News Students not being taught safe online behaviour


Millions of children are missing out on online safety training, according to new research commissioned by Internet security company, ESET. 50 percent of those aged nine to 16 have had no formal internet safety teaching in school, while one in four parents admit they lack the confidence to initiate the conversation, believing their child has a better grasp of online security.


Instead, three quarters of parents choose to monitor online activity at a distance, 23 percent without their child knowing.


However, the report exposes a disparity between the actions of under 16 year olds and what parents actually see, with children using shrewd tactics to hide their activity: 40 percent of children confessed to clearing their browsing history to keep it hidden and almost a third have created online accounts that parents don’t know about. Plus, half of children have lied about their age to access a website. The need for parental monitoring is completely disregarded among nine to 16 year olds, with 84 percent believing they should be able to browse independently – including 70 percent of those aged just nine years.


Technical Director of ESET UK, Mark James, said: “Online safety is the modern day ‘birds and bees’ conversation; it evokes dread and nervousness in parents who feel ill-prepared to teach their child the dos and dont’s of the online world. The research shows that two thirds of parents believe it’s primarily their role to educate children about Internet safety, above schools, the police or the Government” In response to the research, ESET has launched the UK’s first awards scheme to recognise individuals and organisations across the UK that are leading initiatives to educate others about Internet safety. Named the CyberSmart Awards, the scheme is supported by the UK Safer Internet Centre. The awards recognise the inspirational organisations and schools that are working on initiatives to educate people about Internet safety and there’s a £5,000 grant for the deserving winner!


uFor more information, visit www.cybersmartawards.org


Oxford University Press announces poetry partnership


Oxford University Press (OUP) has announced it is partnering with The Poetry Archive to support Poetry by Heart, a new national poetry competition in England. The competition will see thousands of students aged 14 to 18 competing this Spring to become national champion for their skill in memorising and reciting poems by heart.


OUP will provide free content from the Oxford English Dictionary Online (OED), the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), and the American National Biography (ANB) Online to support students participating in the competition.


The poems on the Poetry by Heart website include a number of links to OUP resources, encouraging students to explore the language of the poems and the lives of the poets who wrote them. Students can discover poet’s biographies using the ODNB and ANB Online, and the OED entries help to explain the meaning of some of the older or more difficult words used in the poems.


Former Poet Laureate, Sir Andrew Motion, is Co-founder of the Poetry by Heart initiative. He says the organisation is delighted with the partnership and the benefits it will bring: “Participants in the competition now have the opportunity to explore the roots and branches of the words in poems they are learning, as well as the intricacies of the poets’ lives - so they can keep their feet on the ground and fly at the same time.”


Poetry by Heart is an educational initiative of The Poetry Archive and is supported by the Department for Education.


School championships will be taking place in March 2013, with county contests following shortly after. The national grand final will be held at the National Portrait Gallery in April 2013. One year’s free access to the OED and ODNB will be awarded to the winning school, and a national winner’s trophy will be presented to the most outstanding young competitor.


uMore details are available at www.poetrybyheart.org.uk 4 www.education-today.co.uk


University behind liquid computer server


A revolutionary, liquid-cooled computer server that could slash the carbon footprint of the Internet is being tested at the University of Leeds.


While most computers use air to cool their electronics, all the components in the new server are immersed in liquid and the power-hungry fans of traditional computing have been replaced by a silent, next-generation liquid- cooling process that relies on the natural convection of heat. But the significance of the new Iceotope server lies less in the


novelty of its design, rather the bite it could take out of the huge electricity demands of the internet servers that form the fabric of our online lives. Designers have calculated that the new Iceotope server cuts energy consumption for cooling by between 80 and 97 percent. While the information industry enjoys an image of hyper efficiency and environmental friendliness, all Internet use relies on remote servers, which are usually housed in large data centres that must be constantly cooled to remain operational. The reality is that the mobile apps, networked devices and 24- hour Internet access on which we have come to rely, are energy hungry. UK company Iceotope designed and built its new server working with team of researchers led by Dr Jon Summers from the University of Leeds’ School of Mechanical Engineering. The first production system has now been installed at the University after two years of testing prototypes. Dr Summers, whose team used computational fluid dynamics to model how the coolant flows through the new server’s components, said: “The liquid we are using is extraordinary stuff. You could throw your mobile phone in a tub of it and the phone would work perfectly. But the important thing for the future of computing and the internet is that it is more than 1,000 times more effective at carrying heat than air.


“The cooling of servers is traditionally done using fans and air conditioning units, but air is a great insulator. We use it in double glazing. Why would you use it to cool a server?”


The non-flammable liquid coolant, called 3MTM NovecTM, can be in direct contact with electronics because it does not conduct electricity.


March 2013


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