inside the machine

Okay ... that is social networking. And social networking is a web 2.0 thing. But what is web 2.0?

Michael Wesch of Kansas State University made this video. The work Wesch does with students seems quite inspiring ~ to the students in his classes and to me as a teacher.

The video is a fantastic graphic way to present web 2.0. One has to be a very fast reader to follow it. You can watch a sub-titled version here, but even the subtitles move by pretty quickly.

So if there is a global village, it is not a very equitable one, and if there is a tragedy of our times, it may be that we are all interconnected but we fail to see it and take care of our relationships with others. For me, the ultimate promise of digital technology is that it might enable us to truly see one another once again and all the ways we are interconnected. It might help us create a truly global view that can spark the kind of empathy we need to create a better world for all of humankind. I’m not being overly utopian and naively saying that the Web will make this happen. In fact, if we don’t understand our digital technology and its effects, it can actually make humans and human needs even more invisible than ever before. But the technology also creates a remarkable opportunity for us to make a profound difference in the world.

from an interview with M. Wesch at John Battelle's Searchblog.