Interested in Schools Blogging Project?

This article has been reproduced from Blogging Blackpool. It has been done so with a very clear proposal: Are there any schools locally that would like to establish a version of  the project outlined here? Please leave a comment or e-mail blackpoolcommunitnews@gmx.com

Lend Your Voice is one of those truly remarkable blogs that you discover during your internet browsing treks that makes you forget what you were looking for in the first place!  But this blog written by and featuring young people’s thoughts, views and experiences was well worth the break in journey.

Lend Your Voice has been established ‘to let every young person from Northern Ireland express their ideas and opinions, whatever their background.’

Despite being Belfast based, the Blog attracts posts from young people from all over the UK (and possibly internationally – still reading!). It has obviously engaged with schools for blogging news and poetry projects. It also benefits from the support of Youth News agency Headliners.

This Blog is surely an inspirational use of Blogging…. so are there any inspired Fylde Coast readers out there who would care to inspire such a venture locally!?

Following the Blackpool Bloggers

Blogging Blackpool enables viewers/readers to follow and support Fylde Coast based bloggers.

Blogging Blackpool will discover the extent of the local blogosphere. It will aim to bring together and support local bloggers, boost their readers and viewers, and encourage people to set up their own blogs.

Blogging Blackpool follows local blogs dealing with community news, ICT, photography, politics as well as world renowned blogs on Doctor Who and Blackpool Football Club.

The website follows blogs using aggregator software which posts the latest news from each. The same software allows new Blogs to be added and removed easily. A blog (‘Web Log’) is an online commentary or frequently updated website. Blogging is the practice of regularly updating your blog.

You can set up your own Blog for FREE using WordPress, Blogger, Xanga, or Vox. Then go to Blackpool Blogging and add your blog to the list of those being followed.

Blogging is a worldwide phenomenon with 1.5 million blogs being posted every week in 81 different languages. Blogging Blackpool also features some blogs from the vibrant international blogosphere. Visit Blogging Blackpool

New internet tools – making them work for you!

VCFS – Online collaboration, networking and reaching new audiences.

The media in the 20^th Century used to be the preserve of professional editors, journalists and writers, but in the last few years we have seen an explosion in citizen generated content.

Active citizens are now making the news; they have become the correspondents and photographers. These citizens are talking to each other, sharing their knowledge and experience and they are doing it online. Just having a website and hoping people visit is not enough!

Third sector organisations, voluntary, community and faith groups have lots to gain from engaging with new media and reaching new (particularly younger) audiences with their message. Online collaboration can help you create and share documents with your staff, members or clients involvement. Tools are available to make sure that the information you need regularly is delivered to your laptop or PC.

Would you or your Blackpool focussed group like to gain a greater understanding of the new online media services available and how you might use them effectively in your organisation?

If you would be interested in finding out more about:

• Setting up your own interactive website or Blog like this one?
• The bigger picture – what is happening with the internet and traditional media and why?
• An introduction to the main tools available and their different uses; Blogs, Twitter, Wikis, Flickr and social networking?
• Blogging and RSS?
• Strategic use of new media?

Then leave a comment on this post (will not publish it unless you expressly want us to).

Engaging the Internet and each other – explained

Blogging, Social Networking, Flckr, Wikis and Twitter might all be meaningless jargon to lots of people – but they all provide new opportunities for voluntary and community sector organisations to reach out and engage with new audiences.

A handbook produced by the ICT Hub and the Media Trust explains these new methods of interactive communication.  The booklet is filled with good advice and stories about how the new media is being used.

“How to use New Media“ is being distributed here as a 76 page PDF document by Blackpool SURF courtesy of the Lancashire VCFS Consortium, ICT & Communications Working Group.

“IMAGINE
The Council was due to make its decision about the waste ground tomorrow. Councillor Smith sat by his computer and looked at the site. He was used to the group’s rhetoric now but there was something different on the site. There was a photo of the ground and a link that said: “more”. Councillor Smith clicked on the link and suddenly his screen was filled with pictures. There were ones of children playing, football teams, and a group of Scouts building a den from trees. There were pictures of kite flyers and dog walkers, old ladies with a flask of tea on a bench, cyclists, and walkers. There were pictures by amateur photographers of the waste ground at sunset. There were out-of-focus camera phone self-portraits. What was more these pictures all shared a common title: ‘Save Ambridge Common’ and they had attracted comments from well beyond Ambridge. People in surrounding villages left best wishes. People from around the world were asking to be kept in touch on the fate of the waste ground. Councillor Smith turned his  attention to the proposal to be voted on tomorrow. He was no longer facing a couple of activists… he was facing a community.“

From chapter on Flickr in How to use New Media