Important.

Pay particular attention to Shirky’s talk about doing nothing, doing anything, and doing something…that matters.

Now that you have all joined Twitter, you have indeed done the hard part.  You moved from doing nothing to doing anything.  Without diminishing the impact that your PLN has had, I’m coming out and declaring Twitter as not much more important than lolcats.  The next step is moving the masses from doing anything to doing something.

There.

A few of us have been poking around on a project called Shifted Learning.  Organize people to do something other than celebrate the face that they’ve created a thing (read: PLN).  Move towards creating a community that’s doing something that matters.  Of course, this involves first doing something.

http://www.shiftedlearning.org.

Posted that last night.

This morning I caught this piece from danah boyd regarding 4chan, hackers, and the attention economy.

I would argue that 4chan is ground zero of a new generation of hackers – those who are bent on hacking the attention economy. While the security hackers were attacking the security economy at the center of power and authority in the pre-web days, these attention hackers are highlighting how manipulatable information flows are. They are showing that Top 100 lists can be gamed and that entertaining content can reach mass popularity without having any commercial intentions (regardless of whether or not someone decided to commercialize it on the other side). Their antics force people to think about status and power and they encourage folks to laugh at anything that takes itself too seriously. The mindset is deeply familiar to me and it doesn’t surprise me when I learn that old hacker types get a warm fuzzy feeling thinking about 4chan even if trolls and griefers annoy the hell out of them. In a mediated environment where marketers are taking over, there’s something subversively entertaining about betting on the anarchist subculture. Cuz, really, at the end of the day, many old skool hackers weren’t entirely thrilled to realize that mainstreamification of net culture meant that mainstream culture would dominate net culture. For us geeks, freaks, and queers who embraced the internet as a savior, mainstreamification has meant a new form of disempowerment.

Read the rest of her article.

Jonathan Becker:  ”They don’t make toys like they used to.” “I mean, how is my kid supposed to get calloused and tough?”

Todd Sanders:  ”I modified toys with lead fishing weights and old steak knives before letting the kids touch them.  Worst American Girl doll EVER.

Jonathan Becker:  ”Or best.  Depending on your goals.

Todd Sanders:  ”Every American Girl doll comes with a story…some are longer than others.”

Seth Godin’s advice applies to most school mission statements as well.

Write nothing instead. It’s shorter.

via Seth Godin.

Deadspin features a story about “ferret legging“, a bloody endurance competition in which athletes stuff a ferret in their pants and see how long they can endure the pain.

I know more about ferrets today than I knew yesterday.

Update: There is a YouTube video about this.

Simply visit https://www.google.com and begin your search.  ”S” stands for “secure” or “sure is nice visiting the rest of the Internet” while at school.

We think users will appreciate this new option for searching. It’s a helpful addition to users’ online privacy and security, and we’ll continue to add encryption support for more search offerings.

via Official Google Blog: Search more securely with encrypted Google web search.

Apple has rolled 2 million + iPads out the door…all without “training” for their users.  Think before you schedule that “Fall 2010 Staff Development Day” in your school district.

We’ve done the same thing to our teachers that we’re doing to our kids, namely conditioned them to wait for direction on what to learn, how to learn it, and how to show they’ve learned it.

via Weblogg-ed » Nervous Writing / Well-Trained Teachers.