New ways to Engage
Changes in communications
Workshop at BBC Blast
4 June 2009

• General knowledge is like a skeleton, you can’t
build muscles with out it.
• Likewise, who is Martin Luther anyhow?
• Common sense is largely based on general
knowledge.

• Digital Natives
• Grown up in the digital world rather than
growing into the digital world
• Me versus my brothers - 17/13/8
• In person / letter / telephone / mobile /
email / social networks / what’s next?

• Search is the new ‘hours spent in a library’
• It still isn’t any easier
• How do kids use search?

Tools of Today
• Twitter: One to many, many to one
• “I’m having a beer”
• Trending topics from today: BNP, Cairo, Tiananmen Square
• Facebook: Gathering communities
• Google and it’s many services
• Blogging: WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr etc.
• YouTube, Blip and others
• Wolfram Alpha

• What is podcasting?
• “A podcast is a series of digital media files,
usually either digital audio or video, that is
made available for download via web
syndication”
• It can be pretty much anything for anyone.

• Value - Why would any one care?
• Consistent - How to keep people interested?
• Scripted - Make your life a lot easier.
• Tools - Don’t worry too much about them
• Market it - Find an audience

Let’s get on with it.
• Meet the kids on their turf.
• Blogs and podcasts to support your teaching
and their learning.
• Blogs as a documentation tool.
• Encourage peer learning and engage in the
conversation.
• Show the kids that you also are
willing to learn.

“You cannot create communities,
but you can help them grow.”
-Jeff Jarvis in ‘What Would Google Do?’

Useful links
• ourmedia.org -- free podcast hosting with Internet Archive
• podbean.com -- freemium solution for hosting a podcast
• blip.tv -- Swiss army knive of video podcast hosting
• wordpress.org/ -- open source CMS, plugins for podcasting
• audacity.sourceforge.net/ -- open source PC/Mac audio recorder
• ambrosiasw.com/utilities/wiretap/ -- Utility for recording multiple inputs of audio

What to find me?
• tapaninaho.com
• twitter.com/kristian
• suklaa.org
• tinyurl.com/ns3u7y