Social Blogging

If you are interested in learning about new media trends, communication technologies and about the changes that are shaping our future, in this issue of Media Literacy Digest, open education advocate George Siemens, explores and reports on new fascinating stories and insights and on the impact that these new tools have on the way we learn and work.

Photo credit: Zothen

Inside this Media Literacy Digest:

• Stages of Social Media Integration - Anytime someone provides a list of steps to achieve complex tasks, my reaction is to turn and run. Lists are generally only useful for the people who make them. Situations and contexts change rapidly. What works now in one organization will likely not work in the future in another organization.
• Networks - Mathematic and Social - Alberto-Laszlo Barabasi and James Fowler are prominent researchers in networks. Get the two together, and you get an interesting discussion.
• Neighborhood - It is still early enough in the new year to declare 2010 the year of “whatever you think is important“. To this end, have a look at 2010 - The Year of the Neighborhood.
• Those Crazy Kids and Their Media - Kaiser Family Foundation has a new report available on youth and technology. Overall, it is not a surprising report - basically, if they are awake, they are online.
• Internet Freedom - Take a few minutes (ok, maybe about 30). Read this transcript of Hillary Clinton’s presentation on Internet freedom. Leave the politics out of it. It is, I think, an important speech that has the prospect of serving as a touch point for advancing the freedom online discussion - delivered by a senior government official who recognizes that the Internet is more than an add on to our daily lives. It has become a “new nervous system for our planet“.
• Age of External Knowledge - I have stated (many) times that the most significant impact of the Internet is the externalization (capturing and recording… and then making available for future analysis) of all aspects of our lives. How much do we need to commit to memory when we can search Google? What does it mean to “know” something today?
• New York Times To Charge For Content? - Publishers (such as Rupert Murdoch and now New York Times) are once again experimenting with paid content models. I personally do not care. I am sure some people will pay. I would likely subscribe to an exceptionally informative newspaper or magazine online.
• Learning: Extracting Order From Chaos - Chaos theory can provide a useful model for learning: A limited range of inputs can provide a significant variety of outputs. Because the output range is so diverse, it is easy to assume that the process itself must be astonishingly complex. It is not.

Here all the details: