Theorizing Google Docs: 10 Tips for Navigating Online Collaboration | Collaboration. This sentence — this one right here — is the first sentence I’ve written in two months that wasn’t co-authored in a Google Doc. It’s the first sentence, outside of e-mails and tweets and notes I’ve written to myself, that has my name (and only my name) on both its front and back ends — the first sentence I can look at and say with certainty, “I wrote that entire thing without help and without anyone else watching it get written.”
My Hybrid Pedagogy co-editor (Pete Rorabaugh) and I hatched the plan for this journal in a Google Doc, and we’ve since written 29,316 words in that document. Before the end of 2012, we will likely produce the equivalent of a lengthy academic book. We contribute ideas synchronously and asynchronously, writing together at specific times and taking turns in the document on our own. Our collaboration runs so deep that single sentences are usually co-composed, our cursors occasionally blinking in unison within a single word. Words do work. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Howard Rheingold on how the five web literacies are becoming essential survival skills. Howard Rheingold isn’t too concerned about whether Google is making us stupid or if Facebook is making us lonely.
Those kind of criticisms, Rheingold says, miscalculate the ability humans have to change their behavior, particularly when it comes to how we use social media and the Internet more broadly. “If, like many others, you are concerned social media is making people and cultures shallow, I propose we teach more people how to swim and together explore the deeper end of the pool,” Rheingold said Thursday. Rheingold was visiting the MIT Media Lab to talk about his new book, Net Smart: How to Thrive Online, which examines how people can use the Internet not just to better themselves, but also society as a whole.
Rheingold has a longer online history than most, going back to The WELL, one of the first online forums back in the 1980s. Instead, Rheingold wants to focus on how we use these tools and how users can become more mindful and literate.
The Navigator. Rheingold Interview. An interview with Howard Rheingold Janury 26, 1994 By Scott Rosenberg When Howard Rheingold sends out electronic mail these days, which he does a lot, he sometimes tacks on an extra line of type at the end, like a letterhead. "What it is," the message reads, "is up to us. " A digital fortune-cookie riddle? What's up to us, Rheingold wants us to know, is the shape, design and capabilities of the so-called information highway - the communications networks into which our telephones, televisions and computers are rapidly mutating.
In particular, what's up to us is whether the network turns out to be an open public space, like a town square or a civic forum, or a commercial enclosure, like a mall. And Rheingold emphasizes that it's up to us right now - during a brief window of opportunity, as the government bargains with the telephone companies, cable TV networks and other corporations to lay down new rules for the new roads. "Who knows what it is? That, in other words, is how it's up to us.
MR. RHEINGOLD'S NEIGHBORHOOD. Books - Smart Mobs reviewed by Cory Doctorow. November 04, 2002 | Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs is not the first book to be written about the ad-hocratic times we find ourselves living in, and it won't be the last, but page for page, you won't find a better summing-up of all the disparate bitzenpieces that add up to a genuine social revolution.
Smart Mobs are emergent ad-hoc networks of people who coalesce out of the technosphere and do stuff. The Filipinos who massed in their tens of thousands at the Popular Power II demonstration in a matter of minutes, "coordinating" with a viral SMS message that conjured a government-toppling force out of the Manila biomass are the leading edge of the Smart Mob era. Smart Mobs are the Slashdot effect applied to the meatspace zeitgeist. Enabled by close-to-hand, invisibly-ubiquitous tech -- the Internet, mobile phones, two-way pagers, blogs, the Web, WiFi -- they turn meme into deed. Smart Mobs are packet-switched. Howard's book teases this out admirably. Smart Mobs by Howard Rheingold, book review by Richard Seltzer. Mark this one MUST READ book review by Richard Seltzer, seltzer@samizdat.com, Available in hard cover from Amazon -- Smart Mobs, Perseus Books, 2002, $26 This book is so jam-packed with insights into human behavior on the Internet and related technological advances, that you might miss the main point, which is crucial.
Even before the Web, Rheingold sensed the importance of social interaction in his experiences with the online community at the Well. He explored the implications of new kinds of behavior and relationships on the Internet in his seminal book The Virtual Community. Now that much of what he foresaw has become reality, he looks ahead at the changes likely to transform our world -- socially, business-wise, and politically -- in the next wave, based on wireless communication. But, he warns, a battle looms with the disinfotainment mega-companies that seek to control telecommunications.
This book is a must-read. Other book reviews by Richard Seltzer. Richards. Howard Rheingold is a prolific author, with 11 books to his credit including Tools for Thought (1985), Excursions to the Far Side of the Mind (1988), and Virtual Reality (1991). In 1985, Howard became involved in the WELL, which ultimately led to The Virtual Community (1993). He was Editor Emeritus of The Whole Earth Review, 1990-94, and editor in chief of The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog (1994). In 1994, Howard was one of the principal architects and the first Executive Editor of HotWired, the online World Wide Web multimedia publication of Wired Ventures.
In 1996, he founded and launched Electric Minds, named by Time magazine as one of the ten best Web sites of 1996. Rheingold's books have been translated into French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Swedish. When we created the River, the idea was to create a cooperative corporation that would enable the people who made the conversation to also own and control the business that made the conversation possible. Smart Mobs. Magazine: What It Is, Is Up To Us (1/3) In the spring of 1968, with the world expected to end any minute, Reed College relinquished a bachelor’s degree to Howard Rheingold in exchange for a senior thesis titled What Life Can Compare with This? Sitting Alone at the Window, I Watch the Flowers Bloom, the Leaves Fall, the Seasons Come and Go. Thirty-three years later, with the apocalypse delayed but perhaps still imminent, Rheingold has become a renowned popularizer of the technologies of mind expansion.
He has frequently been called a guru by journalists, but in fact he is merely one of them—a journalist. He chronicles and speculates on current events and sketches the possible consequences of recent inventions. Rheingold’s core interest, the transformation of human consciousness, has not changed, but today he devotes his attention to what he describes as augmented consciousness— minds aided by microprocessors. I recently visited Rheingold in northern California in his garden office in Marin County. Next page. Smart Mobs. New Economy; In the tech meccas, masses of people, or 'smart mobs,' are keeping in touch through wireless devices.
Mart Mobs. " The odd phrase might bring to mind rowdies partying after the Harvard-Yale football game. But, in fact, it has been coined by the author Howard Rheingold to describe groups of people equipped with high-tech communications devices that allow them to act in concert — whether they know each other or not. This phenomenon is showing up among teens in tech meccas like Tokyo, where wireless text messages have caught on in a big way. American hip-hop fans, using two-way pagers, spontaneously appear for parties. And in Finland, members of a local cooperative mix the virtual and the physical by communicating via pagers and cellphones to meet at their club. It's not all fun and games. To Mr. Mr. "It took me eight years to find something that seemed that significant to me," Mr. His feelings about all this are decidedly mixed. Swarming behavior in itself is not new, nor does it require high technology. But Mr. Other certified smart guys who gaze toward the future say Mr.
But to Mr. JON CARROLL. About a decade ago, the writer Howard Rheingold coined the word disinfotainment. I'm not sure what particular phenomenon he was describing, but the word has stuck with me all this time. I think it's the best word to encapsulate several political trends. First, there's the Terri Schiavo case. It is obvious that the entire battle was fought at a very high level of abstraction.
Narrative is one of the key components of entertainment. So the Terri Schiavo case was entertainment, only with real people. Every year, it seems, we hear about things contained in omnibus spending or defense or highway construction bills passed by Congress that no one noticed. People are right now making their positions clear on the president's plan to reform Social Security, even though the president has not presented a plan to reform Social Security. I think Gov. That's the disinfotainment story line. The Arnold way is a good narrative.
The Loma Prieta earthquake was on Oct. 17, 1989. You're not really having. Iran protesters use Twitter and Facebook to report. SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- As things get more intense on the streets, Iranian officials are cracking down on newspaper and broadcast journalists, which means much of the latest news is now coming from tech-savvy Iranians using Twitter.
MOST POPULAR: Video, stories and moreSIGN-UP: Get breaking news sent to you Some call it the beginning of a revolution. They say President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election is a farce and that there's no way Iran counted almost 40 million handwritten paper ballots in just a few hours Friday. The Iranian government is finding it impossible to keep its own people silent due in large part to protests fueled by technology. Web sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have become huge in this story. Two local Iranian students are constantly checking the Internet for information about what's going on back home. "These days for like 24 hours, I didn't sleep. "Facebook and Twitter are great," said an Iranian student. Rheingold isn't surprised by all this. Tags: NowPublic Names Silicon Valley's 50 Most Influential People.
NowPublic.com released Tuesday its second MostPublic index, showing the 50 most influential people in Silicon Valley/San Francisco. “The MostPublic Index is a detailed (and transparent) barometer of who’s [sic] voices are most heard in the digital landscape as new channels—Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and the like—transform how media is created and spread.” The Vancouver-based participatory news network rated the individuals based on four measures: online visability; presence on user-generated content and social networking sites; interactivity and accessibility; and what they call The “R” factor, presence on microblogging platforms like Flickr, Twitter, and Tumblr. The top ten most influential are: blogger and technology evangelist Robert Scoble; TechCrunch's Michael Arrington; Twitter's Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone; Google's Matt Cutts; Mashable's Pete Cashmore; blogging pioneer Dave Winer; venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki; entrepreneur Loïc Le Meur; and Digg cofounder Kevin Rose.
Discovering beliefs, core values online. What do you believe? What is your personal philosophy? What do you believe but cannot prove? Answers to questions like these can reveal much about one's moral, spiritual and intellectual foundations. It can say a lot about who you are, why you are the way you are and how you live your life. How do your life views compare to those of writer Thomas Mann? How about farmer Steve Porter's view on life? Thanks to the Internet, you can learn about other people's beliefs and philosophies, and examine those views in relation to yours. A Web site called "This I Believe" ( plays host to thousands of short essays by people highlighting the core values that guide their daily lives. The collection is built on the original "This I Believe" series of books and radio programs hosted by Edward R.
A 21st century version of the books was recently published; National Public Radio has been airing audio versions of the new essays. Another great site to visit is Edge ( Net.moguls. UC-Berkeley's Opinion Space Spatializes Public Sentiment. UC-Berkeley’s Center for New Media’s Opinion Space, launched Wednesday, offers an alternative to existing comment lists on news and commercial websites. "Linear [comment] lists are often dominated by extreme postings that can oversimplify and overshadow the rich variety of viewpoints," said Howard Rheingold, author of Smart Mobs. As an alternative to linear lists, Opinion Space “encourages people to express their opinions and lets them visualize where they stand relative to the diversity of other viewpoints.”
Opinion Space uses collaborative filtering to map users' opinions. It is “designed to go beyond one-dimensional polarities such as left/right, blue/red,” – polarities which limit discussion, according to one of the program’s developers, Ken Goldberg, director of the Berkeley Center for New Media – “to actively encourage dialogue between people with differing viewpoints.” After the proposition, users reply to an open-ended question, creating their comment for the grid. Howard rheingold: on becoming (“life…forks every day, in every moment”) « The Improvised Life.
Recently, Lydia Wills alerted us to an entry from Howard Rheingold‘s astonishing blog Howard’s Butt “about his rectal cancer experiences –about being cracked open. He is an amazing person…one of the earliest internet folks who knew it was going to change the world.” Rheingold’s writing sent us to his website and Wikipedia to find out more about him, and then all over the web, as one thing led to another: Rheingold is a future-thinker who saw the power of the internet and wireless devices to create communities WAY before anyone else did, and then he started living that vision… He had a hand in the Millennium Whole Earth Catalog and early internet ventures like HotWired (Wired Magazine’s original web presence), wrote ground-breaking books about technology’s new paradigms and collective intelligence, gave a TED talk about collaboration, and lectures at Stanford and U.C.
Berkeley. “Reading my first entries here, I’m impressed with my bravery. My life forks on Monday. Thanks, Lydia! February 2011. I found that my approach to “Cruising” changed through repeated viewings. At first, I simply listened to the spoken words and ignored the images and music. I did this to establish some narrative coherence in my brain. The words themselves are quite linear, as they describe a fairly common scene in some detail that eventually leads to a broader conclusion about the significance of the event. (i.e. a fairly standard use of inductive reasoning.) Once I determined the purpose and message of the narrative, I started to play with the images. With some practice, I was able to align the text on the screen with the spoken words. Although this created a satisfying sense of accomplishment, I can’t say that any greater understanding was achieved. I found that after a slow pass with the pictures, I tended to ignore their specific details. I’m not sure this piece could be described as non-linear.
Multi-linear might be a better way to describe this piece. Uncategorized > The Esteemed Facilitator.