Tag: society
Press Pause Play
Press Pause Play is a feature-length documentary that is part inspiring, part demoralising and all stunning. Using a patchwork narrative, it explores the constantly evolving landscape of digitally-empowered creativity. A lot of amazing new work is set against the views of industry veterans, who spend a lot of time bemoaning the demise of creativity as the domain of the cultural elite. A typical tale of freedom and choice pitched against the profitable machine. The juxtaposition of hope and inspiration played against maintaining the status quo, was extremely powerful. In my opinion, creating, as an active endeavor, is generally more fulfilling than consuming, and I see nothing wrong with a world full of individuals and groups creating in earnest. In the end, the best talent will still rise to the top, as there will always be plenty of consumers with an ear and eye for what is great. After all, being a producer does not prevent me from consuming: rather, I think it makes me a more thoughtful, engaged consumer.
Thanks to David Dworsky and Victor Köhler for producing such an entertaining and thought-provoking piece which will hopefully lead to a lot of interesting conversations within education.
High Tech Stuff Visualisation
I created this visualisation for my students as an example of how their work on the High Tech Stuff unit might come out. Feel free to use it under the Creative Commons license.
High Tech Stuff
I just put the finishing touches on a new ICT unit looking into the past, present and future of ICT, and how technology made us the species we are today. My aim is to get students away from the idea that high-tech is the only …
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Networked Society ‘On the Brink’
Ericsson, having been partly consumed by Sony, are no longer the mobile handset powerhouse they once were. However, they are still a force within other areas of the telecommunications industry, and as the video below shows, seem to have developed a powerful understanding of what high technology is doing to us as a species:
Dalit Manual Scavengers
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer… (listen at 47 min 13 sec)
At the risk of sounding like an old fogey complaining about the “youth of today”, I often get the feeling that my students have no idea just how lucky they have it. That said, I too am generally …
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What $8499 Bought in 1989
http://www.stephenbailey.com/technology/what-8499…
Most people know that the price of computer technology is falling. However, many people do not fully understand the scope of this change. This article shows a top-of-the-line PC from 1989, priced at USD $8,499. Working from this article, students can be asked to …
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One of the first news reports about this thing called “Internet”
http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2010/04/17/news…
This extremely dated video clip introduces video to a new craze sweeping the world: Internet. When you need something to remind students that there was life before the Net, this is the resource to use. It also provides a view of the Internet as …
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No Impact Man
http://noimpactman.typepad.com/
Colin Beavan (a.k.a No Impact Man) dedicated a year of his life to trying to reduce his environmental impact to zero. He stopped taking taxis, trains and elevators, only ate food grown within 250 miles of his home, left the power grid, stopped buying …
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Photography of Emilio Morenatti
http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2009/03/23/photographer-collection-emilio-morenatti/
This collection of photos provide great stimulus for an almost limitless range of tasks including descriptive writing, character studies, studying culture and difference.…
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Thoughts on Being Human
When I was younger I operated to what I held as a strict, innate moral code. I believed I was, by my very nature, a good person. As time has passed I have behaved in different ways, learned new things and been exposed to many …
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