Due to a mix up on our registration, we were asked for tickets that had not been sent to us. After a few moments of discussion, we were allowed through with brochure in hand.

Initial thoughts when walking in were that the event wasn’t quite as big as we expected. Whether this was our own preconceptions of a business expo or the promo beforehand, I’m not sure. The event space itself was modest but well laid out. On our arrival, it was not particularly busy but still there was plenty of engagement at the stalls.

We quickly beelined for the café at the back of the hall for a hot drink, then set about exploring the hall.

Unable to miss the behemoth shiny new Biffa bin wagon to the right of the hall, we were introduced to one of the event’s sponsors. A photo opportunity too great to miss, we then carried on.

The event consisted roughly of a collection of small accountancies, digital marketing agencies, business insurance companies, company-car providers and everything in-between. We had a good chat with the person from the University of Lancashire about apprenticeships in the workplace, and conversed with and received a business card from an office furniture provider (we’re determined to get stand up desks in our office).

We also spoke to Formby Hall about the facilities they offer for Christmas parties and team events. We’re already booked for Christmas this year, but couldn’t resist grabbing a brochure on the way out (we can dream right?).

By this point, the hall had started to fill up, with more conversations taking place – the hall generally felt a lot busier. And with that, we left. Having spent about a mere hour and half there, we felt we had covered all bases.

Does Liverpool have a new business expo worthy to contend with the others? It’s looking likely, but next year it really will need to have more on offer to compete with the bigger shows already taking place in the city.

The post My Digital Wirral Go to Merseyside Business Expo 2018 appeared first on My Digital Wirral.

Here’s our verdict.

On 9^th August 2018 at 4pm (UK time), the presentation began.

Our first presenter of the night is the one and only DJ Koh, President of Mobile Communication Business at Samsung. He starts by expressing a need for open systems and open partnerships, sharing the frustration of experiences disrupted across “too many brands and too many devices.”

It is true that the marketplace looks very different from when the Note was first launched seven years ago. The battle is no longer between Samsung and Apple but rather now a death match including Huawei, Sony, LG, HTC and even a reinvented and very competitive Nokia.

Mr Koh goes on to mention a “Galaxy of experiences”, “connected living” and “intelligence beyond platforms.” All vague catchphrases that are strangely not expanded on for the rest of the presentation.

Galaxy Note 9

Without further ado, the Galaxy Note 9 is introduced by way of a rather artistic and dimly lit video presentation.

After the film, we’re no wiser on the smartphone’s features than we were before. We only know how it looks, which is of no surprise after Samsung accidently published images of the phone to its own website days before. It’s at this point Drew Blackard, Director of Product Marketing, takes to the stage to run us through the Note 9.

Drew informs us that the smartphone sports a 6.4-inch end-to-end display, is recognised as a “YouTube Signature Device” and comes in four colours: blue, purple, copper and black.

The first bit of tech to be announced is the new 4000 mAh battery, termed the “all day battery.” For comparison, the Note 8 packed a modest 3300 mAh battery. It seems Samsung has its confidence back after the Note 7 exploding battery incident. Drew proudly boasts the battery will last all day between charges. While that is a rather large capacity, it goes against other manufacturers who are relying on smaller capacity batteries and employing new software to manage usage.

Storage is another of Drew’s big announcements. The Note 9 is to come with a choice of 128GB or 512GB on board memory. Drew surprises the room by also announcing that with the aid of a new 512GB microSD card this gives the Note 9 the potential of 1TB of storage overall. However, with phone builders such as Nokia now offering unlimited cloud services such as Google Photos built in, physical storage does seem a little old school.

Stereo Speakers

Announced next is the partnership with AKG speakers. Having worked with Samsung on their earbuds, it makes sense to have them take a look at the on board speakers. The Notes 9 comes with AKG stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos. A piece of tech directly pulled from the Galaxy S9/S9+ which was released a few months previously. Dual stereo speakers do appear to be a more sought after feature on flagship smartphones especially. Even Apple and Google have included them on their latest phones, and with both manufacturers due to bring out new phones in the coming months, time will tell how they stack up.

Camera

Finally, we get to some hardware. The duel intelligent camera features super slow motion, scene recognition and the ability to take photos remotely with the Bluetooth enabled S Pen. How many megapixels? Not important according to this presentation. Fun fact, this is actually the exact same camera module that you’ll find in the Galaxy S9/S9+, another direct lift from a previously released handset.

S Pen

Jonathan Wong, another Director of Product Marketing at Samsung, guides us through the S Pen’s new Bluetooth enabled features such as pausing videos, taking photos and flicking through presentations. The S Pen, being Bluetooth enabled now charges when inside the phone, taking one minute to fully charge for half an hour of use.

Bixby

Returning to the phone, there’s a talk on the improvements to Bixby, Samsung’s own assistant. Even as a Siri user, I found this a little lacking. Bixby can certainly customise interactions depending on preferences, however, it is still years behind Google Assistant, which according to Samsung still comes included on the Note 9. You do have to ask the question though, why have two assistants?

Anti-climax

As we approach the end of the presentation, it’s revealed that the Note 9 will be released on 24th August 2018, with pre-orders available now.

During this whole presentation, the phone, though officially revealed, was never shown operating, and the specs we love to compare against other phones were not given, and I think I know why.

Looking at the recent Geekbench tests the 6GB RAM version of the Note 9 actually scored pretty poorly against its competitors, crucially it scored lower than the 2017 iPhone X which is about to be superseded by the 2018 iPhone X. Not a good start for a phone usually marketed towards designers and business types who expect the highest quality in tech and ability.

It really feels like Samsung missed the mark on this one. Though the Samsung Galaxy S9/S9+ are selling fairly well, as most Galaxy S models do, it feels like the Note 9 is merely a replacement to the Note 8 rather than a true upgrade.

If you’re looking for those missing specs, here they are:

Display: Super AMOLED 6.4 inches

OS: Android 8.1 (Oreo)

CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 (US) or Exynos chip (UK)

Camera: Main Camera x2 12MP, Front Facing Camera 8MP

RAM: 6GB or 8GB

Storage: 128GB or 512GB on board, capacity to hold 1TB with SD card

Battery: 4000 mAh

The post Samsung Galaxy Note 9: Specs, release date and the oddest Samsung presentation yet appeared first on My Digital Wirral.

However, there’s plenty other uses for the gadget – they aren’t simply a novelty to pull out when there’s an opportunity for a cool picture.

One person who knows all about their capabilities from a business perspective is Sam Barnes, director of Wirral-based company Drone Factor. Along with business partner Amy Jane Marshall, they use drones to help those who require their aerial surveying services.

We caught up with Sam to discuss what they do, how to get your hands on a qualified to fly a drone, and their upcoming workshop in partnership with the Royal Photographic Society (RPS).

Phil: Hi Sam, thanks for agreeing to talk with us. To begin with, could you summarise what it is you do as a company?

Sam: We take the expense away from others to provide drone services. Say for example that you’re a quantity surveyor. If you want a map or a nice photograph of the place you’ve designed, or an aerial shot, that you want to use for commercial purposes. If you want to do it in house, then you’re looking at least £6000 just to get that photograph. By the time you’ve done your licencing, insurance, bought the drone itself – plus the other stuff that comes into it – the costs are that much.

We can provide mapping, inspections, cinematics and photography and it’s going to be cheaper for the number of times you’d use us than doing it yourself.

Phil: So what drove you to start the business? I believe you have an interest in electronics and a background in graphic design.

Sam: Well, it was my background in graphic design that lead to motion graphics, which then lead to video and video production. When I lived in Canada I worked at a recording studio where I made a number of music videos. That was the first time I came into contact with and used a drone, as it happened to crossover with some architectural visualisation I was doing. It’s funny that a few years later I’m doing the same thing but under my own steam.

From Amy’s point of view, it was an interest in remote controlled stuff from a young age. I mean I had a remote control car as a child, but Amy had seven or ten! It was a different ball game for her.

There was also the drive to work for ourselves. We knew we were capable because we were driven enough and organised enough to be able to hold it down to call ourselves business people. For example, Amy’s at home doing stuff right now, and I’m here doing this interview. I’ve spent the morning having meetings with other people as well, so we manage our time and in theory are in two places at once.

Phil: What are your aims as a business?

Sam: I don’t want to talk in terms of turnover but I think what we really aim to do is to have a nice solid base of clients who are using us to expedite their objectives. Take the architect who’s working on a new project. It’s day two and he’s already done a site visit and thinks “well I can send a drone up from the north east and another photo from the south west” he’ll then pick up the phone, we go and do the photos and he gets on with his project, it enhances the entire workflow for him.

Doing that type of thing on a repeat basis is ultimately our goal.

We want to be a “go to” for mapping, inspections, (building) site updates etc. That’s where we’re aiming because that’s the kind of work we enjoy.

Phil: You’ve recently announced that you’re partnering with the Royal Photographic Society for a two day aerial workshop over the August bank holiday weekend. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

Sam: We were approached by the Royal Photographic Society following one of our images being printed as the front page on The Lake magazine. We decided it would be worthwhile taking the opportunity to promote safe drone use in the hobbyist community, in particular to create an informative and interactive workshop for those who could be caught out by the UK drone laws whilst in pursuit of a unique image.

We hope the course is well received, and we aim to put more courses on in 2019 across the UK. For this pilot course, we are at two exclusive sites: Thurstaston Country Park and a secret location in Ellesmere Port, where attendees will be able to capture images no one else has — or will — be able to, unless they are on the workshop.

Phil: The image on the front of The Lake Magazine was because you covered the Wirral Kayak challenge wasn’t it? Could you tell us a little bit about how you got involved in that?

Sam: Yes, that’s right. Well, we went to the big fireworks display at New Brighton last year and it was phenomenal. But it was tainted for us because we saw no less than five drones flying in the night with no additional lights above the crowd of thousands of people and they were taking off and landing in the middle of it.

We know obviously that the law says one thing and they were doing the complete opposite. We didn’t want to see that happen with the Wirral Kayak Challenge. We covered that event in a legal way going through Wirral Country Parks, Natural England, the Environment Agency and then Wirral Borough Council, as well as talking to Air Traffic Control. That’s five major authorities we had to get in touch with and get permission from to be able to carry it out.

Phil: By covering the Wirral Kayak Challenge did you feel that you had set a standard of what’s expected of drone services?

Sam: It’s about reassuring people. It’s vaguely a public service announcement that this is what should be going on.

Everyone involved in the Wirral Kayak Challenge signed to say, “I’m happy to have the drone fly within 50 metres” so we could get fairly close.

With the bigger events, I can’t notify everybody and frankly, some people might not want it anyway so I always keep my distance.

Phil: How did covering the Wirral Kayak Challenge go?

Sam: Covering the Kayak Challenge was amazing fun, flying from the safety boat and having the opportunity to obtain rarely seen angles of the Wirral Peninsula from the air – on such a wonderfully beautiful day too – was something not easily forgotten.

Despite a brief engine issue first thing in the morning as we made our way up the Mersey, the day went off without a hitch. The main challenge really was taking off and landing from a small boat – the skipper was brilliant and really helped keep things steady for the take offs and landings!

Phil: What does it take to become a talented drone pilot?

Sam: Well to begin with, you need really good spatial awareness. You need to be able to predict motion. I’ve had the drone flying at 60 MPH in a 25 MPH wind, going downwind. I knew it was going to take me nearly 100 metres to comfortably stop it and then start bringing it back, whereas normally it would probably stop within about 10 (metres). It’s that side of things you need to be comfortable with.

The big drone I have here, I wouldn’t put that in the hands of anybody who hasn’t flown before. I would say you need to be very competent before flying one of these. It’s very complicated because it does a lot of stuff itself. People can blame the drone but in actual fact it’s their control, they’re not thinking it through.

So you need to have a level of confidence, you’ve got to be able to react quickly and not just panic.

Then there’s your training. There’s a number of ways to do it, you can go an NQE (Nationally Qualified Entity). You do a flight test and a theory test. After that point, once you have your theory and your flight certificates, you can then create either yourself or using a template, your own Operations Manual.

An operations manual can take at least three months to come back from the CAA. So you can go do a course but you wouldn’t be able to fly commercially until a couple of months down the line. It’s not just bang there you go, and unfortunately loads of people go on to the course thinking that that’s the case.

Then there’s the insurance, which you can only get if you have your PfCO (Permission for Commercial Operations) which is specifically for drones. We use ad hoc insurance at the moment, so if I have a roof inspection, I can say, “I’m here, here’s my 500 metre circle” and I’m insured for flying in that area.

For every single flight you do, you also have to do a full on flight plan.

The last one I did, involved approximately two hours of flying doing various things. One part of it is mapping, the other is close detail photography for an inspection for maintenance purposes. It’s probably taken longer to build the flight plan than it will to actually execute. I think it’s about an 8 to 10 page document.

For every commercial flight, you’ve got to have all of your insurance documents available, not literally on you but you can have them on your phone/email. I’ve got to make sure I’ve notified the right authorities such as Wirral Country Parks or basically anyone within a distance that I feel needs notification. Anyone who is within 50 metres I will definitely notify.

Phil: What’s the most interesting or enjoyable place you’ve surveyed or done cinematic work for?

Sam: It’d have to be Ness Gardens for the 70^th anniversary of Gardeners Question Time. Several years ago, I actually did the photography on the ground, way before I got into drones.

This time we got to meet the whole panel. We were working with Something Else Productions, which is by extension the BBC. It was a really fun day, including the flight planning side of it and figuring out the different spots to cover different parts of the event. I think that was my favourite to date.

Interested in learning more about Drone Factor? You can sign up to their aerial photography workshop taking place on August 25 and 26 here. For anything else, you can catch them on their website or over on Facebook or Twitter.

The post Drone Factor talk aerial workshops, drone logistics and Wirral Kayak Challenge appeared first on My Digital Wirral.

While privacy has made the news recently primarily in terms of data, there are other ways that you could be compromising your safety when using the internet, whether it’s through over-sharing or not managing your settings efficiently.

The continuous changes made to technology mean it’s only becoming more integrated into our everyday lives, with virtual assistants being the latest piece of kit we welcome into our homes.

While these new accessories are all the rage, they’re also something that need to be managed effectively in order to ensure both yours and your children’s safety.

UK Safer Internet Centre is an online base for those looking to either be safe on the internet themselves or help children learn to enjoy the internet safely. The organisation was founded as the result of a partnership between Childnet International, Internet Watch Foundation and SWGfL.

Appointed by the European Commission, the partnership works to provide support to those who need it in a variety of forms, whether that’s through their helpline, online guides or by raising awareness on UK Safer Internet Day.

In order to find out a bit more about the work UK Safer Internet Centre do, Phil from My Digital Wirral sat down with Kat Tremlett for an in depth discussion about what the centre does, Safer Internet Day and how technology is changing the way kids need to be kept safe online.

Phil: Thanks for having a chat with us, so firstly can you explain what your role in the campaign is?

Kat: The centre itself has three strands; one strand is raising awareness and help professionals teaching young people, to help parents with young people in their lives and to help the young people themselves around online safety. This includes creating resources and delivering online safety training sessions.

Another part of the centre is the Internet Watch Foundation. They are for the reporting of child abuse material online, so that could be any incident imagery of children under the age of 18. They’re also responsible in the UK for removing it.

Only 76% of 18-24 yr old men would report an indecent image of a child online.

Doing so can help victims of child sexual abuse. If you see any suspicious content online confidentially to the Internet Watch Foundation: https://t.co/lMpWk6r8ye pic.twitter.com/B5JruHJnRt

— YMCA Trinity Group (@YMCATrinity) June 8, 2018

Then the third strand is me, which is the helpline, and the helpline is aimed at children’s workforce members (teachers, guardians etc.). In the UK we already have the likes of NSPCC and ChildLine, who are obviously massive, well-established charities. Therefore, we decided to take the angle of supporting a slightly different group, with a slightly different problem. We support members of the children’s workforce with online safety issues they face themselves, and the issues children might face too.

Phil: Are there any new areas the UK Safer Internet Centre have just started getting involved in?

Kat: Most recently we’ve been working on collaborative projects around mental health and wellbeing in particular. We’ve partnered with Head Start in Cornwall who is doing research around children and young people’s feelings online and make it easier for safe guarding professionals to look for key identifiers of risk-taking behaviour and what that might look like online.

We’ve also worked on a couple of other projects. The Daphne funding from the EU for example, some of that got allocated to a project called Enable, which is essentially a European initiative to eliminate bullying across the five countries that collaborated on that. The project took a step back and looked at bullying from a pedagogical angle, from the perspective of every role so it wasn’t just the victim. We’re looking at the bystander, the bully themselves, the people who are outside of that circle of friends and how everyone can have an active role in trying to eliminate bullying within schools.

Phil: It sounds like it’s expanding quite quickly then.

Kat: Yes, we’ve always tried to make sure we’re involved in what we feel to be the most current and most important issues at hand, and right now mental health is such a big driver.

Clearly, we have some key differences in our culture compared to other cultures, especially in terms of the way young people and adults think it’s OK to engage online. And I think anything we can do to address that and try to make a more positive contribution to what happens online then that can only be a good thing.

Phil: What would you say are the major issues facing internet safety at the moment?

Kat: That’s a big question. My personal opinion on this is our general stance on what is acceptable and appropriate behaviour online. It seems that we as a western culture are more likely to use tools in a negative manner than other cultures. That’s been seen on the likes of anonymous apps like Ask.FM and more recently we’ve had another anonymous app pop up called Sayat.me, which actually closed after the suicide of a teenage boy in Northern Ireland.

It’s really interesting to see how we as a society use these tools and I think there’s a lot more research that needs to be done to understand that behaviour.

For me it’s more worrying we think it’s OK to act like that even as a teenager or an adult, and who is role modelling that behaviour? Where is that coming from and what are the things we can do to try and target that?

Phil: Why is it important for people to be safe while using the internet?

Kat: I think it comes down to if you want to be treated in a decent way; you have to treat others with respect online too, and part of that process is being safe to a certain extent. If you’ve got an open [social media] profile for instance or sharing a lot of information with other people, you’re making yourself more vulnerable to others finding out information about you, and that can actually lead to identification fraud or extortion and things like that.

[With online services] some people think it’s just a craze and it’ll die down, but it’s not going to do that. There’s only going to be more technology and more ways to access things, for example we’re one-step away from having more wearable kit.

It’s here to stay, it’s engrained in our culture and we owe it to ourselves to make sure we treat it with respect but also that we’re safe on it, because you’re not only putting yourself at risk but also you’re putting future generations at risk too.

Phil: What tips would you give to people looking to be safer on the internet?

Kat: Think about who you want to engage with. It sounds a bit like a marketing strategy but if I was looking to make up a new profile on Facebook for instance, then I might think about who are the people who are going to be my friends. If, for instance, my parents and grandparents are my friends and some of my teachers are my friends that automatically makes me think, well what I write then has to have a certain air of decency about it.

It’s thinking about who you’re engaging with, and maybe you have different platforms for different types of groups of friends. Thinking about who you’re talking to helps you decide which service is the best one to choose and when you’ve chosen, make sure your privacy settings are set how you want them.

Obviously, if you’re a national celebrity and want to share everything with the world then it’s not going to be very helpful if everything is closed down and only one person can see. At the same time if you’re a mum who’s got a three year old child and is taking a picture of them every day and putting it on your public Facebook profile and you’re Facebook friends with thousands friends who get to see it (and interact with it) then there might be a potential danger there of where that photo goes.

I think the reality of it is we do share things publicly, whether it’s for the gratification of a ‘like’ on Instagram or whatever, these sorts of things appeal to the younger generation. What we need to do is make sure they have the resilience to cope with negative feedback when it comes or a negative experience.

One thing we quite often talk about is online dating. Obviously, the stranger danger message is still very prevalent and it’s a very important message. But when we see the message ‘don’t speak to people you don’t know online’, if I told you that from the national online dating survey around 25% of all relationships in the last year were formed online, it kind of puts that message into perspective a little bit doesn’t it.

That’s why we talk about digital literacy and resilience and why it’s a really important thing for young people to learn just so they’ve got some strategies to deal with these situations when they arise. Because they will arise, it’s not a case of getting through life without anyone approaching you in a horrible manner. Even before the internet, this was happening on the streets so I think all of this talk of “well if you do this then it won’t happen to you” is falsifying the actual truth.

Phil: What tips would you give to parents who want their children to be safe on the internet?

Kat: There are a few things, the first one: Just get online. One of the biggest excuses we hear about not being able to help is “I don’t know anything about it, they know much more about it than me” but there are so many places you can go to find out more information. Internet Matters is a brilliant site, which is specifically designed for parents. It gives information on how to set up parental controls on various different services and the like but there’s also blogs and advice pieces about some of the current issues.

It is really important to chat with your children on an ongoing basis about staying safe online. Not sure where to begin? These conversation starter suggestions can help. https://t.co/Jpzv9Gtfh5

— UK Safer Internet (@UK_SIC) June 12, 2018

Of course there’s also the UK Safer Internet Centre website, which has an advice section for parents too, including loads of guides, one being the “parents’ guide to technology” which is particularly useful as it has specific guides for each of the gaming devices, which seems to be quite a big topic that comes up on the helpline.

If you hear your son or daughter is playing Minecraft, then go and play Minecraft and see what it is. The more you are immersed into their world, the more you’ll understand about it.

It is really important not to be fearful of the technology, because by setting up that barrier you’re almost making it taboo, so embrace it. If you make it part of everyday conversation then when something happens where they need a bit of support then they’re more likely to turn to you for advice.

What we need to remember as parents is maybe we’re not the experts in the technology our kids are using but we are the experts in life experience, we’ve been through a lot, and what we can show them is using our experience to help shape theirs. We’re not always going to have the right answers as parents but it’s about being there when something goes wrong.

Phil: My son is only a couple of months old and I dread to think what technology he’ll be on when he’s older.

Kat: A lot of research that’s done normally focuses on the negatives but there is a hell of a lot of positive benefits as well, especially with young users when you’ve got that instant gratification of swiping left or swiping right, that’s really exciting. For example, using that sort of thing for potty training or rewards charts, that’s an easy win for everyone.

When I was a kid, I was told if you watch too much TV, I‘d get square eyes. I think we do that with children and screen time, and I think this comes in line with gaming.

There are so many games out there that have quite graphic or extreme content. And as kids are likely to act out their favourite TV programs, they’re quite likely to act out some of the stuff they play in a game. But there’s this uproar about it as if it’s the worst thing ever and we’re training them to be mass murderers or whatever.

But I think the point is kids are always going to roleplay and of course they’re going to play out the things that happen in those sorts of environments because it has a massive impact on their life at that time. This doesn’t mean when they’re an adult Paw Patrol, for example, is going to define their life.

There’s so much good to come out of [gaming] and I’m thinking especially of those children who have a special educational need or an additional need of some kind. It might be an arena where they can communicate more freely, it might be somewhere where they don’t need to be as aware of their social cues as they have to be in the offline world to the point where it detracts from them socialising. So there are positives, it’s just about embracing them and making sure, especially with the youngest of children, that the supervision is there too.

Phil: We’ve already had Safer Internet Day this year (6^th February). What sort of activities did the UK Safer Internet Centre do for Safer Internet Day and what’s planned for next year?

Kat: Every year Safer Internet Day is co-ordinated every year in Europe by Insafe. Essentially, we have a network of centres that do the same sort of work as us but in different countries, I think there are 32 of us across the EU at the moment. This year we focused on mental health and wellbeing.

At SID [Safer Internet Day] every year, we have a few things that always happen. We have education packs we release that have resources targeted at specific age groups so we’ll always have key stage 1, an early years one, key stage 2, 3 and 4. This year for the first time we had an educator’s pack and a parent’s pack so parents could download and get involved at home with their kids too.

As well as that, we also have Safer Internet Day TV that’s co-ordinated where I’m based. It complements the education packs but essentially it’s a series of films targeted at each age group as well as one for parents as well.

Safer Internet Day 2018 reaches 45% of young people in the UK – The Safer Internet Day Impact report was published today https://t.co/nanSaIiBm2 pic.twitter.com/hD0B1h82YF

— UK Safer Internet (@UK_SIC) April 10, 2018

The packs are full of activities that kids and the educators themselves can engage with either just on the day or as a whole scheme of work in the lead up to it or afterwards. The packs equip people with the ability to run their own training sessions for parents in their area perhaps or it might be an assembly in school for instance.

On the day itself we always have an event in London and key stakeholders such as government ministers, internet providers or phone providers will come along as well. Essentially, it’s always a youth focused event so there’ll be a group of young people who will talk about something they’ve done to help keep safer online. The event is usually hosted at the BT centre.

This year for the first time we went up to Liverpool FC, which was quite exciting, and we were involved in a massive event organised by the football club who had invited over 800 pupils from the area to come and have workshops on online safety. So me and my colleagues got to deliver to the pupils which was brilliant.

Our workshops got them to think about a message they wanted to deliver to the make the internet better, got them to record it to camera and see themselves on TV with a green screen. We also had a moral compass activity as well, basically giving them scenarios that could happen on the internet.

Alongside that one of our consultants was also running pupil-lead online safety sessions with videos and inter-activity with large groups of pupils.

We’ll definitely be coming back again next year. It’s actually been running for about three years, it was just the first year that the whole [UK Safer Internet Centre] team has been involved. Usually just one of our consultants goes up and delivers but this year they ran a conference-style workshop event with 400 kids in the morning and 400 kids in the afternoon so it was very intense day.

What’s brilliant for us is the football club put this on so it’s not something we have to co-ordinate. We’re just an element of a bigger day. But that’s what Safer Internet Day is all about, it’s about the young people themselves, so anything we can do to support that of course we will.

You can find more information about UK Safer Internet Centre and the projects they’re involved in on their website. What are your thoughts on internet safety? Do you worry about what your children are exposed to online? Share your thoughts in the comment section below or join our online community over on Twitter.

The post UK Safer Internet Centre on Keeping Kids Safe Online, Mental Health and Digital Literacy appeared first on My Digital Wirral.

Helping to get Wirral’s residents motivated into acting against climate change is the council’s new initiative, Cool Wirral.

We spoke to Wirral Council’s sustainability liaison officer Dr. Bryan Lipscombe to find out more about Cool Wirral how the initiative is helping the local area become greener.

Firstly, could you explain in a nutshell what Cool Wirral is all about?

In short, Cool Wirral is about mobilising local people and organisations to take practical action on climate change. There are many common sense steps we can take locally to cut the pollution that drives global warming.

There are also steps we can take to get better prepared for the unavoidable impacts – storms, floods, heat waves and so on. Cool Wirral is about promoting these.

It’s also about connecting people and organisations taking action so that we can learn from and take inspiration from each other.  A key message in Cool is that we can all play a part.

Cool Wirral takes its name from Cool – the climate change strategy for Wirral.  The Cool strategy is supported by a variety of local organisations spanning public, private and voluntary sectors.

One of the two main goals for the climate change strategy is “to substantially cut climate pollution associated with Wirral,” what’s planned for 2018 to help meet this goal?

We are now over three years into the five year strategy. Much work has already been done but there’s a lot more to do. This year, there should be more low energy LED streets lights installed, more cycle routes in place and action on electric vehicle charging amongst others. Some work will result in an immediate benefit. In other areas, it’s about laying a foundation for future change.

How has operating a climate change strategy on the Wirral differed from say another part of the UK, or even the national climate change campaign?

That’s a difficult question. There hasn’t been an overall assessment of local activity across the country for a few years. What I can say is that Wirral has an active, longstanding and outward looking climate change programme.

The approach taken here is very practical. It’s based on a recognition that no single person or organisation can do all of what needs to be done. Not all places will have an active programme. Some that do will focus on things ‘the council’ is doing alone. In Wirral, the approach is based on recognition that action needs to happen at many levels – from household, to school, to business, to council and beyond.

Looking wider, the broad aims in Wirral’s strategy reflect core ideas in national and international initiatives on climate change. That’s unsurprising given that we already know many of the changes that need to happen – using energy more efficiently, getting more of our energy from renewable sources, shifting to a cleaner transport system and so on. But as a local strategy there is a local flavour too.  For example, with local engineering skills and dock infrastructure it makes sense to promote Wirral as a centre for excellence for wind energy. We can draw on local strengths and opportunities to make a unique contribution to the bigger picture.

How are you engaging local people with the climate change strategy? And what has the response been like?

Wider awareness and participation is central to the success of the Cool strategy. This is an area where more needs to be done. We know there is broad awareness about climate change and a willingness to support action locally. The challenge is to harness this goodwill and help point people in the right direction to make their support count.

We don’t have a budget for publicity in the same way that say a commercial organisation might have for promoting a new product, so we rely on more grass roots approaches such as giving talks, getting stories in the press and harnessing social media.

Progress can be slow, but every article written, talk given or tweet posted is the chance to start a new conversation. Climate change can be a bit of a taboo subject. It can be overwhelming. People may not have the confidence to talk about it.

If we can start more conversations about what climate change means to us and about the actions we can take to protect the things that matter to us, that will help. Of course many of these practical actions will help make Wirral a healthier, less polluted, more accessible and self-reliant place; there’s a win-win there too.

What’s your biggest achievement to date since starting Cool Wirral?

I wouldn’t like to say to be honest. Cool is not about one person or one thing. It’s very much a shared journey. Also, some actions don’t have an immediate pay-off but could make a big difference further down the line. For example, a new organisation has been set up called Wirral Community Renewables, which didn’t exist prior to the strategy. It could have a huge impact pooling local resources in order to develop community owned solar power generation in Wirral.

A lot of work has gone in to get this far, but the group’s ultimate impact rests on what happens next. People reading this article might decide to get involved directly and help Wirral Community Renewables make this difference.  It’s not a given that the group will succeed but the foundation is there to build on.

As a resident of the Wirral, where is your favourite place to visit (area or establishment)?

I’m thinking that’s a trick question! I’m not from Wirral so view it through a visitor’s eyes. There’s definitely something about being on a peninsular with the mix of coast, countryside and towns here.  I never tire of walking by the river Mersey; it’s always animated in some way. There are of course many special places in Wirral. Hopefully the love of these cherished places will inspire climate action too.

What’s the best way for local people to get involved with Cool Wirral and the Climate Change Strategy activities?

People can keep in touch by signing up for the Cool News e-bulletin, by following Cool Wirral on twitter, or by joining the Cool Wirral group on project dirt. I’d also urge people to read the strategy – in particular the part titled ‘Putting Cool into practice’. This part spells out things people can do at home, at work and in their communities.

There’s no better way to get involved than to translate the strategy into your own actions.

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