Zakala's blog
Items from Zakala's blog.
Stop text bully
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Stop text bully
A site full of useful info for children, parents/carers and educators.
One in five kids hit by 'digital bullying' - silicon.com
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Whilst this is now "news" I guess those of us in education have known that sadly mobile phones and ICT are being used by pupils to bully other pupils. What is so pernicious about this is that as the above artile says this can potentially be done 24/7.
Whilst the best solution is education - our kids need to know that they can talk to us and teachers and be properly protected from repercussions - ICT is being used to counter the problem in some schools through SMS messaging to allow children to forward threatening texts to the school who then take action against the bullies. Hand-in-hand with this goes a strict policy that this behaviour will not be tolerated.
Hopefully, through education, enforcement of policy and new ICT schemes, the number of children receiving bullying texts (14%) will be lower next year.
http://networks.silicon.com/mobile/0,39024665,39131022,00.htm
Dracula - the stage show
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Jay & I saw this last night at the Birmingham Rep and were very impressed. We were wondering how anyone was going to stage Dracula, but it really does work.
The cast were brilliant and all very convincing - acting was a definite necessity as the production was performed on a fixed set with only a limited amount of moving of large prop chests and the appearance of a coffin in act 2. The stage was very cleverly dressed to give an isomorphic look and roughly dividing the stage into 4 areas with angled walkways runing front to back and left to right. This division of the stage with close and careful lighting creates a dark and moody atmosphere to the extent that the house lights seemed excessively bright after each of the two acts.
I don't want to give anything away for those that might like to see it, but it is a contemporary setting which uses new technology very well, both with in the story and within the play - the use of two screens allowed the projection of reinforcing material, which could have been a distraction, but which were well chosen and worked very well to reinforce the action, especially for audiences used to big screens at gigs where you look at the screen for the details.
Many of the actors were familiar from TV and film work - Colin Baker (ex. Dr Who) playing Van Helsing was probably the biggest name, though it seemed that all the other cast had either worked in Casualty/Holby or Doctors!
I thought it all worked very well and the actors played well. Jay wasn't so sure about the portrayal of Dracula, but then he wasn't Gary Oldman! I'd agree, however that his portrayal was far closer to Nosferatu than Chistopher Lee or Oldman, but as a fan of early film I thought that was perfect.
A suitable level of humor, especially from the protagonist, lightened the mood when necessary and made the shocks more shocking. Special effects, other than the screens and lighting, were used sparingly but to excellent effect with a couple of truely magical "where the &*$% did he go moments".
Even if, like Jay & I you know the story backwards the adaptation is great and they even manage to throw in a twist!
Get to see it if you can, it's worth the money, but you'll have to be quick; the play finishes in Birmingham on Saturday 11th June and then has only a week run in Brighton (13th to 18th) before closing. Shame, this one should run and run!
http://www.scareyouwitless.com/
"Its Prof Again" - David Cleveland (Vision-On) - British TV
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