Episode 0019, 10/14/2007
Title: Citizen Journalism, iPods in the Classroom, Saving Whales on the Internet
Welcome to Course Technology's CourseCast of the WEEK, Episode 19, recorded October 14th, 2007.
This is Ken Baldauf bringing you this week's technology news and information.
This CourseCast is brought to you by Course Technology. Check out www.course.com for innovative textbooks and creative electronic learning solutions.
Story 1 - Citizen Journalism
This week news media giant, MSNBC, bought the Web 2.0 social bookmarking site newsvine.com. This acquisition is historic in that it combines two forces that have been at odds for years: mainstream media and citizen journalism. Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis wrote a seminole report titled "We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information" in which the concept of citizen journalism was defined as citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information." The rise of the citizen journalist is credited to Web 2.0 technologies, blogs, podcasts, and social networking sites that provide individuals with the power to publish their views to the masses. When citizen journalism is combined with social bookmarking, you get sites like digg, reddit, and newsvine. Newsvine.com, provides tools for members to vote news stories "up the vine" for visitors to get an "instant reflection of what the world is talking about at any given moment," says the site. In keeping with the Web 2.0 philosophy, newsvine puts the power in the hands of the people, and membership is free. Members can create special interest groups, write their own columns, and post comments on articles. The result is a Website that provides articles published by the mainstream media, and its members, ranked by popularity, with an abundance of editorial comment, and community involvement.
Citizen journalists have been critical of main stream media claiming that it provides a very narrow and conservative view of the news. Those in mainstream media have been critical of citizen journalists saying that they are untrained, biased, and lack credibility and quality control. The acquisition of newsvine.com by MSNBC indicates a move to combine the strengths of citizen journalism and mainstream media into a new hybrid news service. MSNBC says it plans to extend social media and community features across all of the company's brands.
Source: MSNBC joins Web 2.0 world with citizen journalism site (Computerworld), We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information, a report by Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis
Story 2 - iPods in the Classroom
While iPods are being banned from many classrooms as a distraction, other schools are embracing them as a tool for learning. In New Jerseys’ poorest school district, iPods are being used to teach English as a second language to grade school kids. Kids sing along to pop songs, and use the preloaded Spanish-to-English dictionary for class work. In 2004 Duke University handed our iPods to all of its incoming freshmen. The iPods were preloaded with orientation information, and the Duke fight song. Duke maintains a pool of iPods and loans them to students for class work. 93 courses at Duke require the use of an iPod. The Brearly School on Manhattan's Upper East Side requires its middle school students to have an iPod for use in English, foreign language, and music classes. As schools move to embrace the latest technologies and stay relevant to their tech savvy students, we'll most certainly see more use of the Internet and media technologies in classrooms.
Source: In Some Schools, iPods Are Required Listening (NYTimes)
Story 3 - Saving Whales on the Internet
As Japan prepares for a season of whale harvesting in 2008, others are making use of the Internet to save the whales. Japan has announced that it plans to hunt 50 humpback whales and 935 minke whales over the coming southern hemisphere summer for scientific research. While Japan says the whale hunt is for scientific research, it is also understood that the whale meat will end up in Japanese markets and restaurants. To prove that the giant mammals don't need to be killed in order to conduct scientific research, Greenpeace is tracking 19 humpbacks using satellite technology. You can view the whales’ migration and information about each whale online using the link in the show notes. Greenpeace's tracking Web site makes use of Google Maps to show the movement and location of the Whales. Greenpeace is also collecting skin samples to sequence DNA. Greenpeace hopes to call attention to the upcoming whale hunt and show Japan the value of technology over antiquated methods of research.
Australia has taken up the whale saving cause as well. The Australian government has posted a YouTube video targeted at Japanese children to educate them on the plight of the whales.
Sources: Greenpeace
tracks whales online (Reuters),
Greenpeace Whale Tracking tool: https://webmail.thomsonlearning.com/exchange/0078421/Inbox/CourseCast%2019.EML/1_multipart_xF8FF_2_0019_OCT14_2007.htm/C58EA28C-18C0-4a97-9AF2-036E93DDAFB3/www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/oceans/whaling/great-whale-trail
Australia
challenges Japan whaling on YouTube (Reuters),
Australia's YouTube video: www.youtube.com/DeptEnvironment
Whalesong courtesy of The Whalesong Project: http://www.whalesong.net/
New Briefs
That's it for this week's CourseCast. Links to this week's stories and many more news and information resources are provided at the CourseCast Web site at www.course.com/coursecasts. Until next time have a great week and be sure to take advantage of the Power -- of Technology!