I think Carr’s premises are correct: the mechanisms of media affect the nature of thought. The web presents us with unprecedented abundance. This can lead to interrupt-driven info-snacking, which robs people of the ability to find time to think about just one thing persistently. I also think that these changes are significant enough to motivate us to do something about it. I disagree, however, about what it is we should actually be doing. - Howard Rheingold
built by scholars at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County uses political cartoons to explain the U.S. Electoral College and give facts about each state's political history. Called USDemocrazy.net, the irreverent site is targeted at a high school audience. But it is also designed to get a chuckle out of anyone following this year's presidential race. The hub of the site is a hand-drawn map of the United States, with each state renamed to offer a glimpse of its culture (California is called "Dude," for instance - Howard Rheingold
Futures, experiences, design … three core ingredients of what Pantopicon is all about. Three topics, each situated on a crossroads of disciplines. It is in this context that we are pleased to share with you our latest interview: an inspiring chat with Nathan Shedroff, - Howard Rheingold
Democratizing" means making access (to information, tools, policy-making discussions, elections, etc.) widely available. This, however, does not guarantee a healthy democracy. What if more people vote, but their picture of political candidates and their policies are distorted by sophisticated public relations tools and strategies? - Howard Rheingold
What is the Campus Collaboration Project? The Campus Collaboration Project (CCP) has been developed by leading software developers and educators to promote the growth of web technology use on college campuses. The project was formed in summer of 2008 to offer students an environment where they can socialize, educate, and communicate with classmates and students nationwide. - Howard Rheingold
twInfluence is a simple tool using the Twitter API to to measure the combined influence of a Twitterer and his/her followers, with a few social network statistics thrown in as bonus. - Howard Rheingold
For example, Sue Fernsebner’s History 299 course would tag relevant posts 08fern299, and those posts would be automatically re-posted in the course blog. How are they re-posted automatically? Well, Donncha’s Sitewide Tags Pages plugin collects all posts, tags and categories into one blog - Howard Rheingold
In a campaign where off-hand remarks by candidates regularly become leading nightly news items, citizens with video cameras wield a lot of journalistic power. And so it’s a bit hard to take Russo’s point of view, in that his disdain for his subjects is so clear (see some unprintable, for us, comments he makes about them on his blog). But at the same time, the mocking response he evokes from the woman at the McCain rally, which would have never aired at length (or at all) on TV, made its way out into the world - Howard Rheingold
First paragraph In this essay, I focus on how the influence of links may be mediated by the skills and expertise associated with using the Internet both from the content producer's and the content viewer's perspective. My main argument is that while lots of factors influence how links are presented on the Web and how users' respond to the content that shows up on their screens, an important and understudied aspect of navigating links of influence concerns people's Internet user abilities. - Howard Rheingold
Armed with cheap video cameras and the internet, a generation of youngsters are growing up very publicly with online videos - and being failed by adults who are not paying proper attention to this new medium. That claim is made in a research paper published today by the thinktank Demos. The study, Video Republic, examines the rise of the YouTube generation and considers how their enthusiasm and skills can be encouraged. - Howard Rheingold
If a community is too small you'll often have insufficient critical mass to sustain it. Conversely, if it's too large you can end up with a community that's too noisy, too cliquey, or otherwise problematic. - Howard Rheingold
Shoeboxed makes managing receipts easy by doing all the hard work for you. Mail in your receipts and Shoeboxed will scan them so you can get to the important stuff. - Howard Rheingold
