• Games advertised as “free” should not mislead consumers about the true costs involved;
• Games should not contain direct exhortations to children to buy items in a game or to persuade an adult to buy items for them;
• Consumers should be adequately informed about the payment arrangements and purchases should not be debited through default settings without consumers’ explicit consent;
• Traders should provide an email address so that consumers can contact them in case of queries or complaints.

Two weeks ago a follow up release gave details of changes to the Google Play store that will take place before the end of September:

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I really should know about Learning Analytics. I’m currently involved in a EU project with the term Learning Analytics in the title. I helped write a paper on tools for learning analytics and have read many papers coming out of our department on it.

The student looked at me, raised an eyebrow. I waved my hand, said that we can catch up later, worried that I still don’t haven’t a clue about Learning Analytics. I just don’t have an answer to the question: ‘what is Learning Analytics?’. I can’t claim that data informed decision-making is a new thing, I don’t suppose it’s even new in the context of applying it to education. Also, how does it differ to educational data mining? I’ve never really understood that; I read somewhere that education data mining included academic analytics in it’s scope, I guess because academics aren’t learning anything they can’t be included in learning analytics, who knows.

The trouble is that when it comes to Learning Analytics I don’t think there is a good snappy sound bite on learning analytics to spurt out when your professor drops you in it at the meeting. Fortunately there a list of 5 things in a Cetis briefing paper by my colleagues that I always return too whenever I am lost in learning analytics. These 5 areas of learning analytics are

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Each year the Cetis conference provides a unique opportunity for developers, learning technologists, lectures and policy makers to come together to discuss recent innovations in the domain of education technology. This year’s conference focuses on the digital institution and explores how technology innovation can support and develop every aspect of university and college life, for teachers and learners, researchers and developers, service directors and senior managers.

Generally  the Cetis conference is a great place to meet people doing similar things and have a natter about the important stuff.  This year the conference takes place on the 17th and 18th of June and  is being held Bolton and since you’ll be coming to Bolton you might as well make the most of your time here to explore ‘Britain’s Friendliest Town’.

• Sports fans will need to check out Bolton’s Robots of Doom baseball team, who hit fame when they were voted as having the second most interesting name by Major League Baseball Magazine and featured in a two page article in Lancashire Life magazine.
• History fanatics and beer drinkers will want to check out the ye olde man and scythe which is  one of the the 10 oldest pubs in Britain. The 7th Earl of  Derby was executed here during the civil war, his ghost has appeared in the book Bolton’s most haunted and plenty of YouTube videos
• Gourmands will enjoy the ye old pasty shoppe which appeared in  ITV’s smash show, Britain’s Best Bakery.
• Shoppers are catered for as Bolton has three Morrisons
• Autograph hunters often spot Peter Kay’s Mum

Even if you don’t get time to explore the joys of Bolton, you should still come to the conference:

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Releasing a console is such big business that the money made from the console purchase itself is negligible. Often sold at a loss console developers will instead be hoping to cash in on much more, including licensing fees, monthly subscriptions, video steaming rental and advertising.

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