Following Sandy

It's no secret that social media have been useful in spreading information (and sometimes misinformation) during times of emergency such as natural disasters and revolutions. Here is a TED Talk by Clay Shirkey where he gives some great examples of this in recent history.

Although major news outlets are important in distributing official information and fact checking, social media provide the kind of immediacy and collaborative reporting that would be impossible to accomplish for any centralized media source. As hurricane Sandy moves in, the most current flow of information is coming from East Coasters, holed up in their apartments, waiting for the storm to arrive. Use the hash tag #Sandy and see updates every few seconds on Twitter. People post messages of concern, share humor and photographs shot out of their windows and in their homes with their phone cameras. They also share links to useful resources, such as tips for emotional care for children in a disaster.

Fake images of the storm begin to appear even before the storm has reached land. These images are spreading through social networks like wildfire fueling our imaginations of the apocalyptic New York City.

But almost as quickly, people are researching and debunking the images. A Tumblr page titled, Is Twitter Wrong?   published this information about the above image, "(That’s from the well-known cinéma vérité documentary The Day After Tomorrow, in case you hadn’t spotted it. Here’s what it actually looks like at the Statue of Liberty right now. It’s… a bit grey and blurry. And very noisy.)"

For another chronological folk reporting, check out the Hurricane Sandy Liveblog where people send in their reports and texts to be published by two bloggers. The stories are mostly evidence of how people cope through humor. The images and short accounts are haunting as the storm gets closer and the gravity of the situation begins to sink in. One of the blog administrators, Brandon, writes that he is having a hard time keeping up with the incoming posts and suggests that people just post to the comments section to speed up the publication.

Sending good thoughts eastward and hoping the storm will pass with minimal damage to read about.

Pinterest - Sharing the Visual Internet

As much as social networking can suck your time, it can also bring some relief from information overload on the internet. Smart friends on Facebook can be good filters for discovering the news that are worth reading, links worth following and cat videos worth watching.

Something interesting has been happening with the ways that news and information are organized and distributed via social networks. Scholars refer to this phenomenon as folksonomies, where knowledge is organized and presented by collaborative activities of internet users rather than media professionals as gatekeepers of information. The merits and dangers of such information management are, of course, up for debate.

Meanwhile, there is a new social networking tool that is used for organizing images - Pinterest - but not just images. It's a visual bookmarking site that lets you place and share information visually, through categories that are created by users. Pinterest reflects the growth of visual culture and finally lets us map knowledge with pictures, not just links or words. It is an organizing method that can be a useful teaching resource.

While sites like Flickr let users organize and share photographs, Pinterest keeps the images attached to the context of their websites. The Ed Social Media article does a good job of explaining how Pinterest works and among some higher ed examples, links to various visual categories (boards) created by the University of Denver. Libraries are also leading the way in the adoption of this technology. Here are 20 examples of how libraries are using Pinterest to organize information on the web, including collaborative work with patrons, collecting learning materials by themes, showcasing digital collections and displaying book covers.

Along with visuality, the social networking aspect of the site is what makes it really useful. You can follow other people's visual bookmarks (pins), look at the categories created by other users and then repin their finds onto your own boards as categories that make sense to you. For example, you can take a look at Tiffany Ford's science curriculum ideas, pick a project that interests you and repin it on your own board under a category that fits your interests. If you are teaching a biology class, you can call your board "biology lessons" and pin other examples along the same theme.

Creativity and Generosity

Internet theorist Clay Shirky talks on TED about the phenomenon of creativity and generosity on the Internet. He argues that this comes from a "cognitive surplus" that the web affords us and in this 13 minute lecture, he makes a connection between LOL Cats and civic engagement.

No Privacy on the Internet

Today's news bring more grievances of Facebook privacy bugs. Not too long ago, you might have read the story about a sociology professor who misunderstood her privacy settings and inadvertently posted some careless (and obvious to most of us, facetious) comments about looking for a hit-man. As a result, she was put on administrative leave.

A recent article in Inside Higher Ed, titled Professors and Social Media points out that professors are increasingly turning to social media to supplement their teaching and mentions a Pearson report that "suggest[s] that 80 percent of professors...have at least one account with either Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Skype, LinkedIn, MySpace, Flickr, Slideshare, or Google Wave."

Social Media is a whole new form of communication that is increasingly integrated into our social lives. It is approaching, if not already there, the primacy of a phone or email for communication. However, unlike a phone or even email, it is much more public...or as the Facebook example illustrates, we have much less control over what we publish via Social Media. That's the whole point -- these media are social.

When I was a kid in the Soviet Union, my parents couldn't speak freely about politics in our home unless they turned the dial and stuck a pencil in it on the rotary phone. There was always fear of the KGB listening in, and for good reason. My aunt, Luba, went to a gulag for poking fun of Stalin. Maybe I am a little paranoid as a result, but I always assume that whatever I put on the Internet may be used against me, no matter how private it seems.

So when I hear professors discuss whether to friend students, I say YES! friend them...or at least friend some and always act as if your students can see and read whatever you post. The internet is inherently not private, and any sense of privacy is only an illusion. It is only sensible that we should always act as if all of our musings on the internet are public and only post stuff that we don't mind anyone reading, be it students, parents, friends, bosses, the Man, etc. Don't be surprised if a potential employer finds your blog post on the internet or if Facebook suddenly decides to make your "interests" public for the sake of targeted advertising. This is a capitalist country after all and Facebook is a business, not a social service.

Having said that, we live in a relatively free country and have the luxury of speaking freely. I am proud of the fact that I can participate in the public discourse about culture and politics without being afraid to say what I think...for the most part. The Internet is an awesome public forum. If you want privacy, just buy a notebook and keep a journal. But be sure to put it somewhere safe.

Berlin Twitter Wall

I promise that this won't turn out to be a blog all about Twitter, but I must share this interesting project that involves Twitter - The Berlin Twitter Wall.

On this interactive site, anyone can share their thoughts on the historic Fall of the Wall and post a wish for the future. If you Tweet, use the hashtag #fotw on twitter and after a while your message will appear on the twitterwall.

By clicking "stop" and "play", you can see older messages (tweets). A click on the cameras up on the wall show a selection of the domino-artwork that will fall in a symbolic act on November 9th 2009 (TODAY!) at the "Fest der Freiheit" (festival of freedom) at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

Real Time in Action

CNN points out how the entire world was watching a runaway balloon float through the sky today as the 6yr old boy named Falcon was believed to be on it somehow. He turned out to be hiding in the attic, but the social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, allowed people from all over the world not only to watch this story but also to talk about it as it was happening.

Real Time Web

This morning, I was waiting for an oil change on my car and instead of looking at those mind numbing magazines and drinking mechanic shop coffee, I went to the nearby B&B cafe. It has wireless, so I answered work email, chatted with a colleague and played a word game with about 50 strangers (all 50 at once) all on a device that fits in my pocket.

My work calendar, folders, email accounts all sync so that I have upto date information wherever there is wireless. I can also check my geo-location, the world clock, the stock market, the weather report, etc. I can work, talk and play with others, all in "real time," immediately and publicly. In a coffee shop.

Technology blog ReadWriteWeb, (syndicated by the NYT) is hosting a Real-Time Web Summit. Today! Many industry leaders are there (Google, Yahoo!, etc). They are streaming some sessions live and also have a Twitter feed on their website. This is about stuff like video conferencing, chatting, interactive apps, things that allow users to interact online at the same time, to be co-present, and to have immediate and shared data.

Here is a blurb about the keynote address by Marshall Kirkpatrick:

"Marshall stressed the fact that real time doesn't just mean speed but also creates value by including presence data, flow and data syncing. All of this, according to Marshall, will lead to radical changes in how users will experience the Web in the near future."

read more about the keynote on ReadWriteWeb