Heidi Wachs, one of our Storytellers for the Community Forum this year has sent me  a link to

Roger Cohen's  Op-ed piece in the New York Times (5/26) entitled The Obama Connection . 

As Heidi says; "This seems to be on point for the portion of the discussion where we address being a Digital Citizen in an election year, and how the Internet has impacted the electoral process."

 

On Monday night I watched the PBS Frontline airing of "Growing Up On Line". It's a documentary that features several high school students and their parents from a NJ suburban town. I think this show did a great job of exploring the way the two generations look at a "life on-line".  I found there were many of the normal generational struggles, and few that really changed due to the technology.

My favorite quote (and I am paraphrasing) was from a phycologist (who was very fair and balanced) who said: "The Internet has caused the greatest generation gap since the birth of rock and roll."  I started thinking that the parents in this show, who were very upset about the influence technology has on their kids, were likely the very same parents who stared unblinkingly at Elvisi Presley gyrating his hips on the Ed Sullivan show, while their parents looked on aghast.  I am confident that today's adolescents will survive this new era just as we did.

 If you want to check out some of the responses from folks (and yes people can send in their responses because we have this thing called the Internet) or to watch the show, visit the PBS web site. 

 Hey, also check our dana boyd who is an "expert" on the film.  We have been trying to get dana to talk at a Community Forum for two years. 

 

 

I saw this posting on the CNet Asia site and thought it would be good fodder for our discussion about some of the problems with being a Digital Citizen.  

How would we handle false information spread so quickly on a college campus today?  

 

Cheers -- George 

 

 

Understanding Tech Issues with Reliable Vision of Innovation

by Jerry Liao, Philippines

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Abusing Technology - China Earthquake Aftermath

May 15, 2008 20:32 I have been saying that technology is amoral - it is not good nor bad, its neutral. What makes it bad or good is how it's being used by human beings. Use technology to educate or benefit other people, make procedures faster and more efficient is putting technology into good use. Using technology to ruin someones reputation, spreading gossips and false news is an example of how one can use technology in a bad way.

The 7.9 magnitude earthquake in China really shocked me. Pictures and videos showing people trapped in rubble is a sad sight to see. I can only offer my prayers that more survivors will be found and to those who lost their love ones may find strength, wisdom and peace.

What angered me was how some people can find this incident an opportunity to spread false information using technology. Hours after the incident, news that an earthquake with the same magnitude will hit the Philippines spread via text message.

It's only but natural that people get worried after receiving this kind of information. So what's the next step? People who received the message will try to confirm the news by texting a friend and the friend will again text another friend for confirmation. In a short time, the message was received by tens of thousands of mobile phone users that prompted government officials to come out on TV to refute the news.

This is one incident that no matter how you look at it, I can't find a single reason to smile or to be happy. I just hope that people will be more sensitive next time. Do not make fun of an unfortuunate incident like the China earthquake.

State Arts Council looks to social networking sites to help communicate with the public

Social networking sites like Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and Twitter have grown to become a popular way for millions of people to communicate via the Internet. And now they are another way for state government to communicate with its citizens.

The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (RISCA) has established a presence on each of these social networking sites, as a way to communicate more effectively with a broad segment of the Rhode Island community.

"We found that a significant number of artists have Facebook or MySpace pages, and keep track of what's going on via the Internet," explained Randall Rosenbaum, Executive Director of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. "It only made sense for us to develop a presence on these sites, and use them as one of a number of ways we communicate with people about our programs and services."

The State Arts Council uses Facebook, for example, to share information about upcoming events and to showcase links from other Rhode Island Facebook users. The Arts Council's YouTube site features video from a recent conversation between U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Dana Gioia.

MySpace, according to Rosenbaum, will grow into a place for online "conversations" about important issues. A new listing seeks comment from Arts Council grant recipients about the impact RISCA grants have had on their careers.

"We did a search on MySpace and found a number of artists who report having received one or more RISCA grants," said Rosenbaum. "So we thought this was a good opportunity to talk to our grantees in a different sort of way."

Twitter is what is known as a "microblog", designed to provide its members with quick updates containing one or two lines of information. The State Arts Council uses Twitter as an outlet for information from its popular weblog (http://www.arts.ri.gov/blog), which allows this fast-breaking arts information to be communicated to users via the web and smartphones.

The State Arts Council's Facebook site can be found at http://www.arts.ri.gov/facebook. On YouTube, RISCA can be found at http://www.youtube.com/risca1967. The RISCA MySpace page is at http://groups.myspace.com/risca. And the RISCA Twitter page is at http://twitter.com/risca1967.

The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts is a state agency, supported by appropriations from the Rhode Island General Assembly and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. RISCA provides grants, technical assistance and staff support to arts organizations and artists, schools, community centers, social service organizations and local governments to bring the arts into the lives of Rhode Islanders. For more information on RISCA and its programs, please visit www.arts.ri.gov.

Related links

• RISCA Facebook page
• RISCA YouTube page
• RISCA MySpace page
• RISCA Twitter page

Department or agency: Rhode Island State Council on the Arts

Online: http://www.arts.ri.gov/

The OSHEAN Staff is preparing for the Fourth Annual OSHEAN Community Forum which will be held May 29th, 2008 from 4pm - 8pm at the Slavin Center at Providence College.  The theme for this year's event builds on that of the Forum last year and we continue to keep an eye towards technology in the future, namely in 2015.  This year we will address " The Digital Citizen - Rights, Responsibilities and Impacts."  More information on this year's Community Forum can be found here.

Storytellers will include Paul Jones, Clinical Associate Professor in the School of Information and Library Science at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and founder and director of ibiblio.org.  Paul has been kind enough to share with us some information that we think will be useful to all of us as we begin to engage in conversation about The Digital Citizen.  Mr. Jones recently spoke recently at the Triange Linux Users Group "5 big ideas of ibiblio, 3 laws of ibiblio"    

Your comments are appreciated!  Please visit this blog often as we mold this year's Community Forum.