As graphic facilitators, the tools that allow us to synthesize ideas into images--whether static or dynamic--are expanding exponentially.

In this video thought piece hosted on YouTube, Kansas State Anthropology professor Michael Welsch uses the simple, cheap digital tools at hand to weave an engaging narrative of the birth of Web 2.0.

[ via Jarrell McAlister ]

Welsch expresses the miracle of that birth, writing: "We're teaching the machine, and the machine is us. Time to rethink the world. The network is the machine; the machine is us."Digital Ethnography is a working group of Kansas State University students and faculty

dedicated to exploring and extending the possibilities of digital
ethnography.

He literally draws the path of communication evolution from handwritten, linear text to non-linear hypertext, HTML, XML, RSS and mash-ups.This is the most elegant and engaging description of where media is today. And to think, he did it without using a single bullet point!Currently Wesch is launching the Digital Ethnography working group

at Kansas State University to examine the impacts of digital technology
on human interaction.

The first outcome of this work was a short video called "Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us." The video was released on YouTube on January 31st 2007 and quickly became the most popular video in the blogosphere.