Frontline's Digital Nation

So far, I have watched about a half an hour of Frontline's Digital Nation story and am not much shocked by what has been covered. Although it's still "sensationalized"--the whole section on Korea's internet addiction wasn't really that useful, I thought it important that the average joe (who watches PBS) hear that he or she can't really multitask as well as he or she thinks. More commentary to come.

A Vision of K-12 Students

A former colleague sent this to me today. It reminds me a lot of the Kansas State U and Did You Know videos, but with younger kids. It's a bit derivative of those, actually, but at the same time more relevant for elementary school. And that's who I teach! So, thanks JO!

Digital Immigrants Making Friends

The entire process of making friends online is certainly different than than the one we used in gradeschool. Today, I met Alex Ragone in person. He's someone I have chatted with on email, in some forums, and I invited him to speak at the AIMS Conference today. I'm on the Academic Advisory committee for AIMS and my job is to select the technology sessions for the conference. I was impressed with what Alex was doing with Skype and asked him to present. He talked a little bit about how building relationships online is necessarily incremental.

I mean, you usually start interacting in text and then move on to audio and maybe photos, but video is last. That enthralls me. Think about it. Text is impersonal and private. Reading is a private activity. Seeing a photo of someone allows you to connect to that person on a visual level and that makes the relationship more intimate (keep your heads out of the gutters, please). Hearing that person's voice starts to shift the relationship even further and then once you see that person in video, you no longer have as many illusions about the person. Your imagination (your private sphere) no longer plays a role in developing that person's personality--it's just reality. Thinking about that process today made me see how the very PUBLIC NATURE of communication, of our entire culture these days is directly related to how we developed relationships in the "Gutenberg Galaxy." I wonder if these rules about how a relationship develops apply to the digital natives? I'm thinking not, but maybe....