Webheads’ recommendations
1. A well-written and fairly light read : Clay Shirky Here Comes Everybody
http://www.amazon.com/Here-Comes-Everybody-Organizing-Organizations/dp/1594201536
Warm regards,
Bee (Dieu)
2. In order to have a more informed view, Shirky should be immediately
counterbalanced by the Critique of the Social Web
http://www.re-public.gr/en/?p=201
and Nicolas Carr
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2005/10/the_amorality_o.php
Warm regards,
Bee (Dieu)
3. I can recommend:
Accelerando by Charles Stross -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerando_(novel) – actually available as a
free ebook too (so actually no need to buy it!) – this is
interesting/related to your course because it talks about ‘the technological
singularity’ ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity )
which some people believe is not far away. It’s also a series of short
stories, so you could just set one or two of them…
Here’s a great listening to go with it:
http://blog.longnow.org/2004/06/14/bruce-sterling-the-singularity-your-future-as-a-black-hole/
Related, I can also recommend Greg Egan’s ‘Permutation City’ (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City) – an interesting take on
where virtual worlds like Second Life might end up taking us…
All the best,
Graham (Stanley)
4. Another possibility for the reading list:
The Future of the Internet (And How to Stop It) by Jonathan Zittrain. I
ordered it last night. 
It came highly recommended by a colleague
in Media Arts and Alec Couros mentioned it in his CCK08 presentation
yesterday. Here is a related article: http://tinyurl.com/3rfbaj
Best,
Robert (Squires)
(N.B. from Bee: Zittrain’s book can also be viewed online
http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=195
and I have bookmarked a presentation he gave at Web 2.0 Expo
http://blip.tv/file/855811)
5. I encourage you to visit futurelab.org. You might go directly here
http://www.futurelab.org.uk/about-us
or you might go to their home page (as above) — where the layout
itself sparkles with a 21st Century look.
John Hibbs
http://www.bfranklin.edu/johnhibbs
6. In any event, one other book was recommended off list
Empowering Online Learning: 100+ Activities for Reading, Reflecting,
Displaying, and Doing
by Curtis J. Bonk, Ke Zhang
Some of you may remember the presentation Curt did for WiAOC 2005. Since
then he’s been in touch, sometimes asking questions toward compiling this
book. Based on the nature of those questions this should be a pretty good
read.
Vance (Stevens)
7. I’d be curious to know if such a book exists. Or THE book. There are
bits and pieces scattered in
* Wikinomics (Tapscott and Williams)
* Here Comes Everybody (Shirky)
* Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts (Will Richardson – mostly refers to school contexts)
Then there’s Paloff and Pratt – Building Online Communities.
(excellent resource; surprised how good it is actually – v thorough;
touches on the transformation/paradigm shift towards the end but is
dense with description and insights on how to do online learning well.
But is there ONE book that covers it all? Don’t know ……
- Michael (Coghlan)
8. Jane’s compilation:
I made a note of the many books that were recommended and thought the
rest of you would appreciate the compiled list. My apologies if I
left any out:
* Wikinomics (Tapscott and Williams)
* Here Comes Everybody (Shirky)
* Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts (Will Richardson – mostly refers to school
contexts)
* Building Online Communities (Palaff and Pratt)
* The Long Tail (Chris Anderson)
* The World is Flat (Friedman)
* Hot, Flat and Crowded (Friedman)
* Don’t Bother Me Mom, I’m Learning (Prensky)
* Here Comes Everybody (Clay Shirky)
* The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It ( Jonathan Zittrain)
online: http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=195
* Permutation City (Greg Egan)
* Accelerando (a novel) ( Charles Stross)
Jane (Petring)
Re: Teens Online
9. Graham Stanley: New Study Finds Time Spent Online Important for Teen Development
http://tinyurl.com/5w33dj
The actual white paper (PDF) is here:
<http://digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/%7B7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-AC9C-E807E1B0AE4E%7D/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF>
http://digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/{7E45C7E0-
all places where teens are spending a lot of time online and could be
relevant to many other contexts in the near future.
Here are a few soundbites taken from the results of this research study that
are relevant to this discussion:
“…youth are developing important social and technical skills online – in
ways adults do not understand or value.”
“We found that spending time online is essential for young people to pick up
the social and technical skills they need to be competent citizens in teh
digital age.”
“There is a generation gap in how youth and adults view the value of online
activity…youth understand the social value of online and activity and are
generally highly motivated.”
“Young people are learning basic social and technical skills that they need
to fully participate in contemporary society”
For me, here are the key findings:
“learning today is becoming increasingly peer-based and networked, and this
is important to consider as we begin to re-imagine education in the 21st
century.”
and…
“Kids learn on the Internet in a self-directed way…This is a big departure
from how they are asked to learn in most schools, where the teacher is the
expert and there is a fixed set of content to master.”
The report also talks about some key factors about how the Internet is
changing and will change learning in the 21st century. Principally, the need
for them to manage their visibility and social relationships online.
Most importantly, it also warns of the dangers for teachers and parents who
ignore these social changes – it becomes impossible for those not involved
in the same digital spheres as the young learners to give guidance and
help.
of Tapscott’s book Grown Up
digital<http://www.amazon.com/Grown-Up-Digital-Generation-Changing/dp/0071508635/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227443908&sr=8-1>.
I’m reading it and it’s enjoyable and giving me some insights.
11. Serpil Sonmez: I also found this paper : http://www.eden-online.org/papers/jenkins.pdf
12. Bee Dieu: The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain
This extraordinary book explains the engine that has catapulted the Internet
from backwater to ubiquity—and reveals that it is sputtering precisely
because of its runaway success. With the unwitting help of its users, the
generative Internet is on a path to a lockdown, ending its cycle of
innovation—and facilitating unsettling new kinds of control.
IPods, iPhones, Xboxes, and TiVos represent the first wave of
Internet-centered products that can’t be easily modified by anyone except
their vendors or selected partners. These “tethered appliances” have already
been used in remarkable but little-known ways: car GPS systems have been
reconfigured at the demand of law enforcement to eavesdrop on the occupants
at all times, and digital video recorders have been ordered to self-destruct
thanks to a lawsuit against the manufacturer thousands of miles away. New
Web 2.0 platforms like Google mash-ups and Facebook are rightly touted—but
their applications can be similarly monitored and eliminated from a central
source. As tethered appliances and applications eclipse the PC, the very
nature of the Internet—its “generativity,” or innovative character—is at
risk.
The Internet’s current trajectory is one of lost opportunity. Its salvation,
Zittrain argues, lies in the hands of its millions of users. Drawing on
generative technologies like Wikipedia that have so far survived their own
successes, this book shows how to develop new technologies and social
structures that allow users to work creatively and collaboratively,
participate in solutions, and become true “netizens. (See also #5 above for more on this book)
