Forest Jigsaw, Media Massage and Goomeri Podcasts

Back home after couple of days performing and creating and publishing stories with students at Goomeri State School and I've been wondering why completing a 750 piece jigsaw puzzle called Stout Wood has given me so much pleasure.

Nice to complete things - yes; it's a pleasant photo - yes; but really I think it's about seeing a photo of such a rich forest after having driven through so much cleared farming land between Goomeri and Brisbane.

So much of that upper Brisbane Valley is cleared grazing country or is struggling regrowth. Sure there's some forest around Blackbutt, Nanango etc but from the main road you don't see much.

Good to see there are some rail bike trails being setup. Must get up there on some. Stopped at the market in park at Kilkoy and ran into two separate friends around the coffee van.


Went into a St Vinnies in Kingaroy and, as I usually do, had a scrounge around the 2nd hand books. Right in front of the children's book section, strangely enough, was a book I couldn't resist. It was only 30 cents as well. It was that oft quoted product of the late 60's 'The Medium is the Massage' by Marshall McLuhan and Qentin Fiore. What a blast from the past. Not so past though, it keeps on being quoted 43 years later.

I looked for one of my favourite photos in it - the one with the traditional African storyteller putting on a scary face for his village audience. Still like it. Speaks of the tradition of storytelling so well. The caption reads : 'The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.'

It was interesting watching what grabbed the interest of the primary and highschool students in the Goomeri 'village'. Listening to stories did; helping to create stories about students in their place did; telling stories about their experiences did. Recording and editing the podcasts was interesting for them as well. They enjoyed seeing their stories published online on 'The Learning Place' blog and podcast lounges.

One of the media that was not exciting for the highschool audiences however was my suggestion that we do a digital radio production - Radio Goomeri. I was a little puzzled until one of the teachers reminded me that they don't listen to much radio. Their massage comes from iTunes playlists.