CWA New Media: Our Blog

Watching the inauguration reinforced for me how much we part of a connected communications world that gifts us the privilege of choice.

I could watch the live coverage, hear the commentators,  participate in worldwide discussion and gain a 360 view of this moment in time in so many ways .  I could experience it via my free-to-air national tv broadcaster, access the perspectives of BBC, CNN, Aljazeera etc via my sky remote, call up live coverage from multiple avenues on the web, and be immersed in the instant and globally distributed observations via Twitter.

With such an all you can eat buffet of choice, becoming a discerning consumer is the new discipline.

If we needed convincing, and I’m not sure we do anymore, this item from Robert Scoble’s blog confirms that news gathering and dissemination is no longer in the hands of the traditional broadcasts and networks.

“Plane crash in NYC captured on real-time web”

“…One of the first phots (as report on Silicon Alley Insider) was made by Janis Krums on his iPhone and posted to Twitter. He was on one of the first ferries to get to the scene, just minutes after the crash….”

It also reminds us that access to knowledge and information is dynamic and ever-changing.  This is a powerful new element to the learning landscape that, if harnessed by expert teachers, could add an X factor to student’s engagement in the learning process.

Large numbers can attract the attention.   These figures come from a BBC report, and it advises that this is a 41% growth since last year.    Included in the report was that 117.6 million people accessed the internet using their mobile phones last year, up 133% from 2007.

Students are the main strength of mobile internet users, the study said: 43.5% of them use their mobile phones to read online news, download music, check email and perform a variety of other tasks.

At the end of 2008, the number of net users in China, which has a population of 1.3 billion, was almost the same as the entire population of the United States.

wow!

It’s that time again – when everyone makes predictions.  CWA’s team will share theirs soon, and in the meantime we’ll borrow these.

I’ m  a subscriber to Read Write Web and it is a great place to keep in the loop  about new products, services and thinking.  A pre-Christmas topic stirred up some interesting debate about where learning is going, with the tantalising title “Education 2.0: Never Memorize Again”

The wonderfully distributed web 2.0 world  has been accelerating over the past few years and many of us have little bits of our content, ideas, creations  and identity scattered across 2.0 places like Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, Flickr, You Tube, Photobucket, Google docs, Live Journal et al.

But this year could be shaping up as a shakeout year for some of the less famous of these online spaces.

While these sites are free to us, there is a cost for someone somewhere in terms of their staffing, server infrastructure and traffic costs.  As the recession hits their owners may  start to look more closely at whether the hoped-for returns on their investment are being realised.

I guess the best approach is to ensure that when we publish onto these sites we also keep copies of whatever is precious to us – just in case someone hits the off-switch.

I’m on the mailing list of The Digital Divide Network (DDN) community where robust debate and interesting insights are constantly flowing through this group’s email discussions.

A recent conversation has been focusing on the role and growth of ICT4D strategies,  and what has been described as its future pathway – M4D -  the first international conference for which was held very recently (December) in Sweden.

The 4D in this case is not referring to a Tardis type dimension but rather  “for development”, and the M for “Mobile”.

The themes being explored include how aid can be used to assist countries to build their ICT infrastructure, provide equitable access for all (including those in very rural communities), and developing the digital literacies needed to be discerning users of the technologies.  Stated goals include enhanced social empowerment, better access to government, and more equal opportunities for international trade.

It looks like e-Development (which embraces ICT4D and M4D)  is emerging as a major theme for 2009.

I can’t imagine life without email, but others can.  This article touches on the possibility that millennials have moved on.

With 2009 well and truly underway, it’s a jolt to realise that next year is 2010 . No doubt it will be a year of review and future gazing.  Reading up on the NZ Secondary Futures site might provide a head start as this 4-year initiative has been considering the future of learning, and has produced a range of interesting theme-based papers.

For me, Twitter seemed to appear on the web 2.0 horizon about 18 months ago when the simplicity of its ‘what are you doing now’ invitation began to catch on worldwide.    TwitterVision arrived and  watching and reading the mesmorising array of tweets, presented in real time on a moving map, was a very easy way to  lose a few hours.

Fast forward  and suddenly there’s a crescendo of twittering and related services, including things like TwitPic, Twitchboard, Twilert, iTweet, Twitterholic, TwitterSnooze etc.  Thankfully there’s also  Twittonary to help translate the vocab.

With all this activity we’ll look at finding a way to integrate Twitter into the  learning landscape of 2009.

PS: If you want to follow me, look for twitter name = jillatcwa.