There is lots happening out there. I had my attention drawn to the Eduserv Virtual World Watch (VWW). Eduserv and VWW have just published a "snapshot of virtual world activity in UK Higher and Further Education", available here. No single conclusion from the report, but an account of an incohate, coalescent sphere of frenetic activity and much more to it than Second Life.
Another incohate, coalescent world is that of global capitalism. I went looking for alternative political voices in the context of the current global banking blip and didn't really find any, except Graham Attwell asking a similar question. I did find two interesting social networking software developments: from Rise Up (crabgrass) and the World Social Forum (OpenFSM), but no clear calls for an alternative politics.
I am writing this, however, because of another novel, incohate, coalescent world. These and many more items came my way through Twitter. Like John Pallister (here), I have become a cautious addict. Have a look at Martin Weller's Camtasia creation "A Twitter Love Song". Bruce Ingraham would have loved the form and the argument. The open api has led to many Twitter-related sites and applications, some are: Twhirl, TwitPic, Twemes, Twiffid. Twiffid scrobbles the blog addresses from the people you follow on Twitter, and presents you with their latest posts and, even better, the rss feed so you can read them in your favorite reader. Mine is Fresh, these days. I wrote about Fresh here. John's Twitter stream led me to CoolCatTeacher's blog about 5 Twitter Goodies to get you a-tweeting.
I am daily amazed at how much creative energy there is cohering in the Internet.
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Hi George - just wandered back over here an read your post and was interested in the 'creative energy there is cohering in the Internet' bit. earliet this evening I had posted a repy to an Internet Loop/small world post at http://groups.google.co.uk/group/eportfolios-and-plts/browse_thread/thread/550e67b9ef63b66?hl=en
I had begun to think about an " interesting
characteristics of this new participative Web thing, all of the
questions that have similar foci gravitate towards each other. The
community that then comes into being has a common interest. Now I was
in a traffic jam tonight pondering on your post that I had picked up
on the Train. I have very little experience of traffic jams living in
County Durham. I began to draw an analogy, giving fishing a bit of a
rest, I thought that all the cars in the queue has the same interest,
to get out of Darlington. A bit like the community that many of us
belong to, a community that wants to make things better for our
learners; a community that wants to harness the best of the available
technology; a community that can see the potential of social software
to support and engage our learners; a community that recognises that
our learner s need a specific set of skills to enable them to survive
and thrive....
But the questions and issues continue to assemble, continue to join
the traffic jam - the answers and solutions, unfortunately, are in
short supply! I wonder if anyone with 'clout' is listening to these
communities? A lot of professionals giving their ideas and thinking
for free, what a bargain for some listener! - half and hour to move
3 miles! come on Darlington!, Oh and the train was a bit too busy for
my liking, the Wifi was a bit too slow... "
I too hope Bruce is enjoying Spain, I only met him once some yaers ago when I worked with Teeside to set up an ePortfolio conference
John