Articles Posted in Culture

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How should we design textbooks and education technology for a world where information is no longer scarce or hard to find? It is time to rethink how we build education products based on new paradigms of information management.

In Part 1 of this series we explored the broken paradigms about information that are driving most of batty. In Part 2 we explored strategies for adopting a new information paradigm to help us survive and thrive in the new climate.

956183540_18bff94222_m.jpgToday we take a look at ten ideas for how we can build products that tap into the new zeitgeist. These are nuts and bolts tactics publishers can use to rethink product development.

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Are you drowning in information? You are not alone, almost all of us are. But the information is not to blame – we are.

Information overload is a meta societal problem that affects our whole industry. From the personal (we are overwhelmed) to the products we build (we need to teach kids how to avoid it) to marketing (cutting through the noise) it is driving change across our businesses.

DrowningInInfo.jpgMost of us have had the experience of going to a web site to find something and 45 minutes later found ourselves off in some far corner of the internet on a completely unrelated topic. Or maybe you have been unable to empty your email inbox for the last year – or two. You didn’t take your Blackberry on your last vacation did you? You did take a vacation – right?

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This meme has been running around the blogosphere. In the spirit of “getting to know your blogger better” here is my version of this fun little collection of random facts.

Four jobs I have had in my life (not including your current job):

Street Musican (Seville, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, New York, San Francisco, Montreal, well you get the idea)

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I’m assuming this is just a rhetorical device but Wesley Fryer over at Infinite Thinking Machine is calling for a textbook moratorium so we can get laptops and digital curriculum in everywhere.

I don’t disagree with his urge to shake things up and increase the rate of change in the market towards digital resources but the suggestion flys in the face of our experience with every other new technology that has come along.

YouTube hasn’t killed Cable,

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Collective writing is a critical 21st Century Skill. Wikis are the primary tool for teaching this skill today. What resources exist to help teachers use wikis in the classroom? Recently this issue has been bubbling up on several places.

The Wall Street Journal had an article on the discussions behind the Wikis. For educational purposes there is more meat in the discussion threads for classroom conversation and interesting opportunities for students to engage actively with content than there often is in the articles themselves. Money quote:

“But discussion pages are also where Wikipedians discuss and debate what an article should or shouldn’t say.

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Unpacking the Zeitgeist is an amusing post about World of Warcraft (WoW). In it Sci Fi Author Charlie Stross attempts to explain to someone from 1977 how Gnomes dropped from the sky in the shape of a URL advertisement in WoW. He unpacks 30 years of assumed knowledge (what is the internet, what is a PC, why do people play games dressed up as furry animals?). As Raph Koster noted this represents pre-traumatic stress disorder as we contemplate what this means for 2037.

Think of the ingenuity and focus it took to pull this stunt off. The intellect behind it is creative, transgressive, technical, and funny – all at the same time! Where are we teaching these skills in today’s classrooms? Talk about your 21st Century Skills.

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As a side note I happened to be wandering through Ironforge that day on my toon (Embir – Level 70 Mage on Stonemaul). I was stumped when I happened upon the neat piles of gnomes in front of the bank. It was only later that I realized what I’d seen.

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Here is a mix of some of my favorites from this past spring. You will find an eclectic mix of alternative, country, power pop, mexican guitar virtuosity, folk and retro 60’s chic. Enjoy.

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05_large.jpgCell phone ettiquette check. This morning on my outbound flight I cleared security and headed for the bathroom. For the second time in two weeks I encountered that most noxious creature – the guy who thinks it is appropriate to chat away on his cell phone while taking care of more personal business.

This wasn’t an urgently expected call with a quick “can I call you back in a couple of minutes” plea. No, this moron was prating on in full baritone about some meaningless bit of office gossip, and on, and on. On the concourse I wouldn’t have noticed it. But in the porcelain echo chamber every nuance was amplified.

As noted in my entries on email etiquette – our tools have changed so dramatically in the last 20 years that our cultural norms are struggling to keep pace. But puleeze, no one has to be 24/7/365 that much. One of the great liberating technologies of the last 25 years is ubiquitous voice messaging. Trust me, if it is important they will leave a message.

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