"Yes We Can" Because?

NOTE: I am cleaning up some of the partial posts I have been working on over the past few weeks.

Since the school year has ended and I have had a little more time to get to the thousands of feeds and other material that I have let build up over the past few months, I have unintentionally found myself at the flash point of how media is changing and how it will effect the educational process. I did the morning keynote presentation at the Harker Teacher Institute this past Wednesday, June 17. It was a great experience for me, since it was my first 'formal' keynote experience. I don't think they had any idea what they were getting with me, but overall I think the talk was pretty good. I had some friends in the audience 'tweeting' about it as it was happening and that brought what I was talking about into even more focus. The picture is one of the slides I had in my talk when I brought up Clay Shirky and his book, "Here Comes Everybody," which I think is a must read for anyone interested in learning about how the media landscape is changing. To get quick idea of what Shirky is advocating take a look at the video from TED linked here.

There were a few things about the talk that really struck me....

In the 20th Century most of the media was created by professionals and in the 21st Century most of the media is created by amateurs. The huge rise in User Generated Content (UCG) is linked to the fact that the media landscape of today is characterized by four things. Media is Global, Mobile, Ubiquitous and Cheap. The implications of this blow the doors open in education to have deeper, richer and more personal connection to others next door or on the next continent.

I am also going to suggest two books I am going to attempt to get through myself this summer. "Free: The Future of a Radical Price." This is Chris Anderson's follow up to his 2004 book, "The Long Tail. I am also going to post a short video below of what the book will attempt to illustrate.




The second book is: "The World is Open," by Curtis J. Bonk. From reading the initial reviews, it looks like an educational corollary to the Thomas Friedman's, "The World is Flat."

It will be interesting to see how each of these books lays out a new educational paradigm and how early adopters will leverage these tools to create new, dynamic learning environments.