I've been Mediasnacked

Interviews can often be have sometimes been for me rather tricky affairs, the questions never quite taking account of what you've just said, the journalist only asking at the last possible moment what exactly it is you do for a living. This morning I had a really pleasant and educational experience with DK, a boy from the Welsh Valleys currently residing in Bristol and creator of the Mediasnackers project. Mediasnackers aims to look at how young people consume their media and DK also provides training in responsible, powerful and motivating social media use.

You can listen to the podcast of the 10 minute interview he conducted this morning, and I promise to blog later on some of the great projects and discoveries I heard about through him.

Comments

[DK]

Pleasure was all mine my friend - thanks for participating and for the 'shout-out' here :-)

DK

[Joe Dale]

Interesting to hear more about your new role Ewan. I agree we do need to encourage creativity and collaboration in the classroom. Technologies such as blogging and podcasting can certainly help to motivate and engage learners. Learning how to set up blogs and make podcasts takes time though. We need to embed the ideas and have the courage to try them out.

Starting a school blog to showcase pupils' work is a great starting point. That's what I'm going to do in September. I'll let you know how I get on.

Best wishes

Joe

Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom - www.joedale.typepad.com

[Douglas Blane]

"Interviews can often be tricky affairs, the questions never quite taking account of what you've just said, the journalist only every asking at the last possible moment what exactly it is you do for a living."

Hey, try looking at it from the journalist's viewpoint. We have limited time to gather lots of information about things we sometimes know little about from people we have never met before.

Like you we may be experts in several subjects, but we rarely have the luxury of writing only about those. So we can’t possibly make connections that are obvious to a specialist in every area we are asked to cover.

Why not have a go yourself at interviewing three disembodied voices on the telephone, about Web 2.0, photonics research and the feminisation of the curriculum, in rapid succession one wet and windy morning, before a hint of caffeine has passed your thirsty lips, and see how many questions you can think of that take precise account of exactly what it is your expert has just said – at the same time as she is talking without apparently pausing for breath, you are making hasty, often illegible but very detailed notes, and your editor is calling on the mobile to say the last article on which you lavished so much care and creativity is a pile of crap that needs extensive revision within, at the very latest, the next three minutes?

[Ewan McIntosh]

I know how difficult it is after attempting to write for papers back in my student days - it isn't easy. I've been a little rash perhaps without meaning to cause offence. To be honest, there was one particular interview that was in mind when I wrote this and interviews with yourself and others have been enjoyable because you actually *did* know what I wrote about.

For every journo like yourself I receive another half dozen enquiries from reporters and researchers who have quite clearly not even spent 5 minutes reading any one of the last 10 blog posts on the front page. That, quite rightly, I object to.

If a journalist doesn't have the smallest amount of time to do that bit of research then the questions will not be as incisive as yours or DK's.

Hope I'm clearer, apologies for any throbbing blood vessels ;-)

[Douglas Blane]

No apology needed, Ewan. I just wanted to point out that there's another side to the story and journalists are human too.

Course being a writer I often get entertained by the sound and rhythm of the words I'm putting together. So despite how it might have seemed, blood vessels couldn't have been further from throbbing.

Also your comment stimulated me to take part in a blog for the first time, so that was good too.

See you at SETT.

All the best.

[Chris]

And journos could always try teaching instead, couldn't they? If the job's as trying as it sounds ....
;-p