Offering users the facility to hide what they are searching for from their service provider has a number of implications for educational ISPs: They will be unable to filter based on search terms It removes the ability for them to analyse or report on search behaviour across their networks When Google first introduced the...

I've been living with Apple's new operating system for the iPhone, iOS4 , for a week now.  I rarely jump so quickly to a new major version of software on a device I use every day, but I seem to have a little more time on my hands than usual at the moment, so decided to take the plunge on launch day.  Was this a good idea?  Possibly. I decided to risk the upgrade on Monday 21st June because the new features it offered were extremely attractive.  In particular being able to store apps in folders, and the support for multiple Exchange profiles for e-mail and calendar, along with a unified inbox.  The multi-tasking was less attractive to me, offering something more akin to a task switcher than true multi-tasking. So, how has it been?

Merlin John writes about interoperability and SIF

I'm spending this morning at a meeting of West Midlands local authorities talking about interoperability and sharing data securely and effectively between systems in schools and local authorities. We're meeting at Sixways in Worcester, the home of Worcester Warriors rugby club. It's been a snowy start to the day, but almost 40 people have made it for a morning hearing about real implementations in the UK of the Systems Interoperability Framework , or SIF. Presentations this morning include Mike Edge from Research Machines, Laurence Royston from Groupcall, David Owens from Service Birmingham, Emma Gelfs and Tim Verlander from Warwickshire, and Ian White from South West Grid for Learning. Another example of the UK SIF community working together to share best practice and information, and real examples of SIF implementations across the UK.