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How many hours do teenagers really spend on the Internet?
AN ONLINE snapshot survey by Letts Educational's revision website, lettsrevise.com, revealed that a massive 77% of teenagers
spend between 5 to10 hours a week online, with a third of children
overall staying online for more than 10 hours.
"It's clear that Internet usage amongst teenagers has risen
sharply over the last few years. Whilst teenagers undoubtedly use
the Internet for leisure activities, the web also plays an important
part in extending their learning. The Government is committed to
getting all schools online and a large number of teenagers now use
the internet to support their education both at school and at
home," said Peter Stafford from Letts
Educational.
"From our experience alone, we can see large numbers of
teenagers using the Internet to help them revise for their SATs and
GCSEs. Last year alone, just over 40,000 GCSE students signed up to
our revision website, www.lettsrevise.com, and since the site's
refresh and the addition of the new Key Stage 3 area in November,
there has been an incredible amount of interest."
Lettsrevise.com is designed to put a bit of fun into revision. The
quick-fire timed multiple-choice quiz has a bank of thousands of
questions written by Letts Educational's Success Guide
authors.
This year, the site has an additional section for Key Stage 3
students, which allows 11 to 14 year olds to choose questions from
one subject or from all 3 of those included in the SATs. The site
also offers the same function for GCSE students, enabling them to
pick 1 subject to focus on or try a mix of any combination of up to
7 core GCSE subjects. Revisers can also now receive their test
results so they can track their progress and they can even send the
same test to a friend to see how they get on! Detailed answer
feedback tells them what they got wrong, as well as highlighting the
right answer.
EASE
TRAFFIC CONGESTION WITH BROADBAND
A VIDEO conferencing
initiative is demonstrating how local businesses can reduce travel
time and related costs by web conferencing and that they can also
improve internal and external communications, increase efficiency
and decrease time to market using the latest ICT technology.
The pilot, run by Mersey Broadband in conjunction with
ConferencePlus is offering web conferencing trials. A combination of
demonstration seminars and free trial periods of web and audio
conferencing introduces the essential components and best uses of
teleworking.
Mersey Broadband's Teleworking Project Manager, Ian Montgomery
said:- "We are offering a range of benefits such as free
audio and web conferencing covering around 20 meetings and a 50%
discount on standard audio rates for SMEs who wish to set up an
account and continue to use ConferencePlus audio and web services
after the trial period."
The project is also offering a web conference event showcasing
teleworking and specialist advice on making it a success, including
seminars focusing on specific applications such as training in
health and safety & HR and demonstrations of PC-based
applications and effective virtual presentations.
Ian continued:- "Companies who get most from this pilot
are those with geographically dispersed offices or staff, those
whose infrastructure relies heavily on efficient communication or
those looking to enable teleworking as a culture in their
organisation"
Taking part in this pilot are Southport based, BW business
solutions. Proprietor, Brian Wray, commented:- "As a
small business we at BW business solutions are always short of time
during the business day. Using ConferencePlus products over the
broadband trial, will enable us to conduct meetings with people from
all over the country without having to leave the office, saving on
travel costs, time and wear and tear on the individual from early
starts and late finishes."
Mersey Broadband, a 2-year project, led by Liverpool Chamber of
Commerce & Industry and funded by the Northwest Regional
Development Agency (NWDA), is promoting business use of Broadband
technology to SMEs throughout the region.
Kevin Morley, NWDA Head of ICT Policy, said:- "This
project demonstrates just one of the many ways in which broadband
can benefit business, improving communications, reducing costs, and
increasing efficiency. As well as providing a useful insight into
best practice, this project offers the specialist advice required to
enable businesses on Merseyside to take advantage of more flexible
working solutions."
If you think your business could benefit from this project, call us
on 0845 145 1115 to find out more, or email:- teleworking@merseybroadband.com
Mersey Broadband is also holding regular, free demonstrations of
this technology at its centre in Chapel Street, Liverpool.
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PM must embrace new technologies to meet pledge on treating families
UK'S LEADING healthcare trade association welcomes General Election pledge but warns Government must encourage medical innovations and speedier adoptions in the NHS to deliver on health
The UK's leading healthcare trade association today welcomed the Prime Minister's pledge on health to see that families are treated better and faster but warned that medical innovations would have to be embraced for him to honour his pledge.
The Association of British Healthcare Industries (ABHI) said that despite the UK having a world-class medical technology industry, lots of medical breakthroughs do not reach the patient. This means patients' lives are risked through less effective treatments.
In addition, substantial cost-saving opportunities through more efficient treatments are being missed. The ABHI argues that over-emphasis on initial purchase price leads to the use of treatments, which are both more costly in the long-term and can have painful or even fatal consequences for patients.
The ABHI said that whilst there had been considerable investment into the NHS in recent years, the UK was still well below the EU average for spending on new technologies as a proportion of the annual health budget.
According to an OECD report last year the UK spends well below the European average on new medical technology. France, Spain and Portugal all spend more than the UK on medical technology while Germany invests 8.6% of its healthcare budget on new technology compared with just 4.8% in the UK. The EU average is 6.4%.
John Wilkinson, Director General of the ABHI, said:- "Health is the key issue on which the parties must convince the public in the forthcoming General Election.
Whilst the substantial investment that has been put into the NHS should make a difference to people's lives, that money has to be spent wisely for the public to actually benefit.
That means the Government must ensure that the health service is able to trial and buy cutting-edge technologies and address the current slow take-up.
One major way forward is laid out in the Healthcare Industries Task Force (HITF), which saw the public and private sectors, along with clinicians and patient groups, working together to develop initiatives to improve and speed up patient treatment, as well as to potentially save the NHS millions long-term."
Lighting up stubs out the passion
A SURVEY released today by the NHS Smoking Helpline has revealed that smoking can seriously damage your love life. 20% of 18-35 year olds questioned said they believed that non-smokers make better lovers, and 40% said they had argued with their partner about quitting.
The good news is that people in Merseyside who want to stub out the weed have access to a wide range of support, thanks to The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation. 70% of smokers want to stop and The Foundation operates almost 40 smoking cessation clinics and Fag Ends support groups in and around Merseyside, helping smokers to not only stop smoking, but also stay stopped. More than 50% of the people have still quit after 4 weeks and almost 33% of those have still quit after a year.
However, with 450 children in the UK taking up the habit every day, The Foundation also works hard to target young people on the dangers of smoking. The KATS Program (Kids Against Tobacco Smoke) is part of The Foundation's overall strategic approach to reduce the incidence of lung cancer and to improve lung cancer patient care. The Support Groups are seeing an increasing number of young people seeking support to stop smoking.
The Foundation's Chief Executive, Mike Unger said:- "By reducing the numbers of young people taking up smoking we can make a huge impact to prevent the rising cases of lung cancer.
A report by the Royal College of Physicians shows that by the age of 10, as many as 40% of boys and 28% of girls have had at least a few puffs of a cigarette. In order to encourage young people to accept non-smoking as the norm, anti-smoking messages must start when children are very young."
Added Mike:- "Smoking is addictive and many of the children and young people who start to smoke will go on to smoke all of their lives. Half of those who do will die, many prematurely, of tobacco related illnesses."
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