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Nokia today announced a project with the WITS Journalism programme, DStv Mobile and CityVarsity. The project, to be run from the Johannesburg journalism campus, sees local students from Wits and CityVarsity using a broadcast kit made up of a Nokia Nseries device and accompanying accessories which assist in mobile newsgathering.
Picture source: Sour Alba
Press release continued after the break. If you have any doubts or questions regarding this project, please feel free to leave them in the comments section as PhoneReport is planning to visit the project at the University and have a talk with the individuals involved. We are especially interested in it as I use a Nokia N95 for image capture for events and reviews, and audio recording during events and interviews.
“This initiative with WITS is the ultimate test of the Nokia N95 8GB. The students will be using the devices to capture video footage, high resolution images and audio files which they will need to upload for others to view,” says Mathia Nalappan, general manager for Nokia South Africa. “I have no doubt that the Nokia devices will perform to the standards required by the project, and we are looking forward to seeing the resultant content.”
To publish this content, WITS University and DStv Mobile have commenced work on a media broadcasting network for mobile phones. The network, aimed at all WITS students, is based on a unique combination of Bluetooth and WAP platforms. It will be managed by the journalism students themselves. The network will be capable of reaching over 20,000 students at WITS.
Nokia first utilized the N95 as a mobile journalism tool with leading international news organization, Reuters. Last year, Reuters journalists were equipped with Nokia devices that allowed them to edit and then publish multimedia packages of text, video and audio without having to travel back to their PC at the office. The ‘mojo’ kit to be used in South Africa is based on the same principles and, in keeping with the Reuters model, journalism students will be equipped with a Nokia N95 8GB, a Nokia SU-8W portable keyboard with phone stand and a Nokia tripod.
“The challenge we are setting our students is to use these great storytelling devices to produce content that their peers will want to watch and download,” says Indra de Lanerolle, lecturer at the WITS Journalism programme and ‘mojo’ project leader. “This is one of the first projects in the world to use mobile phones as the tools for gathering stories and as the platforms that the audience will watch them on, combing WAP and Bluetooth. Bringing together Nokia and DStv mobile is giving our students an extraordinary and unique opportunity to work at the leading edge of mobile media.”
The course will run from the 17th of June until October 2008 and the aim is to have new and original material posted at least once daily for student consumption. The project is funded by DStv Mobile, a division of Multichoice Mobile Operations.
For the duration of the course Nokia will provide expert technical support to the School of Journalism to ensure optimal usage of the devices.
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This is a really neat project and one where I hope that technologists and educators can see what happens when the tool isn’t the focus but the lesson is.
For me, this is similar to how I do things as a blogger, and one who just like mobile tech. I just think we can be more effecitve in blogging about the mobile life when we use the tools that have been proposed to making things effcient and possible. A paradigm shift in my usage, but something where we can learn from others like this project, the MTV and Reuters projects, and many more.
I agree with you Antoine, but for us mobile bloggers it is to note, and hopefully when I speak to the students at the University, I would like to see the difference it makes to them not using a notepad, but the Notes application, not using a hardware voice recorder, but the one implemented on the N95, and obviously not using a fully-fledged professional camera, but the N95’s camera.
For them it will surely make more difference than for us. We know our phones, and the N95 was ALWAYS my main capture tool. For people who aren’t “cellphone experts” it will be different, and I can’t wait to hear what thoughts they will share.
[...] students are also benefitting from the project with a Nokia N95 8GB and special accessories, as previously reported.“Enhanced productivity is a key output of this new relationship,” said Mathia Nalappan, general [...]
thats a great idea how can i hook up