Sunday, August 09, 2009

Are full sized laptops necessary for content creation?

I had an interesting conversation this week about "netbooks," and their suitability for content creation. It was suggested that these small devices are better suited to "consumption," rather than creation of media. Leaving aside the obvious question of creating in words (writing,) I thought this did not fully reflect what is happening in the visual media of journalism, (with YouTube, etc.) In an effort to learn more, I stumbled on this post from Kirk Mastin, a photojournalist who explains it better than I can. As Kirk illustrates well, the old paradigm has shifted, at least as it applies to journalism. Equipment type is no longer a barrier to content creation. If your journalism students have netbooks, or smart phones, for that matter, they can create!