As well as clearing out a whole load of stuff, we have also acquired a couple of cats. They are currently breaking us in, and we are hoping that by tomorrow they will have trained us sufficiently to allow us all to watch the royal wedding together in the comfort of our lounge.

Willow is the black one, Moo is black and white

If that isn’t possible, it won’t matter too much because the royal wedding will be broadcast live on YouTube on the Royal Channel. This seems like a great use of YouTube, and I’m looking forward to the experience of watching the first royal event to use social media. The full details may be found in the CNN  article called How to follow the royal wedding online.

Is this important as far as educational ICT is concerned? I would say it is, for the following reasons:

• It will be interesting to see how the various media are used. My understanding is that the YouTube coverage will include links to historical information of sites of interest along the procession route. So one thing to do when back in school might be to ask students to evaluate the use of YouTube: was it fit for purpose, right for the intended audience, etc? Ditto the other social media utilised.
• The “hidden message”, of course, is that if YouTube etc are good enough for the Royal Family they ought to be good enough for all the schools that have blocked these sites. Yes, there are e-safety issues, but there are also things like filters, vigilance, trust and common-sense.
• It will be an interesting example of crowdsourcing (videos and photographs) that is not aligned to any particular cause.

If you’re a workaholic and feel that you really should be doing something “serious” tomorrow, watching the proceedings on YouTube whilst making notes about teachable points or tweeting about it ought to make you feel better!