Making TV viewing more of a community experience

While I was watching a Mike Leigh film on tv on Saturday night (I know I should have been reading on a Saturday night of course), during one of the advert breaks they suggested that we all go online and write our views of the film so far.

I love this. What a neat idea. As it happened I was Home Alone and so this potentially offered me a way of viewing and sharing an opinion with others at the same time. In the past, critics of tv viewing habits sad that we all had 'square eyes' or would ruin our eyesight and all sorts of other things. They implied that watching tv was bad for you and 'rotted the brain'. Certainly they assumed it was less good than reading a book. I loved the way this suggestion to go online acknowledged that people have opinions they want to express; that they watched in an active way and that they were not just 'receiving messages' in a one dimensional way. I also loved that the telly was giving us opportunities for sharing our views through online networks.

So much for those who argue that the Internet fosters isolation.

Mind you - I did not do any review because I was multi-tasking - on my laptop surfing whilst also watching tv. I wonder how many other people do this habitually?

Twitter, Cancer and oher Viral Stuff

Gosh. I wish I had known this before. Apparently going on Twitter and Facebook (etc) can lead to Cancer. It has got everybody all of a flutter (as well as twitter) commenting on articles and on blogs all over the place. (They should know better).

The National Health Service ran this summary of the report; it seems that the 'study' upon which the report is based is largely data free. The report argues that social networking sites actually ISOLATE people. Gosh. So much for my little blog post yesterday. Even the infamous badscience blog gives the 'study' a mention but does try to exert self control.

Gosh. Why oh why are people so scared of online social networking? They are funny. Honestly I sometimes think they are joking. But it's not really funny that they are saying these things cause cancer. I am having enough trouble keeping off the red wine. (or on it).

Twitter can help save lives as well though - since it allows surgeons to communicate quickly and effectively, supporting each other across the network as they operate.

Just to show I am not a complete cynic, I like this website about science.

Dipping my toe in the water

I would have imagined that anyone having three months off work would immediately take to incessant blogging; uploading zillions of back logged photos onto Flickr and even .... even .... starting to write the book she had been thinking about doing for a while.

But no, no no. This is not what has happened to me ... so far. Just the opposite. I have been hiding under the keyboard and feeling strange and in a funny space of not being at work and not being able to think in joined up sentences. I have been off work now for about 7 weeks .... but look at this ... I am blogging.

What has helped me feel brave enough to plunge in again? The culprit is Twitter ...or specifically people I know Twittering me ..... allowing me to just dip my toe in and help remember how nice it is to get glimpses of your friends online... getting messages through of just a couple of lines has helped me back in somehow and maybe just maybe, when I get back to work I won't feel so twitty having first been tweeting and blogging my way into digital literacies again.

So this is an interesting little use of social networking ... a vehicle for helping people to make their way back into communities after absence.

What have I been doing meanwhile? Not a lot ... but I have read this (yesterday) by mad old Janet Street Porter; this (REALLY hilarious); and this (not hilarious but totally not put downable) . I have over the last weeks been forced into reading articles about Jade Goody like this and it has driven me batty. How can anyone bear this stuff??

I have been eating healthily in extremis lately and so I have been reeling from looking at this blog which beautifully illlustrates the path to fattiness and obesitydom.

Barbara Ganley and slow blogging

First heard about Barbara Ganley a few years ago when I was invited to, but could not make, an edublogger event in London. Occasionally you get invited to these things and cannot bear that you did not go as the write ups make it seem that if you were not there, then you missed a crucial heartbeat. Lucvkily she is now into slowblogging and so we may be able to catch her up. Slowblogging is like slow food (the opposoite of McDonald's I suppose).

At a time when I am wondering whether I should take a new direction in what I am doing or how I am doing it (my fiftieth birthday has pre-occuppied my mind in the same way as my tenth and my 18th(!) seeming more important than the others), I discover that at age 51 she has given up her job in academia and gone it alone.

It seems though that she is getting it together as there is this call for papers (California - very nice) which seems like a very good proposition to me. - all part of her venture into Centers for Community Digital Learning.

Anyway here is Downes citing some edubloggers he likes:

25 EduBlogs You Simply Don’t Want to Miss!

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: future blogs)

Why No WiFi?

So why is it that our swanky hotel charges a drastic fifteen quid (approx $25 US) to access the Internet using an ethernet cable and that we can get online down the road in the Film House for no charge at all?

Is the ability to find reasonable Internet access (wifi) part of a new cultural capital. geekiness has its real dividends as we sit here booking cinema tickets and arranging which exhibitions we will see; looking at Google maps for quick rouites and photogenic spots.

We are the new frugalistas. Just like our Mums and Dads, counting the pennies, but keeping our hands in our 501s as we go. As ever we sport an ironic turn of phrase and chant to each other in unison "There is only Art, my love".

Gender Bender ...and other gizmos

Interesting piece of software ... something that uses Artificial Intelligence to determine the gender of a blogger...

I put my url in the site here and it turns out that my blog is determined as having a male author.

Well I was surprised. It is clear they just do it on language then - I suppose I don't use the word handbag enough.

Something that made me laugh this week was the 'Why don't you look that up on Google' meme. The idea is that you send this link to people who persistently ask you questions that they could easily look up themselves on Google. The solution does not necessarily keep you on speaking terms with the person - but it made me laugh anyway.

Check it out here on 'let me google that for you'.

I got that link from Paul who is the fabbest person you could ever ask to work with.

Finally what a relief to know that 'Teenagers' Internet socialising is not a bad thing.'

But what about the over fifties? Am worried sick. Actually though ... why do people assume that the young are most vulnerable to addictive behaviours and so on? The evidence is, on the contrary, that adults behave extremely addictively sometimes, it is not something just to do with youth.

Can't remember if I have ever blogged Charlieissocoollike. But if I have, here he is again:

Demonisation of children

Barnardo's has issued a video in defence of the young - against comments that position the young as problematic and transgressive:



This comes at the same time as the continued moral outrage about 'Baby P' lines the newsagents' shelves and pours constantly out of tv and radio news. Here the outrage is against social services and other agencies.

Children are alternately positioned as victims and as perpetrators of irresponsible acts.

So which is it?

This is a blog post trying to speak out against the lack of subtelty of media discourses where there seem only to be goodies and baddies.