Power of digital text

Published by in blogs, web 2.0 on February 21st, 2007

Dr. Michael Wesch from Kansas State University has posted a great five minute video exploring the power of digital and hyperlinked text to connect ideas and people to YouTube:

Use the free YouTube downloader if you want want an offline copy saved to your hard drive that you can share with others when you are not connected to the Internet or don’t want to wait for YouTube to buffer the video. The free SWF & FLV Player works well on the Mac side to play downloaded flv files from YouTube.

The themes of this video resonate with my post “Shining lights, finding nuggets, adding tools” from December, when I wrote:

I think more teachers in our schools need to be specifically teaching students how to write effectively with hyperlinks, because hyperlinked writing is the most powerful form of writing that has ever existed. The ability to connect your ideas with words, thoughts, images, sounds or videos created by others is unbelievably powerful. This is the real power of blogging, in my opinion. I always try to link ideas in my blog posts to other sources or to related posts I’ve written or others have authored, because my goal in writing goes far beyond merely transmitting my own words and ideas: I want to connect others to ideas and in doing so, empower their own personal learning journeys. Since digital technologies have advanced so quickly and come so far in our own lifetimes, we are naturally more awed by the technology than we should be or than later generations will be. David’s exhortation is excellent, challenging us to avoid the temptation to be entranced by technological bells and whistles, and instead focus on CONTENT, IDEAS, and OPENING DOORS.

Via Tom March on the ITM.

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2 Comments »

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  • http://www6.district125.k12.il.us/staffdev/ Charlene

    Hi Wes, thanks for the link on the downloader… I have also used Video Downloader 2.0 which, provides a plugin for Firefox. When you arrive at a video you’d like to capture, there is a small icon at the bottom right corner of the browser window… click and the download begins.

    http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php

    Enjoy!
    Charlene

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