Rather than respond immediately to the publication of the Rose Review of the Primary Curriculum, I have looked at the report and some additional documentation, and produced a Computers in Classrooms Briefing as a result.

In the briefing, I have summarised the main points of the documentation in terms of information and communications technology (ICT), and added my own comments. I hope that this will prove to be useful for colleagues as a basis for discussion and as a handy summary of the proposed changes.

The briefing also includes a comparison of the current Level Descriptors for ICT and the proposed changes to them. I find it inconvenient to keep flipping from one document to another in order to compare the two versions of each statement, and if you have a similar opinion then you should find this combination of the two sets quite useful – I know I do!

• Computing at school, by Roger Davies
  
  
• Behind the masks of social networks, by Miller Singleton
  
  
• Is social networking all bad?, by Terry Freedman
  
  
• Facebook's flawed photo privacy, by Dai Barnes, with additional reporting by Lois Whitehead
  
  
• The Facebook party-pooper: tips for protecting your privacy on Facebook, by Scott N Wright
  
  
• Meet Henri: a novel approach to raising personal safety awareness in the primary school, by Dughall McCormick
  
  
• New technology to protect pupils against email abuse from sexual predators, by John McLear
  
  
• What is Twitter, and why is it so important?, by Tom Barrett

In this issue we have a couple of great previews, including an advance publication of a podcast of an interview with a high school student about digital citizenship. The full list is given in the article.

This is a shortish newsletter; the next one, which I am aiming to publish after the Easter break, will be much bigger. There's plenty in that to look forward to, as described further on. It has a social networking focus. If you'd like to contribute to that, there is still time.

In this issue...

• Adventures in Podcasting -- venturing out no more
• Forthcoming issues
• 31 ways of making a contribution
• Prize draw: good news for educational games-creators enthusiasts
• How to make exercises more interesting
• Getting through to parents
• The social networking issue
• The games issue
• Review of the Game-Based Learning Conference 09 (with link to presentations)
  

In this issue

• Quote of the month
  
  
• BETT 2009
  
  
• Talking Books
  
  
• Sponsored article: Mobile revision
  
  
• Visualisers - their use in the primary classroom
  
  
• World Maths Day 2009
  
  
• Report on the Primary Capital Action 08 Conference
  
  
• Question time: questions to ask pupils during lesson observation
  
  
• Book Review: Virtual Shadows - Karen Lawrence Öqvist
  
  
• Book Review: Making Money With Your Blog
  
  
• Hardware review: The MPRO 110 Micro Projector

The latest issue of the Computers in Classrooms newsletter is now out. It's the first one published and distributed using a different mailing list service.

It contains reviews of hardware, books, and conferences, advice on lesson observation, information about World Math Day and an article by two teenagers about how and why they created talking books.

Read on for more information about the contents and how to subscribe (it's free).