Recently by Julie Locke

Our electricity monitoring device has opened our eyes to how we can save on our elecricity, since we have had this moniter it has made us look at the electricity we use and how we can reduce the amount of electricity we use as a family. Such as not leaving lights on and the computer or in Kieran's case Playstation 3. In the past we have been ignorant at the fact of cutting electricity and just moaned when the bill arrived by saying HOW Much!! But the moniter makes us aware of the electricty we use and it is good to see the cost of our electrcity bill coming down.

People can see our device, at http://dehems.com and by logging in using the user name Digital_Birmingham and the password skye15. They will be able to find what we are saving at the moment which is over £35 per month and only contributing 4.11 kg of carbon compared to a local average of 13.88 kg. So we are doing very well as a family. Its great for working out what devices in your home use electricity and how much they use. Just look at the dial...then switch it off...and see what the saving is.

We are cutting down on paper by having online billing which is is excellent. We have saved almost 20 sheets of paper a month and saved about £5 per month in my bills (Telecom, Virgin, Bank, British Gas, Business) by subscribing to online billing. I must admit though I do miss a full letterbox!!

BT has given us a Green Phone. The new handsets have power units designed specifically to consume around half the power of previous units, which the company says will not only reduce electricity costs for consumers but also contribute "significantly" to cutting Carbon Dioxide emissions. We have even persuaded my parents to use the Green Phone and that is progress.

We are coming to the end of our Digital Journey, with just a couple more projects to do

I would like to thank BT for the great stuff thet have sent us to try out which we are still having fun with.

The Birmingham Mail and Graham Young who is fantastic at his Job and certainly knows his stuff, Simon said it is just a shame that he supports the wrong football team.

Birmingham Digital for all the sorting out of each month of our Digital Journey and all their hard work behind the scences that has helped us enjoy tasks set.

Mike Farmer who works along side Digital Birmingham, he has become a good friend to Me, Simon, Sophie and Kieran and we will miss him after the twelve months is up. He has been with us every week and very patient with us, as I think we have been hard work sometimes. Mike you are a great person and we want to thank you for all what you have shown us, but I am afraid we have a little longer to go yet. Sophie especially enjoyed her time with Mike at Ackers on the dry ski slope.

We are on the last legs of our 12 months now with perhaps one or two months to go. By then we would have hoped to set up Simons advertising which Mike and Simon are doing at the moment. We will report on our final projects and how our life has changed since becoming the Digital Family of Birmingham 08/09

My mom was a little weary about using a computer, plus it was something that as never interested her. She said she was not very confident and computer using was something of the unknown and she had always backed away from learning the computer and surfing the net. It was not until we won the competition with the Birmingham Mail, BT and Birmingham Digital and my mom was asked to give the net a try. Since then she has found it has opened up a whole new experience for her.

My mom stopped at my Brother's for a while in London to look after her Daughter In Law after she was involved in a car accident. My mom and her Daughter In Law decided to look at my mom's family tree tracing my mom's father and mother's side of the family. They found out that my moms pre married name had been in the family for 100 years. My mom's mother's side was more interesting to trace because mom's mother had not known her mother and lived with her dad and step-mom, it was found that her real mom had died when she was only two years old. My mom and her Daughter in Law has since gone back to the 1870's.

My mom has found this very interesting especially finding out what kind of jobs people did all those years ago. Mom said the internet has given her a bigger insight into finding out information, and has been doing this in her own time and spending time with Sophie.

My mom is also interested in garden design and has even been on the web looking at how to design her own back garden, different types of plants and looking at prices of greenhouse's which she is considering buying.

Mom said this has been a whole new experience for her which she has enjoyed and has acquired a new confidence in herself which she thought she would never have with computers and digital technology. She said she thought she was too old to learn new tricks, but she now says you are never too old and feels she has opened a new chapter in her life.

Sophie has helped her Nan browse the net and is very patient with her, and explained everything well to help her Nan understand. Sophie to has become interested in tracing the family tree, so it has become a family affair through the generations.

Kieran is looking forward to a photoshoot tomorrow 6th May 09, with the Birmingham Mail for an article about ICT in Kieran's school Hollywood Primary School.

Since we started this journey as the Digital Family, Kieran was only interested in computer games that were play games rather than learning games. Kieran would lose interest if I told him I was putting in a learning disc into the PC. That was until we were told about a site called matheletics, this site is very competitive and Kieran enjoys the challenge of playing simple to hard questions on math's and competing with other children from around the world. As Kieran is very competitive this site is perfect it adds excitement to learning and what Kieran does not realise he is learning math's but having fun to and the more he plays the quicker he is getting at speed on answering math's questions.

For instance Kieran was playing with children from Australia and Canada the weekend competing for his bronze award. These websites are perfect and very clever for learning and keeping the enthusiasm going among children.

We were given a booklet on the Birmingham Grid for Learning www.bgfl.org this website is full of web links to Key stage 1,2, 3 & 4 plus many more. This website www.bgfl.org I think every parent should keep it in their favorites.

We were given a BT Freestyle 750 Digital Cordless Handset plus answering machine.

This was a great gift from BT but as we have a BT phone very similar we decided to give this phone to my parents.

This phone was so ideal for them the numbers to press are large enough for them to see without using their glasses to dial. They are so pleased with this telephone and said how easy it is to use.

This month we are going to be looking at ways Simon can advertise his business online.
We have never done anything like this before.

We generally do not advertise as Simon gets his work by word of mouth so there has never been any reason why we should advertise.

We are going to give it a go, we are unsure how this will work or if we would generate work from advertising online.

Simon's attitude is very negative about advertising, as he sees it as you get a lot of time waster's. He thinks people prefer to hear about you by word of mouth and on how relaible you have been. We will wait and see what response we do get if any.

We have just installed a current cost moniter to help us reduce our elctricity costs.

It is simple to install, you have a meter which plugs into an electric socket and it them wirelessly connects to a measuring device which fits onto the wall near the electricity meter. There is a bit if difficulty at one point where you have to get the two devices to 'talk' to each other.

The device shows you how much electricity we are using, 429 watts at the moment and as you switch off devices it goes down and down. It also gives you a simple block diagram on how much electrcity you used on the previous day.

Even better we plugged the box into our BT router and it then registered on the Dehams website to see our electricity consumption online. On the site you can see lots of graphs and find out lots more about your electricity usage.

We have just discovered there is a big world out there as far as the internet is concerned.
We have been told to explore booking holidays online. 'WOW' this is a vast area

First as a family we sat down to actually decide where we would like to go on holiday, we normally go to Spain, but last year we had a week in Jersey which we fully enjoyed. Kieran does not like flying, so Spain and Jersey are ideal places for us to go.

We went on various websites and each of us had a go at looking at different web sites such as 'lastminute.com'. We had a game to see who could find the best deal. Sophie won as she can be quite competitive.

We found some great deals away for a family for a week, half board and good flight times. We like to take out a holiday package so the transfers run quite smoothly. After hours of exploring the net we came to the decision before we confused ourselves anymore further of prices and places to go, that we would like to go back to Jersey. We enjoyed the Hotel we stopped in last year the flight was very short and the airport procedure ran so smoothly and most of all Kieran enjoyed the flight and holiday.

We found out that we could email the Hotel direct and they could sort out a package deal for the family, we had a quote saving over £400 compared to last years price, which we were amazed at. So we may go ahead and book this holiday in the near distant future.

We have also been shown how to set up BT's Digital Vault this enables you to upload and store photos while we are away without taking up to much space on our PC hard drive - and would also allow our family to view them too to see what we are up to. This is a good facility as Sophie and Kieran are close to their nan and grandad and like to stay in touch. A plus side for us as we only go away once a year the standard facility for BT's Digital Vault is free, so thats even better for us and the step by step guide is easy to use, even for Sophie and KIeran's Nan and Grandad to use.

Sophie is getting a little jet-setter at the moment her next school trip is to Paris, and then a little closer to home Brean caravan park with her netball team. Maybe she will be adding Jersey to her list for the year, she is costing us a small fortune!!!

Myself and Simon still have mixed views on internet safety with Sophie and Kieran. We are still not convinced with Face book and have concerns over MSN. We do not see everything that Sophie and Kieran say on MSN behind their closed bedroom doors. We have concerns also on the slang Sophie and Kieran use on MSN and how this effects their spelling, it is not only the use of sites like MSN but also texting on mobiles. We find that the kids would rather shortcut a word than write out in full.

Sophie is aware of the dangers of internet use and we have also explained why we have our concerns on chat sites. Sophie has over 300 contacts on MSN and we know for sure she does not have 300 friends. Sophie said if she is worried about someone who chats to her or if someone asks too many questions she will put a block on them, and her friends do the same. Sophie said she has over 300 contacts because her friends have introduced her to their friends.

Kieran opened an account on Face book without our consent, when we found out we told him we were not happy and why we were not happy. We explained he should not set up chat sites without our knowledge. Kieran did understand and as since cancelled his Facebook account. Kieran is aware of the dangers of internet use and he is sensible not to set up accounts on sites which ask for our address and telephone number.Kieran has used some great free kids websites to play games on such as www.clubpenguin.com. This is a great fun website and requests parental permission from parents e-mail before they can use the site, which is great because we have given our consent for Kieran to use the site and have looked into the website to see what it is about.

Recently we have set up an account on a chat site called Twitters, we are hoping to use this site when Sophie is skiing so we can communicate with her. You can also introduce friends to follow you and chat to you. We will be learning more about this site over the next few weeks. ,

We had a great morning in Birmingham City Centre today.

Myself Sophie and Kieran were out and about testing out Sophies mobile phone and Kierans Sony PSP. We logged onto the Birmingham Fiz which is a free internet information zone around Birmingham while we were actually out and about walking around Birmingham.

Kieran looked up whats on at the cinema and Sophie looked up shopping so we set off in the direction of the Bull Ring to do some shopping. We were lucky to be there while the German Market was in full swing and Sophie and Kieran ordered themselves chocolate doughnuts which were very sweet but nice.

Sophie looked up on the Birmingham Fiz site, information I needed to find out about the Birmingham Art Gallery, Sophie also used the web site to look to see if there would be snow for Christmas Day (sadly no snow).

When we won this competition to be part of Birmingham's Digital Family as a family we were unaware of what is actually on offer around Birmingham for free. We did not know that there were free internet zones such as the Birmingham Fiz available. The good thing about these free information zones you can use the sites while on the move without having to stay in one place.

Sophie would like a new pay as you go mobile for christmas and with the free internet zones available around Birmingham City Centre, Sophie does not have to worry about using up all her credit on internet use.

It was a fun morning and we had fun testing out the mobile and PSP while out and about around Birmingham and we will definitely use this free service that is available for internet users again.

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