Post to – Edublogger World – 24 July 2007
Here in Australia, our national broadcaster ran a story tonight about the CNN Youtube event with US Presidential hopefuls.
Luckily, the story went beyond the whizz-bangery of the event, (as we’ve come to expect that from the home of Hollywood and other dreams), and focused more on the key messages which the story took from the event; as a metaphor for a transformed context of image management. I didn’t catch the name of one of the interviewees, but ran to find a slip of paper to write down these words:
“No reason you can’t do something different.”
The democratisation of knowledge and access to influence is a fascinating outcome from our lurch into an internet paradigm. It places the information in the hands, heads and hearts of the curious. And yes, there are times where that curiosity may be morbid or ill directed, as it reflects the absolute diversity of humanity, in all its confronting reality.
Beyond that, there is a world of possibility and opportunity. Blogs, where anyone can find a space to write, create the possibility for discourse which led another interviewee to refer to them as the “new town hall of the 21st century”
Web 2.0, the read/write web, the web of tools which allow collaboration and interaction, is creating exponentially growing possibilities of connection between ideas and realities. It just needs, from us, a willingness to let go. If we have already cast off and taken to the white water raft on the information millstream, then we need to persist. We have the chance to promote a metamorphosis in the way we view education, and the locations where it is promoted. It should also lead to some fundamental shifts in the way that its outcomes are measured and evaluated against a rapidly retreating horizon of possibility.
Click here to view the entry at Edublogger World