Learning digital literacy

I took my video camcorder to Turku. My intention was to tell something with moving image. Problem is that I didn't have anything to tell. This is a blog about mediated communication - not about my family seeing Turku. I did not shoot anything.

I toke some photos, just to make this point. It is important to use a correct media to tell the right message. Fact that we were in Turku, can be told be a photo -it does not need video. (If I would want to make a point that moving furniture was hard work, it might have been done better with a video clip.)

communication media digital+literacy citizen+journalism

Donate a link- it keeps the next visitor warmer

This relates to my last blogging about attention as power. (I just don't accept that the amount of people linked to your blog equals the authority of your message.)

In Finland we have cottages with public right of access. They are in wilderness and I have never used one. When you go there, everything is ready. You have firewood. You are tiered after a long walk. System works so that everyone makes the firewood for the next quest, because you should and because it makes sense. (It’s much nice to be able to start cooking straight away than try to find wet threes and make a fire.)

If this works in the wilderness – and people don’t know the next visitor – why should it work in virtual space? So let’s try a campaign “Donate a link”. Idea is that when you do to a site – like xo4u.blogspot.com and browse through links, you might also donate one of your good links to public use. Donating links means sharing them and you don’t have to know the next guest.

(I know that this is much the same as Y! MyWeb 2.0. If you like it, use it. Or Del.isio.us or Blinklist) I have tried to find out how Technorati counts links. I cannot figure it out. Also I have been playing with Blinklist.

I have made a small demonstration about one way to share links.
1) Users tag their links at Blinklist and
2) I have RSS feeds on my blog at "Video collection". It generates links that are tagged as "Exercise", "Martial arts", and "Health". In future it will be refined with a bolean operation of RSSfeeds.
3) Users are not publishing to this site, I am just sharing public links. And anyone can log in to a RSSFeed or use this site as it is.

socialcomputing ContinuousComputing socialnetworking socialsoftware

Attention as power

Just downloaded Yahoos My Web2 and also tried to understand how links are make in technorati. In new economy attention or recognision is power. We use to think that media is a power and know it is the number of bloggers are "linked" to your site.

This is a criteria for search engines to show and different social software to evaluate the reliability of the content - authority?

You can check how well this works by looking at the most popular links.
http://technorati.com/pop/blogs/

socialcomputing journalism citizen+journalism

Factual video journalism

I am doing an experiment on a none fiction citizen journalism that uses online video. Would this be factual vcitj? Or onlinecitizenjournalismvideodocumentary.

Idea is to collect online material as a public link collection by an exact subject. Not by geographical location. In my experiment I am interested in content about physical exercise. It about collecting online material about health, wellness and fitness.

Most of journalism is doing research and editing other peoples texts. So am I doing citizen journalism even though I am not writing?

Link to “Health and Wellness”
journalism citizen journalism

Video citizen journalism

Vlog are coming more and more popular and publishing videos thru Google, Ourmedia, Internet archive, Yahoo and other streaming servers is free.

Video can be used as a normal tool for citizen journalism just like normal blogging. Or maybe we should just think of text, photo and video and use a media at it’s best. Use video to show, when we have to footish and write when we need to deal with abstract concepts.

In citizen journalism we need to use more video – it can be from our mobile phone or digital camera, but video camcorders are quite small to carry, too. Moving image has a very convincing power.

(I know that my first Vlog image is also from homevideo, but one has to start from same where…)
journalism citizen journalism

Creating a videoblog

Just testing http://www.momentshowing.net/momentshowing/2004/11/how_to_make_a_v.html



CLICK HERE TO WATCH

Internet archive has not yet verified my video so I am using an other solution. I will link the video to Internet archive as soon as it publishes this same material.

Sharing and citj in BBC

(referring to discussion at http://www.ireporter.org/2005/06/notes_from_the_.html)

Few days a go there was a news story about BBC and journalism training http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k5/june/june325.htm

I think that the interest for citj is much about the interest in media and digital literacy. The importance of it has been recognized very broadly. (In EU projects are poorly funded compared to many other issues.)

I did a media exchange project with BBC learning centre http://www.bbc.co.uk/21cc/
We let 15 to 16 years old students do television inserts in Jyvaskyla and London and exchanges stories. Reportages were broadcasted on BBC2.

BBC is very active in citizen journalism. We have worked with an organization called CSV (www.csv.org.uk) to launch an international project for training citizen journalists. CSV works much with BBC’s regional radio stations. (Email me, some one wants more information about this.)

Biggest sharing that BBC has is the Creative Archive. http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2004/05_may/26/creative_archive.shtml

This is old news for many of you. But I’ll try to give a new angle on this. I have been following this and talked with Paul Gerhardt. He is the joint director. So there is something more than speculation in my comment.

BBC has about 25000 employees, but it will give free access to huge amount of it’s intellectual property (aca ”content”). BBC is a public broadcaster, but it is not a charity organization. It is responsible for it’s workers. The decision to share up to 20% of it’s content is a sound business decision. BBC will make a profit. Material that is shared is low resolution and cannot be used in television broadcasting or corporate presentations. It just creates a “hype”. (I think this is a great win-win idea.)

I commented on the story about freelancers getting fired because news papers are using bloggers. In BBC journalists will be able to keep their jobs, because BBC uses the help of citizen journalism.

(We live in a strange world. Even business is changing. We used to have just products and services, but know we have something called intellectual property – like copyrights, contacts, status or fame. We buy and sell possibilities – options to success. And somehow just giving something away makes you rich? BUT “rich” might not be “money”:-) It might be something that you can turn in to money, tough.)

journalism citizen journalism

Games and Mediated Communication

Invitation to bright minds

Thank you for your presentations and articles. You have given me ideas – and those are included in my latest experiment. I toke part in Wade Roush’s collective writing exercise for MIT Technology review. (It will be published 5th of July, 2005 http://www.continuousblog.net/)

I want to try the method on preparation of a presentation that I am giving at Nordic Serious Games Seminar 3rd of August, 2005. (So I have about one month to make the presentation.)

I am NOT asking you to write the presentation. (I have to do it my self.)

For me this is about the presentation and getting ideas, but I hope that you can see a bigger picture. This is about collective writing and using technology to share ideas. I have set up a blog for sharing

http://smartcom.blogspot.com/

Check it for more information... and hope it gives you ideas ... and you might even share them:-)