I've just come across two interesting news items - one about the use of Web2.0 in the Health sector and another about using online games to encourage children to respond to a consultation about play spaces.

Although the full text is not available without paying a hefty sum, the Executive Summary of the E-health 2.0 report is available. The report offers an overview of twenty "leading e-health 2.0 providers", and discusses a number of themes that emerge from this overview, including: Transparency in the health system; Rebalancing the doctor-patient relationship; Consumer empowerment; Empowerment through connectivity; and Mobilisation of data. According to Public Technology.net "The profiles provide a snapshot of innovation across healthcare: from organisations providing online communities for patients with specific conditions, tools for chronic disease management, sites that enable patients to rate the quality of care they receive, together with tools to enable clinicians to better search for and share research data."

The second story I saw came from the Department for Children, Schools and Families. The Playspace consultation tool is a neat online tool which is aimed at 8-13 year olds to try and get them involved with a national consultation on the development of play spaces. In a Sims type game it allows kids to create their ideal playspace, and they earn credits to buy cool things (like skate ramps, swings, etc) for their playspace by answering child-friendly questions based around the consultation.

I suppose what struck me most about these is the way in which technology is changing the relationship between organisations and their 'clients'. Whether that's through finding interesting and fun ways to engage children and therefore enable them to contribute to developments in their world, or encouraging greater interaction, support and freedom of choice through the use of social networking in the health sector.

It's encouraging engagement, interaction, involvement and ownership of these issues and with increasing familiarity and access to technology it seems likely to become more prevalent in every part of our lives.

Labels: consultation, digitalnatives, education, engagement, freedom, games, health, IT, online gaming, open, socialnetworking, web2.0

As the parent of a child who's been keen on computer games from the age of three(!), I welcome the Scottish Government's plans for teaching schoolchildren how to design and develop their own electronic games. Apparently, pupils will use software to create their own games, and be taught how to use computer software to create animations and feature films. While this is at least partly intended to support Scotland's games industry, which employs more than 500 and generates £20million annually, Maureen Watt, Minister for Schools and Skills, also notes "Technologies have become part of every day modern life, whether in computer programming, engineering or craft and design - and we need to encourage children to be confident and competent when using them".

From what I can see, confidence in using technology is already par for the course among primary 1s, certainly in terms of xbox, playstation, nintendo ds various... And if you need convincing about the potential educational value of games, have a look at how it is being done on gamelearning for the 'playstation generation'; read what John Rice has to stay about the educational uses of the ds; or for something more practical (and my favourite) why not see if you can beat the clock on Lunar Jim's patchwork game (Level 3), or for something a bit easier how about Spooky Spoon Sudoku?

Labels: digitalnatives, education, games, learnerexpectations, schools, scotland