Comments on: Preparing for Participatory Politics

By: Educational Technology and Life » Blog Archive » Links June 24 to July 4

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 18:39:52 +0000

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By: Flint

Flint — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 04:23:23 +0000

you might want to change your “PDF Conference” to “PdF Conference” – until I clicked on the link, I thought you were talking about an Adobe Acrobat conference.

I do like the thoughts of “random acts of journalism though.”

By: andy carvin

andy carvin — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:07:11 +0000

btw, I just blogged about the conference if anyone is interested.

By: andy carvin

andy carvin — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:16:06 +0000

I’d say the answer to that is definitely no. When I said that comment to Will, I was thinking what’s sometimes called civic journalism: capturing facts and reporting on them because it’s your civic duty to not ignore it. Probably the most oft-cited example is the recording Rodney King beating on video, but that’s obviously an extreme case.

By: andy carvin

andy carvin — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:13:45 +0000

She must’ve not enunciated her words well. My notes say that 5% of folks said they were present at association meetings. I thought it was an odd way of putting it at the time, but I asked someone next to me if that’s what they heard, and they said yes. fwiw, I was being a geek in the very front row, so I was pretty close to her when she said it. Maybe we should ping her to clarify.

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:48:11 +0000

“Random acts of journalism” – I love the concept but are we talking about journalism the way it’s practiced in most of the media these days? Unfortunately, those are pretty poor examples since most of it seems to consist of taking a few random facts and offering incomplete opinions, often at full volume.

I certainly hope more people, especially those in their 20′s, will get involved with the political process this year. At the same time, however, we as educators should also be helping our students to become more savvy consumers of media and teaching them how and when to challenge what they are told by the talking heads.

By: Will Richardson

Will Richardson — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:31:04 +0000

Yikes. My bad. That kind of changes that whole thought, huh? Five percent of folks holding some type of leadership role in a community organization is a pretty high level, one we would probably be well off to emulate. Thanks for the clarification. (For more on what I got wrong, try this overview by Morra Aarons.)

By: scott heiferman

scott heiferman — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 03:28:12 +0000

the 5% stat — that’s not what she said at all. she said that in 1955, 5% of americans were president of a local association/group/chapter

By: Lucy Gray

Lucy Gray — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:00:47 +0000

I’m just a tad biased , but I think the percentage is going to change because of the technology AND Obama, not technology alone. Technology makes it easy to participate, but in my opinion, but Obama is the inspiration.

I like the idea of “random acts of journalism” and I’m reminded I better start planning some activities around the election for my students!

Sounds like a great conference.. thanks for sharing.