Re: [DDN] RSS: The Next ICT Literacy Challenge?

[Tom Abeles]

This thread puzzles me from a number of perspectives. First, RSS while a 
powerful aggregating search tool is still mapping brick space into click 
space, the same as what we are currently doing with e-learning using the 
standard Learning Management Systems and their variances. It has, as has 
been carefully and repeatedly noted, the propensity for overwhelming the 
individual and, as some have mentioned regarding the developing world, 
chewing up costly bandwidth. What this list, in its pragmatic, 
tip-of-the-iceberg, manner shows is that self-organizing networks of 
human biocomputers probably is a more effective learning/sorting and 
aggregating vehicle. The corporate world, as Knowledge Management 
clearly shows, has embraced these self-organizing communities and have 
developed a variety of web deliverable vehicles for enhancing these. 
Wiki's offer a peek at the possibilities as do blogs.

Second there has been a side thread about the indifference of "youth" to 
using these knowledge systems and becoming committed to more than 
vegging out in front of the telly after classes. Let us dismiss the idea 
that this is the older generation just upset with the profligate ways of 
today's young folk. Perhaps one needs to look at the "gaming" community" 
to see that there is life and hope, particularly if one follows the 
MMRPG world (Massive Multiplayer Role Playing Games) where networks of 
participants engage each other at levels far expanded from the action on 
the screen. And one can not overlook the efforts now with the domain of 
"serious" games which are a much wider genre than just those used by the 
military or tech folk to check out systems.

What one might just be seeing is a "bifurcation" impacted by the arrival 
of the web and big pipes. What this means for the digitally 
disenfranchised may not imply just wiring the world and putting a 
computer in the hands of all. That would be falling into the same trap 
that concerns me (see above).

thoughts?
tom abeles

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