Communication Technology

Web Tools

I’ve spent a great day at Connected and have been pointed in the direction of loads of online applications that will help you lots in your youth work and with your presentation.

Check out:

Ning.com for open or closed blogs (check ours from Connected)

Flickr.com - photo sharing

Twitter -  tell people what you are up to, or what they are missing – direct to their mobile

preview.getthebuzzword.com or docs.google.com for online word processing you can work together on.

PBWiki.com - start your own wiki page and allow others to edit it! (Connected wiki)

Jumpcut online video &  editing

Also, don’t forget to download the Coming Of Age book for some great podcasting tips.

shift6

Shift6 (or ^6, the keyboard shortcut for ‘insert here) is a new blog looking at mobile device use, particularly among young people.  well worth a read or adding to your RSS feeds.

Highlights so far are some information on BLYK, a new invite only mobile phone network for 16-24 year olds, a great blog about why Radiohead’s digital back catalogue release is cool but way too expensive and some good stuff about iPhone, Google Phone, mobile development and all that stuff.

Google Zeitgeist Conference 2007

Google’s Zeitgeist Conference is available on Youtube. 

Now in its third year, Zeitgeist brought together 400 of the world’s leading marketing, media and industry executives and thinkers to explore ways in which we can become more innovative in our professional and personal lives. This year we explored the ramifications of “Collaborate and Connect”, examining how we use the internet to communicate, create and partner at scale. We all know that the Net has changed our lives forever. You’ll hear a parade of world-class speakers help you understand how it’s changed, and how you and your organization can survive and thrive in this brave new online world.

It’s all well worth a look but this discussion between Tom Brokaw and Yvon Chouinard is fascinating.  Yvon is the founder of Patagonia, the outdoor clothing company and he lives an unwired life.

Students Today

Ever wondered what it is really like to be a student?  The students of Kansas State University’s Digital ethnography Class have been finding out what students really do withe their time…

Is this how your student experience is turning out?

what is blogging? and why blog?

Rob Howard of Community Server talks about blogging from a business point of view (about half way down the page – watch our Converations Matter video) but makes lots of great points and give some interesting statistics and trends following up some of the stuff we discussed this week in class.

Some thoughts from New Zealand

Ewan McIntosh is in NZ keynote speaking at ULearn07.  This is a response to some of the issues he was raising and maybe addresses some of the things we talked about in class today.  This blogger is talking school class, but substitute ‘class’ for ‘youth group’ and see what you think…

Youth work and the internet

Today was our first class on communication and we spoke about the internet, particularly web 2.0 applications like wordpress,flickr, bebo and facebook.

Just how useful could these kind of applications be in our work with young people?  Well we thought that a blog was an easy way to set up a website that is interactive and great to look at so our young people can upload their own content, photos and even audio and video to.  They can interact with the world and even make some friends in far away places like the 1st Presbyterian Church of Durango in Colorado have done recently.  It also lets their friends, parents and wider church community know what the group is up to and take part.

So, today’s question is:

How could you use the internet to engage with your young people?  What are the positives and negatives of a youth group having an online presence?