I put together some material for Guardians of Ancora, an online game for children, last year. It starts:
In a recent radio interview, it was noted that often the first thing that children do when they arrive at a new house is ask for the Wi-Fi passcode. Gaming is something that children love to engage in: apps, games and other digital media have now become an everyday part of their lives, alongside other forms of entertainment and learning.
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In 2010, following conversations on social media, and after attending #DigiSymp, I was asked to use Tom Wright’s Lent for Everyone: Matthew and “do something digital” with it. Following ‘The Big Read 2009’ in the North-East, we took the project national for 2010, and sought to blend conversations online/offline through housegroup/online materials. Knowing that many in the church were not equipped (or interested) to engage online, ‘The Big Bible Project’ was created to encourage those in the church to improve both their digital literacy and their Biblical literacy. Around 24,000 visitors joined us over Lent, and we secured funding for 2011, and experimented further with Tom Wright’s Lent for Everyone: Mark.
Having built relationships online, summer 2011, I invited some of those who engaged with us to consider writing maximum monthly as a #digidisciple, which has raised an interesting range of questions about what it means to be a Christian disciple in the digital age. Outside of Lent time, this has led to a fairly steady audience of around 6-7,000 per month, with over 4,000 followers on @bigbible, around 450 on Facebook, a growing collection on Pinterest, and over 22,000 views on YouTube.
In summer 2012 a further 3 years of funding was secured from The Jerusalem Trust, and I moved to Durham (4 days a week), and am currently streamlining the site, and also need to redevelop the CODEC site. The expectation is that I will spend around 3 days a week on online community development/teaching, including #BigRead13 (with Rowan Williams The Lion’s World on C.S. Lewis Narnia books), Bible webinars, CNMAC, MediaLit, and 1 day a week on research.
Visit: http://bigbible.org.uk
drbexl is a site built upon WordPress, and contains personal information, including my employment history, but also where I blog and link to any number of things that I find interesting, want to support, or just generally want to witter (and Twitter) on about. There’s no set schedule for updating, and it functions largely as a scrapbook as & when I find material that I want to highlight or reflect upon:
View https://drbexl.co.uk
Interesting story noted in Times Higher Education, likely to be used by many as an explanation of why people shouldn’t blog about professional work… but if this is related to the blog, the blog is not at fault. Think before you post is the key lesson…
A university spokeswoman would not comment on why Ms Fowler had left, nor whether it was connected to her blog. She said it was university policy not to comment on “individual staffing matters”.
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She defended the Miss Piggy post on Twitter, writing on 18 April that “the boss thought it was funny!”
Ms Fowler used the social networking site until 26 April, but the account has not been used since.
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The primary interface between academia and the media is the university press office. Press relations officers – often former journalists – are tasked with repackaging academic research into bite-sized chunks that can be fed whole to hungry reporters. Their goal is both to disseminate knowledge and to increase the university’s profile among the public and, most importantly, funders and potential students.
So what could be done to rectify the situation? One option is to create a platform, most likely a website, that is staffed by experienced journalists but dedicated solely to publishing academic work. This approach is currently being pioneered in Australia, where The Conversation site, funded by universities, government and the private sector, was set up in the spring. On The Conversation, a team of about 20 journalists – led by Andrew Jaspan, former editor of The Observer – curate, commission and edit research, analysis and opinion from academics on everything from current affairs to the environment.
and what about this bit…
Although the cost of creating such a forum – even if it is hosted only on the web – may not be insignificant, the benefits are potentially enormous, as the success of a small blog set up last year by the University of Nottingham’s politics department attests. Written by staff and postgraduate students, the Election 2010 blog, which ran for five months, was estimated to have generated coverage for the university worth more than £4 million.
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