My employer has risen to the occasion and installed a blogging engine I am happy about, so I have moved my reblogging-thinking outloud-webpage-type-thingy over there. I’d be as pleased as a pig in slop if you would follow me over there!
Take your office on the road and say goodbye to your “cable car” with this car power strip from Route 56. Plug in up to eight electronic devices and appliances at once! Scan, print, and send with two USB ports, an ethernet port, even a 25-pin parallel connector for you computer’s monitor. Mounts easily to most standard rearview mirrors.
No, the products aren’t real. But the empty boxes are. Wrap your otherwise forgettable gift in thiss gift box, and watch as the recipient struggles to feign enthusiasm for a multi-device power strip that mounts on the rearview mirror. Or take joy as their faces fall upon realizing there is no such thing—just a crappy bric-a-brac inside you waited until the last moment to buy.
‘A handy guide for the new media novice’, via 10,000 words.
Would make a great hand-out at Web 2.0 intro trainings.
Your computer’s Great-Great-Great Grandfather. Click to see a HUGE version.
Is it time to begin teaching how to use social media tools in our HS Government courses?
Two days after election day, president-Elect Obama has announced Change.gov, a website focused on the transition he is overseeing. While promises like the following (found on the Obama campaign website’s Ethics page) are easy to make during a election year, less than 48 hours after the election he is beginning to show signs of making good on some of these with the announcement today:
Sunlight Before Signing: Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.
Hold 21st Century Fireside Chats: Obama will bring democracy and policy directly to the people by requiring his Cabinet officials to have periodic national broadband townhall meetings to discuss issues before their agencies.
Make White House Communications Public: Obama will amend executive orders to ensure that communications about regulatory policymaking between persons outside government and all White House staff are disclosed to the public.
Conduct Regulatory Agency Business in Public: Obama will require his appointees who lead the executive branch departments and rulemaking agencies to conduct the significant business of the agency in public, so that any citizen can see in person or watch on the Internet these debates.
I’m not alone in looking at the previous work done by the company that ran Obama’s campaign website and is now building the Change.gov site and wondering what might be to come:
The mind reels at the possibilities!
These may sound idealistic, but I think we may be surprised how much the Obama White House works to extend the White House (and by default all other branches of Federal government) into the daily lives of America’s youth. Taking the discussions and extending the playing field into their sphere of influence in a transparent and authentic way has the potential to involve a new generation in ways that preceding generations never had the opportunity to be involved.
I’m not doe eyed here. Politics is a business, and getting your message out to “Generation We” in the place that they live is not only a proper Socratic mission for a Democracy, it also doesn’t hurt when the next election cycle comes along. It will be interesting to see if an Obama White House can build the ultimate social media machine and NOT use it to their own advantage come election time again.
All the same, if our goal as Educators is to produce well rounded citizens, and the government begins to adopt many of these social media technologies previously believed to be “for the kids” and left out of classrooms… won’t it be our RESPONSIBILITY to teach the future citizens how to use them?
