Blog away: Assessment item 1

Assessment item 1: Building an online community

Adam Curry and Dave Winer are both pioneers in the development of online communities. They envisioned a society that could communicate personal thoughts and world wide events using the freedom and accessibility of online communities.

Adam Curry’s entertainment career got him into IT by experimenting with the Net and was then involved in the development of podcasting. Since the 1980s, he used IT to inform the world of the latest events in the celebrity world. In the 1990s his IT consulting businesses merged from one to another until Answerthink Inc was created. In 2000, helped initiate podcasting and in 2005 helped established http://www.mevio.com/about/ a site for documentaries and footage involving celebrities.

Dave Winer graduated in Computer Science and like Adam Curry, helped distribute modern day events through the web. In 1990s, Winer was a constructive software developer in America and he developed RSS, MetaWeblog and worked with Adam Curry on podcasting. He was acknowledged as one of ‘Top Ten Technology Innovators’.

Both Curry and Winer are thorough change managers. They continue to implement new and developing communication technologies to benefit from a constant evolving IT industry. Curry regularly contributes to his podcast No Agenda and Winer uses his Scripting News to update users about his life and business.

Curry and Winer have been successful at implementing IT and online communities into society that it has become common place in house holds. Society has benefited from this technology because of the variety of ways that society can maintain contact. Blogs and wikis allow people to maintain contact and exchange personal information using video and photos.

In NSW, the Digital Education Revolution (DER)program is incorporating these technologies into education as the government issue laptops roll out into schools this year. Blogs, Wikis, Pod casts, video footage and digital photos are being used as tools to engage students in learning the curriculum. Instead of exercise books, students will be using their laptops to blog subject information, participate in subject online chats and submit creative more purposeful assignments. Students and teachers will have access to working with a wider network of learners, not limited to the geographic area. Collaborating with guest speakers and other schools from interstate or across the world improves learning by providing expert knowledge and cultural exchange.

As a teacher, I am glad that the Department of Education has finally caught up with the idea to use online communication in education which is currently being used successfully in Universities as well as in the general society. Schools will become platforms of sharing ideas where everyone can provide input and be acknowledged. This generates more positive, engaged and creative learning which is the quality teaching educators want to achieve.