Digital democracy: Where’s your voice?
“The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open.”
- Gunter Grass
Gunter Grass’ message is especially critical to those early-to-late majority users (i.e., everybody) who may not know the value or importance of their voice in the battle for a many-to-many democratic internet.
This post seeks to address why this is with resources and activities designed specifically for early-late majority users to find and use their voice for digital democracy.
Social networking and social class: Survey
For those who have experienced inequity on the wrong side of the social and digital divide, social networking sites may not be experienced in quite the same way as those who enjoy material privilege and/or stability. In this sense, webby fun is relative to inclusivity. Especially in spaces that are not designed according to our actual identities, values, beliefs and experiences but the value of our consumer demographic data.
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Continue reading ‘Social networking and social class: Survey’
Select-all delete: Endangered species?
Select-all is one of my favourite user controls. It allows me to quickly move, archive or delete large volumes of data quickly and easily. It’s also a means of defining my ownership over my content. In an increasingly undemocratic web of surveillance, abuse of power and corporate control, I believe users deserve improved control over their data.
All these cool new applications and services have one thing in common: They make it easy to get signed up and contributing, but not so easy to leave. There are also many documented cases of security bugs that have resulted in the publication of private user data. What’s that? You still don’t care? Read on.
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Classroom2.0: Avoiding the “creepy treehouse”
As today’s wired learners become increasingly alienated from an education system that is 50 years out of date, innovative teachers are exploring ways to make learning more relevant to learner’s social and cultural identities.
In addition to making learning more meaningful, these explorations have the potential to revolutionize education and transform it into something that equips learners for the social, cultural, political and professional realities of a globalised world.
But there may be a downside. Ironically, the promise of social and participatory technologies may also lead to even greater alienation when approached without pedagogical reflexivity, responsibility and transparency.
The problem of coercion and inequity must be addressed if educators plan to engage in the use of social and participatory tools in a context of institutional power and assessment. Some have called this problem the “creepy treehouse.”
Continue reading ‘Classroom2.0: Avoiding the “creepy treehouse”’
Behold On The Danforth Magazine! Just launched yesterday!
The magazine above was created by my (recently graduated) students as the final project for my Magazine 2.0 course, which is the web component of the post-graduate Book and Magazine Publishing program at Centennial College’s Centre for Creative Communications.
While I cannot take credit for their hard work and inspirations, this magazine is everything I had envisioned when I developed this course (and advocated for the use of Wordpress as a CMS).
All of the content on the site was the product of their other courses in the Magazine and Publishing program. My course was simply a means of showcasing what they had learned via the creation of a dynamic web2.0 magazine website. I can only take credit for the provision of tools, philosophies and examples. The rest was up to them.
Here’s how we did it … Continue reading ‘Teaching web2.0: Creating an online magazine’
As some of you already know, I love running. I may be a slow runner but I’m quick to see the value of social media for my chosen sport.
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Social media: Essential user controls
What are the most essential user controls for social media?
NOTE: When I created this little poll it was my first time using poll daddy. I configured it to allow people to choose more than one option. I’m not sure the results say as much as I’d like them to. Thanks to all who participated in the experiment. Next one will be better.
What is your ideal vision of a social media network? Think about what’s presently available and consider how you might change it to better suit your own needs. Drop your ideas into a comment below. I will aggregate your responses into a single post and twitter, delicious and RSS the results.
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