Thinking the unthinkable about newspapers

A great article by the ever controversial Clay Shirky.

This blog posting suggests that while there is still a need for journalism, the newspaper model itself is utterly dead in the water. 

In a world where information is free to send, receive and produce, the old school ways of selling information can no longer survive.

Read more here.

What is Web 2.0? A historical perspective

I came across this 2005 article while doing some research for my MA in Online Education.

Written in 2005, it provides an interesting link between what was predicted, what's turned out to be, and what may yet occur.

Read more here.

I'm looking to hire a teacher!

I've not tried this before, but it struck me that maybe one of my blog's readers might fancy coming to work with us at Berkhamsted School.

You will need a permit to work in the UK. You should also have experience of teaching Media Studies within the British secondary curriculum, ideally using the OCR examination board.

We have a vacancy for a Media Studies teacher, with some teaching of ICT at KS3.We're an independent school with excellent resources, lovely students and beautiful surroundings, located in a town 25 minutes north of London by train. Currently we have two classes in years 12 and 13, each with about 12 students per class.

We're based in former art studios (the top floor of the left hand building in the photo) and have a room for teaching and another for filming/photography. There is a full time technician. We're kitted out with an increasing number of HD camcorders, Apple Macs (you'll get a Mac laptop), lighting rigs, MP3 recording kits, and an assortment of other kit to make your life easier and enable the students' creativity to blossom.

The classroom is equipped with an HD projector and surround sound system, plus a digital lectern, so everything you do can be delivered digitally. There is significant investment each year in the provision of new technology. Currently, the school network is being overhauled, to allow us to run audio and video at HD levels into classrooms and the outside world.

The Principal of the school chairs the Independent Schools' Council ICT committee and is a big champion of Media Studies as a discrete subject. His vision for the school includes the adoption of Media and Web 2.0 technologies across the curriculum. There is a new learning platform being installed over the next couple of months, and part of the job spec for the successful candidate will be to work with colleagues, enabling them to produce new learning materials. Currently, we are piloting using Flip camcorders and MP3 kits in a number of departments, and I'll be running Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom INSET for staff after Easter.

It's an exciting time for the school and will place digital literacy right at the heart of how the school operates.We have extensive sports facilities, incuding a fitness centre, which are available for staff use. Accommodation may be available as well.

We use OCR for A level Media Studies, teaching the TV drama option at AS, with film making as the preferred medium for coursework. The ICT will involve teaching years 7+8 only. It is possible that we may extend to offering the ECDL qualification in years 9+10 in the future, although that is subject to review. Full training would be provided.

If you're interested then please do get in touch, either with me directly - svanstraten@berkhamstedschool.org or have a look at the advert here. 

Please note that the advert states the teaching of ICT to A2. That is incorrect.

The closing date for applications is March 13th.

I hope to hear back from you.

With kind regards, 

Sacha

New business models for newspapers

www.artsjournal.com

These are tough times for traditional news institutions. The world around them, technologically speaking, is changing at a frantic pace. The Web 2.0 read-write paradigm means consumers appear to want hands-on interactivity. And they want it for free.

The roll call of newspapers shutting down continues to rise, particularly in the USA. Does all of this spell gloom and doom for the journalists, editors, photographers and others involved in the craft of societal storytelling? Perhaps not. The signs are that alternative models will arise, and opportunities, hitherto unseen, will come sharply into focus. 

Here are two contrasting yet in some ways complementary views of where the news industry is and where it might end up.

Michael Rosenblum, the godfather of videojournalism, sees the move to visual communication in a multi-platform environment as one of the drivers for change. Content must cease to be static and evolve into a multi-dimensional offering.

Nicholas Carr offers a detailed review of how eventually we may end up making micro-payments for news-oriented content, however unpalatable that might seem now.

The bottom line for me is that how things were can't be the way that things will be. I look at my students, some of them as young as 11, turning out documentaries, making interactive PDF content for online delivery, recording podcasts, and see a paradigm shift in user expectations. It might be wrong to assume that future consumers will want to be active participants on a regular basis. It might be correct to suppose they will be looking for multimodal models of content delivery. 

The successful providers of advertising and sponsorship platforms will be those that understand this future reality and prepare for it now.  

Colour blind to radical change

BBC - EastEnders - Pictures - Galleries

www.bbc.co.uk

Somehow I missed the press coverage of the fact that on Tuesday night BBC1 played its first ever episode of the long running hit soap opera, East Enders, with an entirely black cast. 

23 years is a long time to wait for such an event, thus explaining the media news coverage.

Anyway, I watched the show, munched my dinner, and the only thought that crossed my mind was that it was another sparkling episode, with good acting, a strong narrative, and important moral issues raised. Of course, the nature of soaps means this doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, the BBC scriptwriters tend to get it just right.

The drama centred round collective history, the early race riots in Notting Hill in 1958, how that led to the creation of the now world-famous August Carnival, issues of active and passive resistance, and the need to know one's roots. Family secrets was another narrative motif that drove the storyline throughout the episode.

I found myself reflecting on the time, many years ago, when I worked as a radio reporter, and went to interview one of the early organisers of London's Notting Hill Carnival (whose name, shamefully, I cannot recall). I was honoured to be invited into the family home, accompany a range of cousins, arts, uncles, nephews and nieces, out onto the streets for the day. I got to ride on one of the famous floats, and left late in the evening with a strong sense of community spirit. 

One of the slogans of the early Carnival events was, 'A people's art is the genesis of their freedom'.  Tonight, I hope that a stand for freedom was made by the BBC, when it showed us that when it comes down to it, good acting and strong scripts are at the core of great drama. Skin colour is a powerful signifier and brings with it numerous connotations that can be deciphered, mediated and interpreted by audiences in a myriad of ways. Let us hope that in future it's the story that grabs the headlines, rather than the skin colour. It's high time channel producers ensured mainstream drama encompasses the diversity of Great Britain, so that commentaries such as this need not be repeated.