Citizen Storytelling

Neil McIntosh asks us (via JD Lasica) to forget citizen journalism. Like Mark Deuze, McIntosh believes the future of journalism lies in "…the web's emerging storytelling culture…"

What blogs, and picture phones, and other "me media" do is bring everyday storytelling to the web. They're mainly personal stories, being published—yes—for an audience, but an audience that we think we know very well. And we tell those stories using the words we write on simple CMSs, like blogs, or via pictures distributed via Flickr, or movies made in iMovie.

Occasionally—very occasionally—those stories, pictures and movies will intersect with a story which a very large audience is interested in, as happened to the mobloggers who got pictures of the July 7 bombings. But a big, mainstream audience is never the intention—we're just using technology to do what we've always done, and tell stories.

Podcasting with pictures

My friend Tim has a new dog and K9Cast’s dog socialization podcast might be the perfect excuse for a new iPod. Walter and Tara’s podcast is an example of what the folks at Apple are calling enhanced podcasts: podcasts organised into "…chapters that display intermittent pictures and web links as your audience listens."

MAKE magazine's Phillip Torrone explains how to make enhanced podcasts. Take a listen to (or should that be a look at) Phillip’s example. You don’t need an iPod; simply download the 1.7 MB MP4 file and drag it into iTunes 4.9. (Make sure song artwork is set to show in the lower left-hand pane of the iTunes window.)

This technique also enhances the educational appeal of podcasts. Complementary pictures and web links add to the instructional value of the audio, while dividing the podcast into chapters and the relatively low bandwidth (Phillip’s example weighed in at a reasonable 0.7 MB/min) increase accessibility.

As Bud points out, screencasting is podcasting, but with pictures. Now that podcasts have been enhanced to support pictures, what's the difference?

Update: Although enhancing podcasts remains the domain of those of us with Macs, it has become considerably simpler with the release of this nice GUI for Apple's Chapter Tool utility.

I'm on the map!

…well nearly. Google is slowly charting the globe with the U.S. and U.K. already mapped down to street level, and the rest of us under the all-seeing eye of the Google satellite. Here's the most detailed satellite view Google provides of my little corner of the globe. Can you see me waving?

Update: Here's home, sweet home after fiddling with the Google Maps API for a few minutes. Hmm…

Catching the Knowledge Wave?

A year ago Jane Gilbert's inspiring challenge of knowledge society rhetoric forced me to think about the changing nature of knowledge and its implications for teaching. While I’ve been thinking, Jane’s been writing. Her new book Catching the Knowledge Wave? was launched early last month. You can read a summary (PDF) and order the book from the NZCER.