Students Become iReporters at Inauguration!

News organizations are eager for those perfect inauguration pictures and videos! There are many opportunities for students to snap a few pictures (or take some video) and possible get them published through a popular news organization. A great opportunity for students to take advantage of their cell phones and turn them into data collecting tools for journalism!

I just read a great post from Andy Carvin, about the students at Worcester Academy in Massachusetts who are documenting their inaugural experiences via their own cell phones. They have a mobile Flickr account, a YouTube account, a Twitter account and a blog where they are sending their pictures, videos, and text messages about their inaugural experiences. What could be more authentic social studies, data collection, and data analysis than this!!???

Here are a few places that inauguration student goers can send their media and participate as iReporters...

1) CBS News (CBS EyeMobile)
Send to: eye@cbseyemobile.com

2) CNN iReport
Send to: iReport@cnn.com

3) The New York Times
Send to: pix@nyt.com with your full name and the location where the picture was taken

4) PBS Newshour Speak Out Podcast for Student Reactions
Call in: to the Gabcast number and record your reaction to the Inauguration (call Lizzy Berryman, Director of the Teacher Center, at 703.998.2182 to get the Gabcast number and pin).

5) NPR Inauguration Report
Send Videos: Upload your video to your own YouTube account and tag it either inaug09 or dctrip09.
Send Pictures: Using your Flickr account, upload pictures and tag them inaug09 or dctrip09.
Send Text: Send a text message to 66937. Begin the message with the phrase #inaug09 or #dctrip09. You can include a ZIP code or one of the location tags

6) Photobucket Obama Album
Send Videos and Pictures to your Photobucket account. Then post to the collective album here.

Teacher Using Mobile Blogging with Students

Australian Teacher Steve Collis has been mobile blogging with his students for the past year!! His students have been using an international resource called Utterli (used to be Utterz) for their mobile blogging. Utterli works in over 25 different countries. Utterli allows mobile posting of audio, image, text, or video from any basic cell phone. The posts can automatically show up on just about any blog site or in an Utterli account.

Steve has helped to conduct two projects with his students. The first project, grade 11 students creating mobile audio reflections on Wordsworth, where the students would go out "into nature" and reflect on Wordsworth's poetry.


The second project, grade 9 students documented Australians geographical and biological environment. The students went outside and using their cell phones took pictures of plants, animals, or landscape in Australia.


Before the projects began Steve sent home permission forms for the parents to let them know what was happening with the project and cell phones. Steve has also created some tutorials on "how to" do these mobile postings in Utterli on his blog.