As more and more people are opting for broadband Internet connections content providers have more scope to provide information in different media formats. People now have the capacity to download or stream audio and video content on home PCs as part of their everyday surfing habits.
The popularity of Video sharing sites like YouTube and BlipTV has exploded in recent years. In addition to the penetration of broadband, the rapid rise in use of video sharing has a lot to do with the how easy it has become to create and edit your own videos. Many mobile phones have video cameras built in and Windows Movie Maker, a video editing program, has been part of the Windows operating system for several years.
For some time now people have been sharing music online and this has caused the recording industry major headaches trying to ensure that copyright is not breached, which has lead to the introduction of music downloads (eg. itunes) and digital rights management (DRM). What you may not know is that there is a lot of audio content available on the web that you can download for free. Everything from audio books to radio stations that broadcast only via the Internet.
In this exercise you will explore some of the media content available on the Internet.
First...
Explore YouTube. Do some searching around YouTube yourself and see what the site has to offer. There's mountains of stuff available and there's bound to be something to interests you. Of course, like any free site you’ll also find a lot stuff not worth watching. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t explore and see for yourself what the site has to offer.
There's even videos on YouTube that explore the same stuff as this Learning 2.0 program. The Machine is Us/ing Us by Mike Wesch.
Find a video that is worth creating a blog post about.
Then...
Create a blog post about your experience. Link to the video. What did you like or dislike about the site and why did you choose the video that you did? Can you see any features of the site that might be interesting if they were applied to library websites?
Extension...
Try embedding your video in your blog post. Embedding just means that you are taking the video source from YouTube and displaying it inside your blog post (just like the video above). Look for the embed code on the YouTube page. Copy and paste it into your blog post using the Edit Html tab of Blogger's post editor.
Next...
Have a look at some of these sites that offer free downloads of audio books. Generally, the titles available are classics because they're in the public domain. Try downloading a chapter or so from a book that interests you and have a listen to it.
The Library has just received grant funding for Overdrive, a platform for lending digital media including audio books, ebooks, music and videos. So the Library collection will contain material of this type in the near future.
Then...
Explore Podcasts.
There are essentially 3 ways to consume digital media content via the Internet. You can listen/watch audio and video live. This is known as streaming, for example listening to ABC radio online or watching a Surfcam. Your computer downloads the content as you watch and the file is not saved on your computer.
Alternatively, you can manually download audio and video files to your computer to watch anytime you like and/or transfer to your mp3 player or ipod. For example, buying songs through iTunes or another online music store.
Podcasts, on the other hand, are regularly updated audio or video (vodcasts) files associated with an RSS feed. Generally speaking podcasts are created for recurring programs such as a weekly radio program. You subscribe to a podcast in the same way that you subscribe to any other RSS feed. When you subscribe to a podcast the new content is automatically downloaded to your podcast receiver for you to watch at your convenience. There are dedicated podcast receivers such as Juice and Apple's iTunes software acts as a download store, podcast receiver, podcast directory and music player. Most aggregators, including Google Reader, Newsgator and Bloglines, can also act as podcast receivers.
There are podcasts on just about every topic imaginable and they range from short commentaries to complete shows. Traditional media creators are a good place to start looking for podcasts. For example, the ABC and BBC podcast many of their radio programs. Indeed, you can even vodcast the Chaser's War on Everything. There are, however, dedicated podcast directories such as Podcast.net and Podcast Alley.
Locate a podcast on a topic of interest to you. Subscribe to the podcast in your RSS reader. Have a listen to one or two of the episodes of the podcast.
Finally...
Add a post to your blog about podcasts. Did you find anything useful in your exploration? How could libraries make use of podcasts?
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