lifestreams - your life live e-barcelona.org Fòrum de Cultura, democratitzem la democràcia Rethinking Community Documentation by Andy Oram 07/06/2006 A new era is halfway here, and nobody has recognized its impact--even though we've all participated eagerly in its arrival. The way we educate ourselves to use and program computers is shifting along many of the same historic lines as journalism, scientific publication, and other information-rich fields. People say casually, "I find my information about using computers by searching online," but few have asked how that information gets online, or how it changes the way they use their computers. Why are people writing this information? I care about community documentation for several reasons. Community documentation has swept up so many talented people and accomplished so much that I've decided to join in and help it flourish. A Definition I use the term community documentation for anything generated by developers and users (mostly amateurs in the field of writing) that helps people use their systems. Much of this documentation is: Fast-changing Interactive Free Ad-hoc
Participatory Media Literacy / Participatory Media Literacy Guide To This Site's Contents Welcome to Participatory Media Literacy (Home)BloggingWikiRSSSocial Bookmarking, Tagging, Music/Photo/Video SharingPodcastingVideo BloggingDigital Video ResourcesDigital StorytellingMashupsChat: Channeling the BackchannelTransliteracyForecasting: Thinking long term, developing foresight Participatory Media Education Resources Recent technological changes have made much wider social changes possible: Until the end of the twentieth century, only a relatively small and wealthy fraction of the human race could broadcast television programs, publish newspapers, create encyclopedias; by the twenty first century, however, inexpensive digital computers and ubiquitous Internet access made the means of high quality media production and distribution accessible to a substantial portion of the world's population. The technical power of many-to-many communication networks amplifies human social networking capabilities [abstract][pdf].