mikes web log

My second attempt at blogging after my first rant at the word blog. I am now ‘into’ another word - podcasting. I think it originated somehow from the ipod and the broadcasting of music. Before that a little sideline - copyright.

I was fascinated the other day with a talk I had with an 11yr old on copyright. She had just produced a song that will be part of our first attemp at podcasting so I naturally asked about the music. She casually suggested the name of a popular piece of contemporary music so I quickly engaged her in a discussion on copyright. The interesting thing was that she knew what it meant (the school had taught it) but she had little comprehension of the concept. The idea of somebody ‘owning’ the music was alien to her. How can they own it? Do you really mean I have to get their permission if I want to use it? How do I find them? I’ve got no idea? Has anyone else had any interesting thoughts on this?

Back to podcasting. I’m running a project in Birmingham UK where we are putting computers into family homes and linking them to the Internet (stop screaming its a filtered link - the same as all Birmingham schools get). The area where we are operating is one of the poorest in the UK with home computer access being 1 in 10 before the project began. One aspect of the project is that the parents have to agree to be trained on its use and the training is done by the chool and their children. What we are now looking to is building on the community that already exists using the communicating ability of the IT medium. Email seems to be very slow on picking up. The kids use email (hotmail accounts) but the parents are very reluctant users. We were thinking slightly of blogs but to be honest if email isn’t going to catalyse an IT talking community I dont think blogs would. As the community is also 75% Pakistan or Bangladeshi I would suspect the blog would have to be an audio one. However a weekly podcast from the school built by the pupils could be just the catalyst we need. Like all communities they are proud of their kids so they will be interested in what their children are saying in the podcast so I hope we could build communications with a podcast focus……What do you think of that? Wasn’t that a lovely song? Why didn’t the school tell me that was happening? etc etc. Blogging might materialise from the podcast evaluation.

From an educational perspective you can’t beat an activity like this for developing all sorts of learning outcomes. Think of the creativity potential, the communication, the planning, the evaluation, the enjoyment that it could generate. We are probably two weeks away from our first ten minute broadcast. Initially we are not going to involve the children in the technical problems so the broadcast will be arranged by adults but the content would have all been written and recorded by the children. Im looking forward to it