Derek E. Baird :: Barking Robot

Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), Oprah.com and Facebook Lined Up for Oprah's 'Lifeclass' Series

Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn’t know the first thing about either.” —Marshall McLuhan

On October 10th Oprah Winfrey will launch an all-new five week series, Oprah's Lifeclass, where she will reflect on and share the lessons that she learned during the 25-year history of The Oprah Winfrey Show.

The Oprah's Lifeclass, which airs on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), will also feature an online companion course "Life Work" that will feature exclusive videos, articles, quizzes and advice from leading experts to help students get their life on track and moving in a new direction.

 

In a move that will surely appeal to the younger demographic, the Life Class series will also harness the power of Facebook as a learning platform and will feature a live post-show class meeting with Oprah on Facebook.

This isn't the first time that Ms. Winfrey has used emerging digital and social media in an edutainment  context. In 2008 Oprah used Skype to hold an Oprah's Book Club discussion with Eckhart Tolle. She joined forces with Anderson Cooper in 2009 to hold a Book Club webcast with Uwem Akpan.

For someone like myself, who has spent a good chunk of my time evangelizing the use of social media, education and entertainment as teaching tools, I'm beyond giddy that someone of Ms. Winfrey's stature is moving her network and voice in this direction.

What is truly exciting is to see OWN embrace both emerging social platforms like Facebook along with the web for online learning. Although, this shouldn't come as too much of a suprise that Ms. Winfrey is taking 'the classroom' anywhere the students are gathered and prepared to learn.

During her 25 years on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Ms. Winfrey turned the network television into the world's biggest classroom. Whether it's building schools in Africa or educating her live audience in Chicago or viewers at home in San Antonio, Stockholm or Sydney, education has been at the core of Oprah's message.

You can sign up for Oprah's Lifeclass here.

Pearson Learning Study: Social Media in Higher Education [PRESO]

General Social Media Stats From the Pearson Study

Facebook

• There are over 500 million users on Facebook with over 50% logging in at least once per day.

• In the United States alone there are, as of February 2010, 108 million users at a growth rate of around 5 million new users per month. That is a 35% penetration rate of the total US population.

• The average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook.

Twitter

• At the end of 2009 Twitter had approximately 75 million active users with a growth rate in Q4 of between 6-8 million new users per month.

• There are over 50 million tweets per day as of March 2010. This is up from 3 million tweets per day in March 2008.

Pearson Social Media Survey 2010

View more presentations from Pearson Learning Solutions.

YouTube

• On YouTube alone, there are over 1 billion views per day.

• There are 20 hours of video uploaded every minute. That’s the equivalent of 130,000 full-length Hollywood movie releases every single week.

• YouTube is the #2 search engine in the world.

• Approximately 82% of Internet users in the USA view videos online.

LinkedIn

• There are over 60 million registered users on LinkedIn with about 100,000 new users per week.

Blogs

• There are approximately 126 million blogs as tracked by BlogPulse.

Weekly Wrap: China, Social Media & Chinese Youth Trends

I've been doing some research on Chinese youth culture and their use of technology, mobile phones & social networking for a book chapter I'm working on and thought I'd share some of my research.

The following sites and articles have provided me with a pretty good insight into what it means to be a Chinese Millennial.

China's Top 4 Social Networks: There is no single dominant network, no Facebook for all of China. The actual Facebook.com is blocked by government censors (Chinese sites all obediently and quickly remove “objectionable” content). No single social network will conquer the China market in the immediate future, least of all a foreign one. [China Social Games]

Digital Confucius Introduces Chinese Students to Liberal Arts at Yale and Beyond: Hundreds of thousands of young Chinese are joining a new craze: auditing American university courses available online. Of most interest: topics like happiness and justice. [CS Monitor]

China's New Culture of Cool: China’s 1.3 billion citizens—particularly the 640 million who are under age 30—are becoming a world force. However, China is not a monolithic culture.

Though deeply rooted in native traditions, its contemporary marketplace is eclectic, combining regional styles with elements borrowed from foreign cultures.

And, it is evolving at a remarkable pace. To succeed in this dynamic emerging market, smart businesses need to understand its driving influences—especially its urban youth. [Cheskin Added Value]

Mobile Youth Trends | China 2010: The Mobile Youth Trends China 2010 Report provides marketing and product managers an overview of both the quantitative and qualitative state of play with young mobile customers (aged 5-29). [MobileYouth]

China Internet Status Report 2010: The latest report on China Internet is ready, which is based on CNNIC data. [China Internet Watch]

China Internet Network Information Center: China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the state network information center of China, was founded as a non-profit organization on Jun. 3rd 1997.

Enovate: In short, we’re a Shanghai-based insights and design agency. We combine on-the-ground research and an experienced strategy team, to arrive at innovative solutions to China’s youth market. We work with a wide range of client to build meaningful relationships with Chinese youth.

A Look at China's 240 million mobile youth: China’s legion of 240 million mobile owners under 30 yrs old has a significant bearing on the shape of the mobile phone industry and we’re fortunate to have Jesse Hu in the region to do our on-the-street research for us down in Shenzhen city. [Mobile Youth]

Infographic: Social Media Equivalents in China

Image Credit: Enovate

Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century

According to a study from the Pew Internet & American Life project (Lenhardt & Madden, 2005), more than one-half of all teens have created media content, and roughly one-third of teens who use the Internet have shared content they produced.

In many cases, these teens are actively involved in what we are calling participatory cultures.

A participatory culture is a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices.

A participatory culture is also one in which members believe their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least they care what other people think about what they have created). Henry Jenkins: Participatory Culture & Media Education

A growing body of scholarship suggests potential benefits of these forms of participatory culture, including opportunities for peer-to-peer learning, a changed attitude toward intellectual property, the diversification of cultural expression, the development of skills valued in the modern workplace, and a more empowered conception of citizenship.

Access to this participatory culture functions as a new form of the hidden curriculum, shaping which youth will succeed and which will be left behind as they enter school and the workplace.

Research: Empowering Parents Through Technology

The Children's Partnership works to ensure that all children—especially those at risk of being left behind—have the resources and the opportunities they need to grow up healthy and lead productive lives. They have released a report titled "Empowering Parents Through Technology."

Computers and broadband are becoming essential tools to help parents engage in their children's education which can improve their academic achievement and lives. This report addresses ways to ensure more parents and caregivers have access to technology tools and the skills to use them effectively.

It discusses the connections between schools and families, how technology reinforces existing connections and constructs new ones and how this benefits children, especially those who are underserved by the existing education system. Finally, this report outlines an Empowering Parents Through Technology Action Plan that serves as a roadmap for achieving these goals.

Empowering Parents Through Technology

Related: Social Networking + Digital Media Parenting Resources

Twitter Cheat Sheet

Twitter Cheat Sheet

2010 Social Media Matters Report: Majority of Top Media Destinations Are Social

According to research conducted by BlogHer and iVillage “2010 Social Media Matters Study,” co-sponsored by The Nielsen Company and Ketchum, social sites are now a frequent destination for nearly three-quarters of Internet users.

Social Media Matters 2010

Respondents’ top daily media activities were social as well. Watching television is still on top, but Facebook was the next most common media destination visited every day.

The study found similar rates of usage among men and women, and pegged the percentage of weekly social media users at 73% of the online population.

via www.emarketer.com

Here are some of the other key findings in the 2010 Social Media Matters Study:

• Blogs trail only search engines as the preferred media source for product-purchasing information for BlogHer users.

• Among BlogHer users, 96 percent read blogs weekly or more often.

• BlogHer users are more active than average women across the board on blogs, Facebook, and Twitter.

• As for iVillage users, message boards and forums were second only to conversations with friends and family as the preferred source of product-purchasing information.

• 73 percent of respondents from the iVillage community said they share topics on message boards and forums that they would not share on social networks. Of those, relationships (61 percent), health (45 percent), and work-related issues (39 percent) were the top topics they would not share on social networks.

• 31% higher than the total online population for Gen X generation

• 3.6 percent of iVillage community members post on message boards or forums every day.

Related: Millennials, Men Watch Most Online TV

Global Youth: Africa is the Future

The youth and branding Africa

View more presentations from G. Kofi Annan. (@G. Kofi Annan)

This presentation looks at Africa not as a place, but as a brand and calls on African youth to make a change. With 60% of the population under 25, the role of young people in the developing a new Africa is immense.

Thanks to Three Billion for the heads up on this excellent presentation!

Admongo: FTC Launches Advertising Literacy Program for Kids, Parents & Teachers

Advertising to American kids is nothing new.

But the Internet and other technologies have taken kids’ exposure to advertising to new levels: ads are virtually everywhere.

 That's why the nation’s consumer protection agency has launched Admongo, a campaign to raise advertising literacy among the nation’s tweens. Admongo is designed to equip kids ages 8 to 12 with critical thinking skills they can use to understand advertising messages. 

Through Admongo.gov – a game-based website – as well as a free in-school curriculum, a packet of sample ads, and several family activities, the Admongo campaign aims to teach kids to recognize commercial messages and prompts them to ask some key questions when they see them. 

Check out Admongo.gov and help others get aducated!  Share the game, video, and other resources – like the curriculum and the sample ads. Admongo is free and in the public domain.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science | Media Literacy Lesson Plan

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science (AMPAS), in cooperation with Young Minds Inspired, produces a series of teacher’s guides that explore the art and science of motion pictures.

The activities are designed to capitalize on students’ natural interest in current films and the excitement generated by the Academy Awards to teach valuable lessons in critical thinking and creative writing, and to develop visual literacy skills.

This lesson plan, Reading Between the Frames focuses on Media Literacy. The lesson contains four activities, a teacher guide and a handout in both English and Spanish.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences | Media Literacy Teacher Guide

Youth Strategy: Four Things the Oscars Can Do to Connect with Youth

The folks over at The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) made it pretty clear that 2010 was the year that they were going to pull out all the stops to try and woo younger viewers to watch the 2010 Oscars.

The 2010 Oscar youth strategy included a revamped and more social media friendly website, the inclusion of teen friendly stars like Miley Cyrus, Zac Effron and Taylor Lautner as presenters, two original Oscars web series (Behind the Dress & The Road to the Oscars), extra video features and live streaming of the Red Carpet arrivals.

And while the strategy paid off with a 14% boost to Oscar TV ratings among 18-49 year olds, I believe there are additional measures they can take to reach out to younger viewers. Big kudos to Adam Shankman (the youth guru and creative powerhouse behind 17 Again, The Last Song, Step Up and So You Think You Can Dance), producer of the Oscars, for creating a more youth friendly and inclusive show.

Adopt a 365 Strategy

Remember when you were a kid and how awkward it was when that relative showed up at Thanksgiving and you had no idea who the hell he was? That's how Millennials feel when their 82 year old "Uncle Oscar" shows up once a year and suddenly wants to be their BFF. It's creepy. Stop.

If the AMPAS wants to develop a long term relationship with younger generations and ensure the ongoing legacy of the Oscars, they need to build a relationship of trust and make their outreach efforts a year round event, not just on Oscar night.

If you want to use social media, you have to actually use it. There isn't any excuse for not leveraging your Facebook presence to stir up buzz before, during and after the Oscars telecast. And if you're going to use Twitter, you need to actually Tweet. You've just alienated 2,900 viewers by ignoring them and shown them that Uncle Oscar isn't that hip after all.

Your social media strategy, like your youth strategy, should be a year round endeavor. The worst thing you can do is set up outposts on the social web and then not use them.

Youth Outreach

The Academy has an amazing set of lesson plans and "how to" guides on all aspects of student filmmaking available on their website. The downside is that right now, they live in their own little silo.

You need to get these into the hands of more educators by slapping a Creative Commons license on each one of these guides and then distribute them through social publishing platforms (like Scribd), Open Education Repositories (like LearnHub), social networking sites (Facebook) and attendance at education technology conferences (like ISTE).

In addition, it's vital that you enter strategic partnerships with technology companies and youth filmmaking programs, like Apple, BAYCAT and Adobe Youth Voices, who work in the trenches with youth filmmakers. And why not hold a student film contest and show the top films on the Oscar.com website?

Media Literacy Program

The AMPAS has a bi-annual Media Literacy Program that is designed to "help students become aware of media messages encountered daily, improve analytical skills to evaluate those messages, and encourage provocative and thoughtful interaction with the media."

This is a great way to reach out to students and deliver a pro-social message. The problem is that it's only open to students who live in Los Angeles.

Why not broaden your impact by live streaming the event via Ustream, Livestream or Facebook to schools around the world? Find new avenues to distribute the Media Literacy curriculum so that it can be used by teachers and non-profits working with kids. Film the proceedings and distribute it in smaller video segments that can be used in the classroom, Girl Scout or PTA meetings.

Open Film Repository & Oscarpedia

Help young filmmakers by providing them with a repository of open copyright audio, video clips, images and sound effects. Provide students with listing of free and open source filmmaking technologies, film editing tools and software needed to help them create their own films.

Get the studios to pitch in and donate to this repository. Throw a couple contests a year and give away Flip cams from Cisco and/or Kodak. The key is to find ways to get young people excited about being active participants in the filmmaking process. 

Help younger generations feel more connected to the rich history of Hollywood by creating an online encyclopedia and repository of film history. This "Oscarpedia" would become the place for students and movie fans alike to come to learn more about the history of cinema. Build a repository of images using Flickr and Creative Commons that students can use in school reports, sideshows and other creative ways.

Relationships, Like Filmmaking, Are a Collaborative Process

So back to Uncle Oscar. At first, he's that weird old guy at the Thanksgiving table. But here's the thing, once you get to know him better you find out that he really isn't that weird. He has some really interesting stories.

Like how Hollywood helped fight WWII. You're amazed to find out that he was at the Academy Awards when Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American to receive an Oscar. And who knew he was an expert on the origins of animation?

My point is that if the Oscars want to woo younger viewers they don't need tween stars on the Red Carpet or handing out awards. That's nice on Oscar night, but it's not a long term strategy that will keep them engaged.

Right now the Oscars are something their parents and grandparents watch. You know. Old people. Millennials don't have a seat at the grown up table with Uncle Oscar. They are still at the little kids table.

A better approach is to provide as many ways as possible for them learn more about the many disciplines of filmmaking. In doing so you are empowering them with the skills to use film as the medium to share their own stories, engage in authentic practice of digital storytelling and creating an inclusive environment that allows them to feel like they are part of a community of practice.

'No Phone Zone' Lesson Plan: Teaching Teens the Dangers of Texting & Driving

The "No Phone Zone" lesson plan will educate students on the dangers associated with distracted driving (texting while driving, talking on the phone while driving).

The creation of this lesson plan was inspired by an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show that focused on the dangers of distracted driving. According to a 2009 Pew Internet Study:

• One in three (34%) texting teens ages 16-17 say they have texted while driving. That translates into 26% of all American teens ages 16-17;

• Half (52%) of cell-owning teens ages 16-17 say they have talked on a cell phone while driving. That translates into 43% of all American teens ages 16-17;

• 48% of all teens ages 12-17 say they have been in a car when the driver was texting;

• 40% say they have been in a car when the driver used a cell phone in a way that put themselves or others in danger.

No Phone Zone Lesson Plan

The Oprah Winfrey Show has provided teens with a myriad of digital resources--including an easy online editor--needed to make a 60-second PSA.

Students can create their own media, and mash it together with Oprah's voiceover, footage, music from The Oprah Winfrey Show and the No Phone Zone logo.

Best of all? It's all free!

This lesson plan was created by Derek E. Baird and has been released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License. This lesson plan is not endorsed or affiliated with Oprah, OWN or Harpo, Inc.

Update: Education World has selected my 'No Phone Zone' lesson plan as the "Tech Lesson of the Week!"

Update: Scribd, the social publishing network, has chosen my 'No Phone Zone' lesson plan as a featured document of the week! Thanks Scribd!

Global Youth: For Kenyan children, a small act has a huge impact

Jennifer Arnold's highly acclaimed documentary, A Small Act, tells the story of Chris Mburu, a Kenyan man whose early education was sponsored by Hilde Back--a woman from Sweden whom he had never met. 

via festival.sundance.org

By donating roughly $15 a month to an education fund, her small contribution paid off: Chris made it all the way to Harvard Law School and then started his own scholarship program, which now sponsors new generations of Kenyan students who would otherwise not have the opportunity to go to school.

In a recent Sundance Film newsletter, Jennifer shared how her film motivated people get involved and do what they could to help Chris provide an education for Kenyan children.

"After Festival screenings, I kept hearing from people how the film empowered them to make a difference. Audience members started handing us unsolicited donations—from twenty dollar bills to thousand dollar checks.

By the time the Festival was finished, $90,000 had been donated to an education fund, which means that more Kenyan children will go to school."

Sometimes we look at all the problems in the world and think that we can't do anything about it. We think that the problems are too complex, too far away, the problems unsolvable. But as Jennifer and Chris demonstrate, sometimes all it takes is a small act to change the course of a child's life.

Update: Jennifer Arnold's documentary film "A Small Act" is now showing on HBO!

Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media

Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out was written as a collaborative effort by members of the Digital Youth Project, a three-year research effort funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Southern California.

Conventional wisdom about young people’s use of digital technology often equates generational identity with technology identity: today’s teens seem constantly plugged in to video games, social networks sites, and text messaging. Yet there is little actual research that investigates the intricate dynamics of youth’s social and recreational use of digital media.

Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media

Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out fills this gap, reporting on an ambitious three-year ethnographic investigation into how young people are living and learning with new media in varied settings-at home, in after school programs, and in online spaces.

This project was one of many funded by the MacArthur Foundation to explore digital media and learning. New projects in this area are being aggregated through the Digital Media and Learning Hub.

Weekly Wrap: Slacktivism, Open Source Social Innovation, Boomers & Social Media, Helping Google Get Social, Sundance 2010 Round-Up, Texting Party in the USA, Steve Jobs' Wardrobe & More!

A Time and Place for 'Slacktivism': Slacktivism; (v.) action 4 social change w/o much effort beyond a click/text. Known causes: social media, cellphones. [Ypulse]

Baby Boomers Get Connected with Social Media: Boomers are turning to social media, where they keep up their offline social connections and make new ones. Online marketing messages that help them build on their connections—and foster other online relationships—will get their interest. [eMarketer]

Lady GaGa's Lessons for the Music Business: Underneath Gaga's haystack wigs is a case study of what it takes to succeed in the music business today. Gaga, 23 years old, has made shrewd use of new digital platforms, while still leveraging the clout of a major label, an institution deemed obsolete by many proponents of DIY culture (Thanks Ypulse!). [WSJ]

Conan O'Brien's Fate a Sign of the Times: While the "Tonight Show" ratings fell under O'Brien's tenure as a whole, ratings amongst the younger demographics were better than those of Jay Leno's "Tonight Show." According to the New York Times, the median age of "Tonight Show" viewers fell by 10 years, from 55 to 45, in O'Brien's first month alone. [Colorado Daily]

Social Media Marketing, How Pepsi Got it Right: Social media marketing campaigns are proving to be goldmines rich with customer engagement and insight that companies wouldn’t likely have otherwise. Companies like PepsiCo are going to extensive lengths to foster this type of collaboration with fans, and the payoff has been big. [Mashable]

Will Creating a SWAT Team Help Google Get Social?: As successful as Google has been with plenty of other things — including a little thing called search-related advertising — it has struck out big-time in virtually every attempt at the social side of the web. [GigaOM]

Reflections from the Sundance Film Festival: Lois Vossen, ITVS vice president and Independent Lens series producer, shares her reflections on this year’s festival, which wraps up this weekend. [Beyond the Box]

College Students Hate Email: In fact, the student joked that she only uses her email to “communicate with her boss and adults.” She uses Facebook as her preferred method of peer-to-peer communication – she has had a Facebook thread running between the three of them for three years now. [Off Campus Media]

Tweet O' the Week: Can someone please buy Steve Jobs a new outfit! The man has more money than God and Oprah! A simple button down will do!" (via Scott Nevins) [Twitter]

Americans Sending 4 Times as Many Texts as Brits:There was a turning point a couple of years ago when it was suddenly undeniable: It was either text message or be left behind. If you were paying for it by the message, you suddenly had to find a plan, because you started having more and more friends that wouldn't talk any other way. Well, we're wondering if it has finally reached that point in the U.K. - or if it's yet to come. [ReadWriteWeb]

Teen Drinking May Cause Irreversible Brain Damage: For teenagers, the effects of a drunken night out may linger long after the hangover wears off. A recent study led by neuroscientist Susan Tapert of the University of California, San Diego compared the brain scans of teens who drink heavily with the scans of teens who don't. [NPR]

Open Source Social Innovation: Last week Bill Gates entered the digital publishing world by establishing the Gates Notes - an online evolution of his now annual January letter sharing his thoughts on the progress of the issues central to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It’s interesting and symbolic that the next chapter of his life story would include an “open source” platform for sharing IP on social innovation. [Cheskin]