Short takes and a comment on news of the day

Awards to be announced tonight

Youth and adult juries (photo by Werner Laschinger)

Today is the final day of BaKaFORUM 2011. The juries have been busily working to determine this year's honorees. After the tonight's ceremony, we'll post a list of the entries that receive awards. So check back around 21:00.

Teaching and learning

Today's Focus: School and youth--Teachers day.

The schedule includes afternoon workshops on cross-media concepts for the classroom (13:30-16:30) at Wild'tsches Haus, Petersplatz 13...

And, media literacy and democracy building (14:00-17:00) is the topic at the Kult.Kino, Theaterstrasse 7.

Check your schedule or the BaKaFORUM.net website for more details. I only wish I could attend both workshops.

Connect at the Connect Cafe (Gerbergasse 30)

If you have not yet visited the connect cafe, take the five minute walk from Kult Kino and check it out. There is an attractively laid out media center where you can view various BaKaFORUM entries. The cafe itself is a former bank, quite spacious and a nice place to enjoy a coffee or tea, and a snack.

On a quite serious note

I am by experience, training, and temperament a newsman, a journalist. And while this blog is not journalism in a traditional sense, our thoughts turn to the news of the day. Unrest in Egypt is dominating world events as we begin our final day at BaKaFORUM. Just two days ago we were discussing the benefits of openness on the internet, first at the opening session and later in this blog. Once again we see that our age of  digital empowerment offers powerful tools for enabling a wide range of voices to be heard. The Egyptian government's extraordinary effort to shut down the internet speaks volumes about why net openness is so critically important. Those, here, who document struggles for social justice understand why media remain powerful tools. And, it seems fitting to recall the words of American radio and TV journalist Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965). Murrow was speaking about television, but his words could also apply to the newer technologies examined by us today and in use on the streets of Egypt.

Enlightened visions, indeed.

This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. (E.R. Murrow, 1958)