For Any Teacher Out There... Watch This

What is the learning environment like today?

What is happening as the 19th century model (teacher + chalkboard) collides with the new media tools (iPod + laptop + Wifi)?

How many hours do they spend in class? On the phone? On Facebook? How do the current educational methods even begin to prepare them for jobs that don't even exist yet?

This short video summarizing some of the most important characteristics of students today - how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime. Created by Michael Wesch in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University.

iHaveNoTribe.com - I Am Kenyan

Via Ethan Zuckerman:

A new project by David Kobia and crew, encouraging Kenyans around the world to transcend their tribal identity and affirm their identity as Kenyans. An interesting response to the difficulties of keeping message boards sane during the crisis.

Kobia also coordinated Ushahidi.com, a site that integrates GoogleMaps and SMS for citizens to report incidences of Riots, Deaths, Property Damage, Government Forces, Civilians, Looting, Rape, Peace.

It also has a running timeline of events, making it a powerful tool to trace the violence. Unfortunately, with some much violence involving so many impoverished people, this can't begin to give transparency to the chaos.

Although I am a Southern, American, white, suburban kid, I was born in Kenya and have carried hope and romance for this beautiful, passionate piece of the earth in my heart.

Geni: Animated Geneology Web Apps

This web 2.0 app drastically improves the (usually) tedious process of tracing family history, by combining the elegance of Flickr and the tools of social networking. http://www.geni.com

Digital Divide Simulator

clipped from mediacology.com Ever wanted to know what it’s like to drive in the Information Highway’s slow lane? The International Centre for Physics has created one so you can see how it feels to be in the losing spectrum of the digital media revolution. Try it out at ICTP Digital Divide Simulator.

MindMap WebApp: Bubbl.us

From LifeHack's 11 Top New Web Apps of 2007:

bubbl.us: Flash-based mindmap creator bubbl.us allows you to quickly and easily make effective, attractive mindmaps that can be exported as images or as HTML outlines, or shared with others who can add new items or draw new connections between existing ones. Sometimes clunky if your connection is slow or if the mindmaps get too large. But a fantastic Flash-enabled tool!

Facebook's role in helping Myanmar protesters

Internet a battleground in protests against Myanmar's repressive regime

If you are a member of Facebook, you can read about the protests at the public group: Myanmar (Burma) Uprising: Worldwide support

clipped from www.msnbc.msn.com LONDON - An Internet group backing the monk-led protests in Myanmar has attracted more than 100,000 members in less than 10 days as Internet users around the world try to harness the power of the Web to support the protest movement. The Internet has been a key battleground in the wave of protests that erupted a month ago against Myanmar's repressive regime. Authorities have cut off the country's two Internet service providers in a bid to stop accounts and images of the protests, and the military crackdown, reaching the outside world. The Myanmar government's tight media restrictions mean "citizen journalist" accounts have been vital for journalists trying to track the events of recent days. Reporters have relied on social networking sites like Facebook and blogs like that of London-based Burmese blogger Ko Htike for firsthand accounts and images.

Tiny Showcase Art Prints

From Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools:

Keeping tabs on the art world is tough and time-consuming. Being a collector is tougher -- and downright expensive. This site does all the work for you and allows you to amass your own hip, limited edition prints for cheap. Sign up for the newsletter and once a week you'll receive a heads up about the artist whose work will be available later that day for $20 a pop. They usually make only 100-200 prints and it's first come, first serve. The first piece I bought on a lark sold out in less than 15 minutes! I discovered the site nine months ago when a friend gave me a gift certificate.
Although I've already spent my gifted wad, I still check the newsletter religiously, almost obsessively. Stumbling on amazing art(ists) is wonderful. Decorating our home with little, unique prints is very satisfying. And part of every purchase is donated to a charity chosen by the artist, too. -- Steven Leckart

Tiny Showcase
$20/print
Available at TinyShowcase.com
http://tinyshowcase.com/

Digital Anthropology's Web 2.0

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.