More on Shirky's Here Comes Everybody

Having just returned from the NECC where there were buttons any direction you looked, I feel that the book cover of the UK version of Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations is so much more interesting and apt.

Talking about the idea of the "WE over I" - the name iPhone seems rather inappropriate, especially when you see people constantly conversing, communicating, collaborating over those sleek devices... wePhone would be so much more apt - or maybe wiiPhone! Not having one myself made me feel quite the outcast at NECC - a fact underscored by a remark Will Richardson made in jest - "Oh! You're SO 2007!"

Shirky's book was also at the center of an interesting session at EduBloggerCon 08 (see previous '@ NECC' posts); and here's an interesting post on the book on Jeff Atwood's blog Coding Horror.

Finally, here's a 42+ minute video of Shirky talking about his book at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School in Feb this year.



(My own distant connection with Shirky - if it can be termed "connection"...I wrote a letter of recommendation for a design student in Bangalore when he was applying for the Graduate Program at the ITP at NYU in 2005...he did get admission, and went on to take Shirky's course(s?) at ITP :))

@NECC 2008 - 2: EduBloggerCon 08

A few words about EduBloggerCon 2008 - the "unconference" or rather "collaborative conference" at NECC pulled together by Steve Hargadon. For more on the idea of an "unconference" - check this post by Steve.



I was unable to attend the various sessions as I was busy taking care of some snafus related to my session the next day and had to make a desperate run a few miles out to get some printing done. I did however enjoy the one I was able to attend - outside in the Second Life space late morning. I liked that it had an informal, unconference feel - in terms of the space especially and how everyone was sitting on couches and chairs, on the floor...some even standing around the periphery, but participating nonetheless...

I also enjoyed the discussions around Clay Shirky’s new book - Here Comes Everybody - The Power of Organizing without Organizations. Many quotable quotes in there, but here's one I'll add here--

"Revolution doesn't happen when society adopts new technologies - it happens when society adopts new behaviors"

We're clearly waiting for such a revolution in education.

It's always a pleasure for me to step out of the blogosphere and meet f2f with the active edubloggers from around the world who are shaping web 2.0 in education.

Thanks, Steve, for organizing this. Here's to more such open, collaborative exchanges in the future that help bridge the virtual blogging world with the real world.

A short video put together by Dean Shareski --

@ NECC2008 - 1

Well, here we are - some 15,000 educators - all passionate (to varying degrees) about technology in education - at National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) 2008 of the International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE ) in scenic downtown San Antonio, TX. A small percentage of us more passionate than most others about web 2.0 in education met up at the EduBloggerCon earlier today.

It's great, as always, to convert online connections to f2f ones every once in a while...Here's to convene * connect * transform at NECC 2008.