This article recently appeared on LearningSolutions.com in advance of my presentation in their Online Forums. — Douglas
New Media’s Fundamental Place in e-Learning
By Douglas E. Welch September 30, 2010“One of the most striking aspects of New Media is how much you can do inexpensively, even for free. As you move forward you might invest in larger, more robust systems, but investigating New Media often requires little more than access to the Internet. … There are very few financial excuses for not investigating how New Media can help your department or company.”
Like the technologies that preceded it – print, radio, television – New Media is set to change our lives and our learning in fundamental ways. Never before have we had such a great variety of educational tools at our disposal so inexpensively and so widely available. We can reach out to our customers, clients, and students almost anywhere in the world with the touch of button.
New Media consists of four pillars:
Online video sharing sites, such as YouTube,
Podcasting , which allows the automatic delivery of audio and video to listeners and viewers,
Live video streaming, such as uStream.tv and Justin.tv, and
Social media, that is, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and other such services.
All of these together form New Media – new ways of delivering information and interacting with our audience, whoever or wherever they might be.
As with any new technology, inertia and fear threaten to limit our use of these tools. We spend months and years evaluating, analyzing and investigating, but end up doing very little. As with other educational tools, you must engage with New Media to find its usefulness to you and your students.
Special note: Hear me speak on “Making the Case for Using New Media for e-Learning”! Sign up for The eLearning Guild’s October Online Forum, Integrating Media into Your e-Learning, October 7 and 8.