OurMedia, the citizen media portal, has created a Personal Media Learning Center to help people acquire the skills “to create videoblogs, podcasts, screencasts, digital stories and other emerging media forms,” reports site co-founder J.D. Lasica. The new how-to site includes an Open Media Directory that points to shareable audio, video and other content. The list of how-to topis is incomplete and OurMedia is asking for tutorials from people who’ve taught themselves how to use new media tools. But congratulations on a great start on a necessary project.

Sound familiar or dated? I had a minor time crisis today so instead of original material I’ve rerun a few items that might still be useful if you hadn’t seen them before.

Several of the blognoscenti have posted their tips and tricks for keeping up with the flood of information. Start trying to improving your own technique by scanning this post written by B.L. Ochman Then click on this tip sheet offered by Graham Holliday and if you are a glutton for knowledge, view the suggestions offered by Bob Cox of Media Bloggers. Of course then all you need is time to incorporate these techniques into your routine. This I suggest you do by giving up sleep.

More tools I have no efficient system fo keeping track of interesting sites that I find online. So thanks to Amy Gahran for showing how to use a site called Furl to park links in a findable spot and tag them by category of interest. Her tutorial starts with a Poynter Institute blog posting. Leave yourself time to read some of the embedded links where she suggests how to make use of Furl. Time spent learning Furl should pay off in ease of finding resources down the line. (FYI: Gahran talks about other tools for video searching and collaborative writing but I could only absorb so much in one sitting.)