Re-defining – Learning in Other Worlds

What are we re-defining? From my vantage point, learning fuels the economy and social networks are empowering us to connect in ways that support new paradigms and possibilities. I’ve compiled a few snippets that reveal what myself and my sources may be mulling. The basic idea is that there are “other worlds” where networked learners can solve global issues and form back-up plans while earning alternate currencies.

Re-defining money

monopoly money (Photo credit: guerrillaguru)

The DYNDY project encourages us to re-consider how we deal with and create money in our present world where financial, banking, and economic crises result from faulty top-down decision-making processes that serve the few and not the many.

“We are in a situation whereby the incapacity to re-define how we deal with money could resolve in an a severe damage to society as we commonly refer to it: contrary to what happens with information systems, there are no backups with money systems.”

Remembering Revolutionary Media

The movement in Egypt was said to be “very dependent on Facebook,” according to an Egyptian blogger and activist Alaa Abd El Fattah who was quoted in the Washington Post. Fueled by the anger over high food prices and high unemployment, the citizen’s communications strategy went beyond social media.

Collective Intelligence expert, Don Tapscott, wrote in HuffPo about Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s attempt to maintain a “firm grip” on the country’s media, which was ultimately lost due to the “interactive and decentralized” power of the web.

ReadWriteWeb noted that even when 90% of Egyptian internet access points were shut down by major ISPs, the coordination of “old-style” dial up connections helped maintain communications throughout the country.

Collaborate with Zombies (Future140 Part 4)

I was looking for another guest for Future140 and I got a hold of somone on Twitter who was attempting something rather inspiring. This person’s name is Ryan Leach and he knows a thing or two about zombies, but what attracted me to him was his effort to channel the power of the collective. His project depends on one thing in order to succeed, collaboration. It is called “Lost Zombies” and it combines zombie roleplaying with social networking and croudsourcing media in order to produce a film like none other that I’d ever seen. I was intrigued.

He left me a short message about his project. I uploaded it on Future140 as a micro-podcast (in 140 seconds or less (listen here!) ). He really inspired me.

Unmasking the Trolls with Identity 2.0 (Future140 Part 3)

An amazing investigative journalist named Mattathias Schwarts came to one of my Media Studies classes this spring. He wrote a hot article for the NY Times regarding “Trolls”. Trolls are the folks who for some reason or other find harassing and manipulating people on-line as a delectable treat. I asked him if he would be willing to give me a few minutes to record a “micro-podcast” regarding Trolls on Future140. He gladly did so, and you can listen to it here.

Schwartz tells us that we see more troll-like behavior on the Internet because of anonymity. We can’t mask ourselves in public face-to-face interactions where antisocial behavior most certainly brings shame. Masking ones online identity in order to cause others is a power we are all capable of. He urged us to develop a “thicker skin” when engaged in online social interactions. He made no mention of OpenID’s or other online credentialing systems that enable high value online identity’s for users to carry across multiple platforms.

The slow family

The Wood family, December 1970 (Photo credit: Dave Traynor)

“Family” is a powerful word.  It carries much more weight than “community” and certainly more weight than “culture.”

In this blog I explore a concept I call the “slow family”.  This idea stems from the slow movement.

Most, post-modern families have subjective values, undefined roles, and their lifestyles tend to be more concerned with extrinsic motivation rather than intrinsic motivation. They celebrate each others materialistic achievements because they matter the most.   Extrinsic  motivation is about fulfilling tangible cravings and rewards.  Intrinsic motivation is more concerned with personal development, demonstrating personality in ways both creative and productive. We all know that young children are highly suggestible.  They are also highly insatiable.