In E-Book Era, You Can’t Even Judge a Cover - NYTimes.com

In E-Book Era, You Can’t Even Judge a Cover - NYTimes.com:

"Bindu Wiles was on a Q train in Brooklyn this month when she spotted a woman reading a book whose cover had an arresting black silhouette of a girl’s head set against a bright orange background.
Ms. Wiles noticed that the woman looked about her age, 45, and was carrying a yoga mat, so she figured that they were like-minded and leaned in to catch the title: “Little Bee,” a novel by Chris Cleave. Ms. Wiles, a graduate student in nonfiction writing at Sarah Lawrence College, tapped a note into her iPhone and bought the book later that week."

The unanticipated encounter--the subway train, the affinity with the fellow passenger, the discovery of an unknown book--all more difficult in the age of ebooks, where the cover ceases to exist as a sign to the world.

Cognitive Surplus -- Clay Shirky

CITE Journal - Editorial

The Pew Internet and American Life project reports that the majority of all teens are now engaged in active creation of online content. The rise of social media reflects new opportunities and outlets for creativity.

Increased youth engagement through these activities represents a repurposing of what Clay Shirky terms a cognitive surplus. Shirky, a professor in the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University, believes that a movement from passive activities such as watching television to more active and creative pursuits is emerging as a use of the cognitive surplus in the Web 2.0 era. Collaborative projects such as Wikipedia demonstrate that a previously unexploited collective intelligence can be tapped when the right conditions are established.

It is almost as if one of the goals of teaching with technology or using the technology that students use is a way of trying to squeeze educational goals into the creative activities of students.
Cognitive surplus is an interesting term--does it mean light or just heat? does it mean cognitive power put to the task of solving problems and creating new things, or is it just employing brain cycles to filter and recycle ideas and objects found on the web?

MoMA | @ at MoMA

MoMA | @ at MoMA
History of @

Danah Boyd: How Technology Makes A Mess Of Privacy and Publicity

Danah Boyd: How Technology Makes A Mess Of Privacy and Publicity:

a compelling talk that challenged the notion that personal information is on a binary spectrum of public or private

Boyd then discussed how different groups of people think about privacy. She says that teenagers are much more conscious about what they have to gain by being in public, whereas adults are more concerned about what they have to lose.

There is another summary of this presentation at ReadWriteWeb
Boyd's own notes for the presentation are also available at her website: http://www.danah.org/papers/talks/2010/SXSW2010.html

Giz Explains: How You're Gonna Get Screwed By Ebook Formats - Ebooks - Gizmodo

Giz Explains: How You're Gonna Get Screwed By Ebook Formats - Ebooks - Gizmodo
Detailed explanation of ebook formats for major ebook readers, discussing how much freedom one will have to move ebooks from one device to another -- not much as it turns out. It also raises the question of whether the epub or the PDF is superior. An interesting point for debate.

Miller-McCune Research Essay — Handwriting Is History | Smart Journalism. Real Solutions. | Miller-McCune Online Magazine

Miller-McCune Research Essay — Handwriting Is History | Smart Journalism. Real Solutions. | Miller-McCune Online Magazine:

"Most of us know, but often forget, that handwriting is not natural. We are not born to do it. There is no genetic basis for writing. Writing is not like seeing or talking, which are innate. Writing must be taught."

And yet, it has become part of most people's minds so that if (or when) our ability to write ends or declines...

We may, however, forsake some neurological memory. I imagine some pathways in our brains will atrophy. Then again, I imagine my brain is developing new cognitive pathways each time I hit control C or double click Firefox.

Jaron Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget. - By Michael Agger - Slate Magazine

Jaron Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget. - By Michael Agger - Slate Magazine:

"Perhaps our regimented Facebook selves have made things more vanilla. Perhaps you did stumble down more idiosyncratic paths of knowledge before Wikipedia dominated the top Google search results. But these are the kinds of nostalgic observations that are ridiculous to anyone young. The Web hasn't lost flavor; you've lost flavor."

Interesting review of Lanier's book, but this passage caught my eye. It may be worth looking at Lanier to see if he does make any argument related to the loss of the unanticipated. And while Lanier does have a solution for the economic problem he sees in the web's open structure, he does not have a solution to the culture of Google.
And an interview with Lanier by Aleks Krotoski