Twitter and News

The day before last I was showing my students Twitter, the micro blogging service. If you imagine the 'what am I up to?' part of a Facebook profile then you'll pretty much get what Twitter is.

In effect, it's short bursts of information about what someone is doing. The problem with it is that what a user tends to receive is an unadulterated stream of information without context or any easy means of verifying facts.

This has been the main issue regarding its use as a news tool. The terror attacks in Mumbai late last year were heralded as proof of Twitter coming of age, as a news feed from so called citizen journalists. However, a number of claims made during that event by Twitter posters turned out to be false.

The benefit of Twitter, when it comes to News and audiences, is the speed with which headlines can be conveyed.

Most of my students found themselves being driven to distraction within a few minutes of using the service. They couldn't see what the point was. 

However, with remarkable timing, yesterday's miraculous ditching of a plane in New York's Hudson river showed the power of instant audience-led news feeds.

A man by the name of Janis Krums was on a ferry when the plane came down. As he watched the incredible event unfold he posted a line to Twitter - 'There's a plane in the Hudson. I'm on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.'

As he had an Apple iPhone he also took a photo, and posted that to Twitpic, a service that adds imaging functionality. As you can see, it's an atmospheric photo, made all the more impressive by the fact it was taken on a 2 megapixel camera.

Within minutes his photo was being shared around the world, while traditional broadcast news outlets were still organising themselves to get down to the crash site.

At the time of writing the photo has been viewed 252,583 times! 

So, maybe Twitter is showing a new paradigm for news gathering and sharing, in which anyone can be a headline breaker. Just don't expect what you get to always be trustworthy, relevant, or reliable.

 

What do my students think of me?

My Lower Sixth students have been making lots of short films as a preliminary exercise for their main filming coursework.

As a teacher, sometimes you wonder what the students think of you. Well, here's an answer.....




PS If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you'll see an embedded Berkhamsted Media player.

Making a Visual argument

Now here's a fantastic tool, although I must warn you the interface takes a little getting used to.

Debategraph is a brilliant idea for taking Wikis to a new level. As you may know, Wikis (of which Wikipedia is the most famous) offer anyone the chance to contribute to a body of contextualised knowledge on a given topic. The problem is that sometimes it becomes too difficult to absorb all the different points and links that end up in a publicly edited web-based document.

Debategraph tackles this problem head on by allowing users to create easy to read visual maps. These show the different points made in a discussion. Various colours show whether or not someone is agreeing or disagreeing with a particular point. Each point is represented a sphere. 

By clicking on a sphere a user can open up more specific elements that follow that line of the the argument.

It's a fantastic resource and I'm tempted to try it with one of my English or Classical Civilisation classes.

Do be aware however that (a) there doesn't seem to be a way of making a debate map private, so anyone might see what's been entered. This raises issues of student ID privacy, but on the other hand does mean you might get more input from around the world, which could make for an interesting exercise;  and (b) the interface isn't as intuitive as it might be when it comes to entering data. 

All of this points to how the nature of data sharing, analysis,. and knowledge capital is being altered at a remarkable rate. The challenge for teachers is to figure out which parts will work and which parts are best left beyond the school gates. 

The video game debate

Another day, another tragic story implicating violent video games in actual physical harm.

In this case, an American teenager is claiming that playing the game Halo 3 made him so perturbed that when his parents took it away from him, his only response was to shoot them.

The boy's father, who was shot in the head, survived, but his mother tragically did not.

You can read the story here. 

The Judge in the trial has rejected the claim, saying that the youngster had planned the attacks for weeks.

The press has a long history of using the Hypodermic Syringe theory to claim that violent video games inject their ideologies of aggression into those who play. Of course, this is a hot potato, but there's as much evidence for either side as there are proponents and opponents of each corner.

I heard it on the grapevine....the Brits are coming

Today I'm going to combine two events, both worthy of congratulation, into one posting.

The first is to wish the revolutionary record label Motown a happy 50th birthday. It was half a century ago today that its founder, Berry Gordy, using an $800 loan from his family, launched the company that would bring black music to the masses in both America and the world. In an age of global communication and branding, it's easy to forget the racial segregation that split the USA up to and beyond the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Motown broke through the divide and found an audience, becoming in the process one of the great examples of how the media, when used effectively, can be a force for positive social change.

There's a BBC report here and you can visit the Classic  Motown website here. The site offers a great and free podcast subscription, enabling you to listen to the greats of Motown talking about their experiences, and playing some of their best known tracks. Find it here.

Motown launched the careers of Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, and Michael Jackson, amongst others. So congratulations and birthday greetings.

At the other end of the scale, yesterday saw a victorious night for the Brits at the American Golden Globes award ceremony. Kate Winslet suffered an overwhelming case of emotional overload, stuttering and blubbering her way through her acceptance speech. No matter, for her two wins - Best Supporting Actress in The Reader, and Best Actress in Revolutionary Road - were hard won and well deserved. 

Slumdog Millionaire picked up the Best Film award, and Best Director went to its visionary master, Danny Boyle.

Sally Hawkins won Best Actress for her role in Mike Leigh's film, Happy Go Lucky.

You can find the list of nominations and winners here. 

Watch the Brits blubbing and gushing here.