Ewan McIntosh | Design Thinking, Education & Learning

DayZLoop: Enterprising, creative social networking for girls

We often worry about providing good role models for our teenage kids. For girls, I think DayZLoop provides a great, healthy online community where they can explore some serious and not-so-serious issues.

DayZLoop combines Habbo Hotel type social spaces with Bebo profiling, but best of all is its basis in online television shows which cover inspirational teen role models, teen reporters covering issues such as anorexia or how to make some great food for your next sleepover (OK, their next sleepover).

There are plenty of examples, too, of where girls have taken a hobby and turned it into a cottage industry, whether it's interior design for their friends' bedrooms or bespoke fashion accessories.

Have a look yourself and see whether it's the kind of site you would recommend to your teenage students.

CBBC SecondLife for weans

Weans are 'wee ones' or children, and the BBC is going to launch a SecondLife type thing for them so that they can navigate through the superb kids' content on the CBBC site. Why am I chuffed about this? Because it was the very thing that Stephen Heppell and I were suggesting, with our edu-consultancy hats on, that they might do way back in a Learning brainstorm in May last year.

The other main thrust of our eight-hour sesh was that they might also consider launching a MySpace type personal publishing platform for mobile pics and vids. After grumbles about the BBC's position and moderation, that, too, seems to be an idea that might be in the offing, using the service which does it well already: YouTube.

The BBC, for me, continues to be one of the most innovative mainstream media groups in the world, despite the criticism to the contrary, and still makes that license fee worth paying.

As Hannibal would say: "I love it when a plan comes together".

Shootout! Learning through TV and gaming

The History Channel shows you a documentary covering one of the biggest battles in history such as Okinawa or the Afghan conflict - and then puts you into that battle in a first-person shoot-em-up game you can download to your PC.

As a Mac user I've not had a chance to follow through with the gaming part of this learning experience, called Shootout!, so don't know how dubious it all is. But The History Channel has in the past proven enjoyable and informative as a TV learning device and I can only imagine that the game will attract more youngsters (if they are, indeed, the intended audience) to learn about history.

Is this simply glamourising war or is it a genuine learning opportunity? Let me know - I think Shootout is on the TV in the UK on Tuesday nights on the History Channel (via cable).

Prediction No. 1 coming true: IPTV is on the way

  mach deinen fernseher kaputt 
  Originally uploaded by Eris23.

I didn't really make any of those New Year predictions about the future of the web in 2007, other than Internet-driven television services would launch and start making it big (IPTV, for short). Apple TV is not what I meant, although it's part of the way there. Something like Joost is, though.

For the past month or so the ad/marketing/techie blogosphere has been alight with excited talk of The Venice Project, the code name which is now the net's coolest-to-be IPTV service, Joost. Basically, when it's launched soon, you will be able to watch an infinite number of channels (not just the 480 you currently have), anywhere (no need for a digi box, just some wifi or hardwire connection) and at any time. Linear broadcasting is dead, as Emily would be proud to hear me say (I do learn something from that podcast, btw, but you do need to get yourself your own blog).

You won't have to watch the telly when Aunty tells you to, you won't even have to wait for the repeat at 10pm on BBC3. Tourists in the States trying to cram the latest 24 into their suitcases can use the space for Bourbon instead. Hurrah!Is it going to work? Is it going to last beyond next week? Well... um... yes. It's produced by the two guys who invented Skype, including Niklas Zennström who was given top polling at LeWeb3 last month when he hinted at what was to come.

I have one, small ambition for this service and others like it this year: that education might not muck up the use of telly in the classroom for the second time round. Embrace IPTV: it's the 70s all over again but without the bad flares.

Play MacWorld Stevenote Bingo

Every January the geek world gets all excited just like the Christmas Eve three weeks previously as Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple Computer, gives his 90 minute Macworld keynote speech (or Stevenote), outlining the cool new features and technologies Apple will be releasing that night and later in the year. It's how the iPod, the MacBook Pro and iPhoto etc were all launched.

You can watch the speech online after the event (I'll follow the text updates live on MacRumors MacRumorsLive) and join in John's Keynote Bingo. Just how many times will Steve say "And just one more thing..."? Will Apple release a new Apple TV, the iTV? Or will there be a new mobile phone iPod cross-breed? Find out and tick off your card (available as a PDF on John's blog).

Today’s letters are I, P, T and V

Last week’s MediaTech2.006 concentrated big time on everything coming over IP (the Internet) and how the television versus internet battle is not going to be fought out so much as some sort of Act of Union will be created to take the best out of both worlds. After 2003’s buzz on blogs, 2004’s fascination with podcasting, 2005’s hint of video-sharing being 2006’s big thing, the conference circuit crystal ball is letting us know that IPTV is set, apparently, to become 2007’s hot property.

Last week there was much interesting talk of finding a new standard to unify digital TV and the web – it’s weeks, not months, off – and providing a different web experience on the telly for the user. I am about to enter hotelland for five days and do not relish the task of trying to access email through a television set (or looking up the TV times, for that matter). But the whole concept explained last week of the 1 foot user (on a mobile phone), the 3ft user (on a computer) and 10 ft users (on the TV) made the reasons for all this chatter clear – it’s not just for hype or for eyeballs on screens.

It’s a kind of technical convergence to allow content differentiation.

Example: If you try to look at Flickr (www.flickr.com) on your mobile device it’s awful, but using their new mobile service (m.flickr.com) we can actually do stuff on Flickr while on the move. It’s a 3ft experience (from our computer) converged and differentiated to the 1ft experience (on our mobiles).

Converging the 3ft experience to the 10ft experience if further physically, mentally and technologically, taking longer to get to while the mobile market takes off. It will happen technologically within the next year or so but, after discussing the place of the ‘family computer’ in the living room (and all the problems most 16 year olds have with that) is the telly going to once more become the centre of family entertainment as kids fight with dad over who’s playing the next game on the xBox while mum wants to watch the film she downloaded to the games platform and big sister wants to browse the web for the handbag she saw on Sex and the City? Oooh, the fun we could all have with IPTV.

But what Jeff Jarvis seems to have missed out yesterday in his post is the last example in this IPTV family: TV as a shop window which, with only one click, allows us to buy into the same world as those on the telly. MobuzzTV comes close to this on the web, but imagine that buying power on the real box. Think QVC but actually entertaining and useful at the same time.

Now we really could have fun with that. Edu-ideas for it anyone?

Just weird - insane flashcard use

Via Boing Boing comes a mad woman "training" her baby in World Leaders and numeracy with some of the fastest flashcard action I have ever seen. Watch the video clip from the BBC documentary "Child Prodigies: Too much too young?". If it were me, I would drop the question mark.

BBC Digital Archive... and Teachers TV for download

The BBC Creative Archive is finally on the move, adding a range of downloadable library clips to the material teachers might consider using in their lessons. A nice alternative to clipart or a welcome addition to a lesson on Hamlet. But I have mentioned this before. What is interesting is the competition they are running for any youff looking to make it as a VJ (Video Jockey, like a DJ but on the box). They provide clips and Creative Commons music that young aspiring VJs mix and share. There's a cool prize, too, for the winner: VJ-creating equipment and the chance to VJ live on the Beeb.

Of great interest for CPD-hungry teachers (that Continuing Professional Development) you can now download over 400 programmes from a growing selection on the Teacher TV Video Archive. You can search by subject and find some gems to help get into the classrooms of colleagues the land over.

From the BFI's contribution of silent comedy to the Creative Archive Group:

MyBBCPlayer: Live TV on the internet

In the same month that the BBC are launching elements of their Digital Archive, BBC Director General Mark Thompson (pictured) reveals the next stage in the corporation's bid to keep its licence fees rolling in.
From next year, hopefully, either BBC1 or BBC2 will be 'simulcast' on the internet and the TV, using a new free product MyBBCPlayer. More is promised when the analogue system is switched off for good.

And in the classroom
With software available for recording live streaming video and audio, such as World TV and WM/RM Recorder for TV, or Audio Hijack just for streaming radio, it is already possible to get a reasonable range of foreign language TV recorded into digital format to your computer's hard disk - if you have a PC, and not a Mac.

That means tonnes of existing foreign language programmes are available to record onto your hard disk, ready for tomorrow's class: the weather forecast, the news, the footy results from Italy...

The BBC's overnight programming of modern languages learning shows will be even more accessible than they are at the moment. There is also the chance that the viewer will end up having more control over when these programmes can be watched, removing the need for recording programmes at 2am. This is what TiVo already offers to those whi can afford it.

But while we're at it: anyone know a WM/RM Recorder for Mac?

From blogging, to podcasting to online TV Station creation

From the strangely named Participatory Culture Foundation comes the latest in communication with a twist. While vlogging is the video version of blogging, the PCF have come up with the open-source DTV Beta. It's a downloadable all-in-one programme for Mac that allows you to gather programmes, see online TV guides and watch programmes, while also being able to make TV programmes within the same console. You can therefore use elements of what you have seen on others' home-made TV in your own reportage.

This is more than vlogging. It integrates others' work to your own, allowing the person creating the programmes to use and comment on video material provided by others.

And in the classroom...
Putting video of youngsters onto the net is problematic, but for older students wanting to try their hand at the sharp end of media studies this tool could be very useful to get a taste from behind the camera. I'll have to look and see how much is available in foreign languages, but even if there is none it is just a matter of time till something goes up.

Have a play of it and tell me what you think. I'll let you know my own findings at a later date...