fuck yeah Synesthesia

As of May 2011, I severely cut back on my Internet use as an experiment and to lessen my Internet addiction. I apologize for the lack of material. Let me know If you know of a community that abstains from Internet.

Posts tagged michael wesch

May 12

Why is the reddit community so kind compared to 4chan or YouTube comments?

Why is the reddit community so kind compared to 4chan or YouTube comments?!! Even Facebook comments aren’t often as compassionate as reddit comments.

I admit, though, I’m new to reddit, but the level of community in it is simply incredible.

Citing Michael Wesch, hatred as a public performance in internet dialogue is bred from anonymity, physical distance, and rare and ephemeral dialogue.

Like 4chan and YouTube, it’s anonymous and physically distant from everyone else, it’s a little less ephemeral, but not by much.

Maybe it’s the rankings. By making high ranking comments something desirable, people try to make their posts the best as possible. “Best” means… interesting? engaging? funny? Hmm… even 4chan’s biggest threads aren’t full of hate, but full of originality and passion.

Apr 4

alphacaeli:

‘Web 2.0: The Maching is Us/ing Us’. Digital ethnography. This video is a little old but nonetheless thought-provoking.

Mar 25

Facebook Questions: What it Means for Education

“Facebook Questions, a beta product that lets you pose questions like these to the Facebook community. With this new application, you can get a broader set of answers and learn valuable information from people knowledgeable on a range of topics.

“Facebook Questions helps you tap into the collective knowledge of the more than 500 million people on Facebook. For example, if you’re vacationing in Costa Rica and want to know the best places to surf, you can use Facebook Questions to get answers from nearby surfing enthusiasts. Because questions will also appear to your friends and their friends, you’ll receive answers that are more personalized to you.

“To ask a question to the community, just click the “Ask Question” button at the top of the homepage. You can also ask questions about your friends from their profiles, similarly to how you would post on their Walls.”

http://www.facebook.com/blog.php?post=411795942130

http://www.facebook.com/questions/

http://mashable.com/2010/07/28/facebook-questions/

Is it a new, easier way to cheat in school? Yes, of course. However, “cheating” has become an antiquated term with the rise of the internet, or at least its definition needs to change.

Future generations need to place less emphasis on learning facts and more emphasis on learning how to think critically, communicate effectively, collaborate, implement ideas, think creatively, respect each other, lead, etc. Although learning facts is still important, future generations will have all the world’s information in their pockets only a click away.

Our education system places to much emphasis on punishing students for cheating, whereas, by doing that, it is essentially punishing students for collaborating, teaching students that collaboration is bad.

If we expect to reap the fruits of the educational revolution that our country so desperately needs, we need to re-think our relations with the internet, social media, and cell phones.

Most of my ideas here are taken and inspired from Dr. Michael Wesch. Here’s one of his videos correlating with what I talked about. It is a truly incredible and informative video that may “throw your assumptions about education out the window.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4yApagnr0s