We could be Script Building - when we could be diving for perls

Came across this on Andrew Careaga's Higher Education Blog -  this incredible counter shows live data of the staggering activity in Social Media. Created by Gary Hayes from Personalizemedia, he has made the embeddable code available .

Your mountains so lofty, Your treetops so tall, Finland, Finland, Finland. Finland has it all

Finland makes Broadband access a legal right - Business Week and Guardian

One day a wave is gonna come...

Invite arrived waiting for people to wave with. Watched the video - read the guides.
Its IM, its realtime email, kind of facebook, a simple wiki, you can add gadgets, its like a desktop, you can upload documents and photos, its a browser. Its got loads of potential for unified comms.

An Exaltation of links and a Parliament of URLS

Not that new but essential reading - some papers and blog posts....

New Millennium Learners in Higher Education: Evidence and Policy Implications
Finds that students in HE are heavy users of digital media and value its use in "improving access, convenience and productivity" but it is not transforming the way in which they learn. The report recommends more empirical research.
Educating the Net Generation: A Handbook of Findings for Practice and Policy
Outcome of the Educating the Net Generation project from the University of Melbourne, provides a set of practice and policy guidelines developed from the project findings.


The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age
focus on the potential for shared and interactive learning made possible by the Internet. They argue that the single most important characteristic of the Internet is its capacity for world-wide community and the limitless exchange of ideas. The Internet brings about a way of learning that is not new or revolutionary but is now the norm for today’s graduating high school and college classes.
And from Online School a superb list of 100 Must-Read Blog Posts on the Future of Learning

A lesson from Journalism for Education?

Nic Newman is BBC Controller for Future Media and Technology, a former Journalist Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Writes a compelling piece on Reuters Great Debate today.

Newman makes 5 key points about Social Media and why it is here to stay

"1. Ignore the sceptics. Social media is real and it is here to stay. Social Networking and UGC have become mainstream activities, accounting for almost 20 percent of internet time in the UK.
2. Social media is relevant to journalism - witness protests over the election in Iran and the death of Michael Jackson. News organisations are already abandoning attempts to be first for breaking news, focusing instead on being the best at verifying and curating it.
3. Twitter, Blogs and Facebook are used , but very much on their own terms. “Same values, new tools” sums up the approach in most mainstream organisations as they try to marry the culture of the web with their own organisational norms. Will they succeed?
4. Social media, blogs and UGC are not replacing journalism, but they are creating an important extra layer of information and diverse opinion. Most people are still happy to rely on mainstream news organisations to sort fact from fiction and serve up a filtered view, but they are increasingly engaged by this information, particularly when it comes from a friend or another trusted source.
5. Social recommendation is playing an increasingly significant role in driving traffic to traditional news content. Most mainstream news organisations are devoting extra resources to exploit social networks like Facebook, You Tube and Twitter. Over time, social media sites could become as important as search engines as a driver of traffic and revenue."
Newman concludes that organisations which fail to embrace the power of the network will struggle to survive.
Could the same apply to Education and HEI's. We need to embrace and adapt our tools and approach to online learning just as the world of journalsim is changing so too is ours.

Presidential Proclamation - National Information Literacy Awareness Month

President Obama has named October 2009 National Information Literacy Awareness Month - 'highlighting the importance of ensuring all Americans have the skills necessary to effectively navigate the Information Age' reports the American Library Association (ALA).
Statement from Obama at Whitehouse.gov