As you may know, I've been blogging for quite some time. Things on this blog may have wound down however its far from the end.
You may follow me on twitter. www.twitter.com/frompaul
Or visit my associated blog: http://morefrompaul.wordpress.com/
I do hope you will continue to nip in for a nosey from time to time and thanks, as always for visiting.
Paul
One of my photographs has made it into the top-twenty photographs which will form an exhibition at the National Museum of Media and Photography in Bradford.
The photograph was taken on the road to Buxton in Derbyshire and was taken after two previous visits to the same location.
The twenty images which will be exhibited were originally uploaded to flickr and then included in a 'britain in pictures' group. The exhibition itself runs at the museum until January 2008.
It goes without saying that I'm honoured that my picture has been chosen, especially given the quality of some of the other photographs in the group.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back onto the internet. Paul Hurst strikes with yet ANOTHER blog!
Mediawatchblog.tv is my latest pet project which is pretty self explanatory. For those who may need a bit more info, its a blog dedicated to cataloguing and commenting stories from the media perspective.
The blog may sit uncomfortably close to mediawatchblog.com however I thing that I'm offering something quite different than my fellow bloggers and hope they don't mind their new Tuvaluan neighbour too much!
You can check out the new blog at www.mediawatchblog.tv and please let me know what you think and throw me the odd-link or two if your a fellow blogger. I'd be very grateful.
Today has seen the official launch of a school blog after six weeks of training with sixteen students.
Pupils from St Peter's High School in Orrell have been finding out all about blogs as part of their english coursework and ICT across the curriculum. They have had lessons in Creative writing, journalism skills and of course web safety and security.
You can have a look at their school blog and their write-up of the course here and as the team continues to create more content, I'll be back in the school to work with more students and staff in this exciting area of creative education.
As most of you may know already, a lot of my work centres around the use of podcasting, blogging and photojournalsm in education and I set up the Rock FM bus blog as part of my vision for journalistic skills such as research and presentation to be featured more prominently within our schools.
Students love the challenge of creating podcasts and school blogs, especially when they can work alongside creative professionals and broadcast partners such as Rock FM so if you're connected with a school in the North-West of England and you'd like more information or maybe like to meet for advice then feel free to email me.
pthurst@gmail.com
Here's a shot presentation with some of my photographs in it. Hope you like them!
My Photo Portfolio from pthurst and Vimeo.
How about taking the concept of blogging and citizen journalism and teaching it in the classroom? Well that's exactly what I've done in one of the local high schools near to where I live.
Most of you will already be well aware of my interest in blogging and its uses and I am very interested indeed in looking at new ways in which blogging can be used by everyday people to promote or produce their work or interests. Fortunately with my own work as a media producer within education, I have been able to draw up a six-week series of lessons which introduces the concept and technology behind blogging into a classroom setting.
The result so far has been excellent. The school in question, has decided to replace the good ol' term newspaper with a new blog and they also identified sixteen students from across the yeargroups who will produce and edit the content.
You can keep your eye on their blog by clicking here and if you'd like to see a short video (shot and edited on the N95 mobile) then check out this post on my moblog.
If you work in a school and would like more information about setting up and teaching blogging skills to your students, please get in touch.
Today has been one of the busiest days for techno-geeks the world over. The initials WWDC may not mean much to most, but to Apple aficionados, it one of the most important days in the diary.
If Apple corp were to release an 'on this day in history' The World Wide Developers Conference keynote speech from CEO Steve Jobs would include such delights as the original iMac (WWDC 1998), the PowerMac G5 (WWDC 2003) and of course the various versions of Apple's crowning glory, the iPod.
It based on this kind of hype and cult-brand-status that anyone who is remotely interested in Apple products can be forgiven for holding out high hopes for the day as far as gadgets and gizmo's go. In previous years, Steve's near-evangelical keynote has hit my credit card hard and I was expecting the same this year. Maybe an update to the iLife software and the aging iMac desktop? As the lights dimmed, I pulled up my laptop and prepared to want...
As it turns out, I was left wanting. Steve's keynote didn't lack enthusiasm or even the odd 'boom' here and there (I counted over 40 back in '03), what it did lack though was err... products. In fact I basically counted 2, the iPhone which isn't out here in the UK for ages (and isn't HSDPA compliant) and the upcoming operating system 'Leopard' which looks OK but doesn't flick my switches like laptops and desktop computers.
And that was about it... I was shocked and saddened (now there's two words you don't see together often!) with the lack of any 'real' products or upgrades. No iMac upgrades, no iPod upgrades, instead news that the beta software development is going ahead as planned and that the iPhone will also launch in the US in two weeks, where it will undoubtedly do well.
It also looks like I wasn't the only one to find this keynote 'lacking', as Steve bowed out, Apple's share price also seemed to be exiting-stage-left, with a 3.45% drop in value. It seems that the markets were also hoping that Steve would have more than a mobile phone and a CD up his sleeve. Alas! He didn't!
So as the dust settles, my hopes that the last poor keynote from Jobs was a one off were dashed and to add insult to injury, he even used his "one more thing" section to announce that apple are now coding software for PC'! What is the world coming to?
Imagine my shock, no horror! When I realised that in this world of 6,000,000,000 people, I am not the only, Paul Hurst.
We treat our names as our unique identifier and in most cases, they are sufficient for this purpose, although there was also another 'Paul Hurst' in my year at school. So how does the internet change our awareness of who we are?
The current buzzword may be social networking through sites like myspace and even blogs like mine. Each offer individuals a small slice of the web which we can call home, but have you ever done an image search in Google for your own name?
Here's what happens with 'Paul Hurst'
Aside from not being dead (which is always a relief!), It would appear as though I may be some kind of 'yokel' on the run...
And wait for it... How about Paul Hurst the world famous harp player...
And not just nimble with the fingers, but feet too! Lets not forget 'Paul Hurst' the full-back for Rotherham United Football club.
Go on, have a go yourself and please let me know if you can find other pictures of your namesakes from around the world, a bit like my mate George Bush.
Oh and if you'd like the official word on other people who share your name then pay a visit to 'how many of me.com'
I have started to post a few high res pics from my trip to Rome over here.
Forgive me for posting about my trip twice however I had a great time and got chance to grab some pictures that I wanted to take after my first visit last year.
Had a great time this week in sunny Rome. I also 'just happened' to have a camera with me so feel free to take a look at the slideshow below.
I was out and about today, making the most of the holiday and so I visited the National Museum of Photography and Media in Bradford.
The museum is one of the most popular in the country, probably due to the popularity of TV, film and photography and I had a great time having a good look around.
The museum includes lots of original 'props' and equipment from TV and film sets with some lovely exhibitions of Childrens TV memorabilia, some of which brought a tear to my eye and made me feel very old indeed (Chorlton and the Wheelies anyone?).
Aside from the exhibitions and a superb IMAX theatre, there are also a few 'hands-on' areas too and me being me, I just had to have a fiddle at editing an episode of Emmerdale and then breaking a live report into the ten o'clock news from the BBC.
Now just before you all head for the hills H.G Wells style, this report certainly wasn't true although with an autocue failure at the end of my report, conspiracy theorists my just have a few things to say about whats really going on...
Anyway, if you have a spare day and this kind of thing flicks your switch then you'd do well to pay the museum a visit.
I have recently been working and devising a photojournalism course for use within secondary schools and as the project draws to a close, I thought I'd blog about it a bit for any teachers who want to explore ways of looking at photography/art/media and communication outside of the classroom.
Pictured above is Tony Smith from Wigan Athletic who manages the community bus which allows the club to deliver ICT and media training in schools. Some of you may know that since the start of this academic year, I have been working as part of this team and I decided that this would be the ideal platform to build further on my ideas of how to use photography to engage people in community related issues.
For this project, we took a group of five students to the training ground where they had chance to have a go at sports photography as Wigan Athletic were training. The coaching staff and team were excellent and the Manager kindly allowed me to take an 'official photo' which will now be signed and presented to the school.
After the photoshoot, Tony showed the students round the JJB stadium and then held a mini press conference in the press room, all the time, reinforcing how the media work with the club on matchdays to get all the important info into the public domain as quickly as possible.
The project has proved to be incredibly successful and for me, it goes to show that within education, media can be used as a useful tool to engage pupils with curriculum topics and in this case, take a more detailed look at the world around them.
Someone asked to see my blog article all about 'elevator hacking' so here it is.
My blog is worth $1,129.08.
How much is your blog worth?
