Book Screen Tough Touching

Edusim is a free & opensource 3D virtual world for the school or classroom interactive whiteboard.

I am sitting in front of a computer and have been since 8am. I am trying to write about how a book implies response in certain ways. I introduce it like this:

The arrangement of textual materials in a book-like format conditions implied response according to particular lineal and sequential forms of spatiality.

While I am thinking about how I can explain the "conditions of implied response according to particular lineal and sequential forms of spatiality", I check my email (good distraction factor). There I find a link to the above video from Edusim. Now I am thinking.....the book thing is doomed ;-)

Distracted: Questions Around Attention in Digitally Mediated Cultures

Interesting discussion from the Australian ABC radio program Late Night Live on the interupt culture and problems with critical thinking and attention span in the digital media age. It touches in places upon the concept of literacy and ends in a semi-positive light, however the consensus seems to be we are heading for a "Coming Dark Age". The voices belong to Phillip Adams (Interviewer) and Maggie Jackson (Interviewee)

In America a study has found that workers not only switch tasks every three minutes during their work day, but nearly half the time they interrupt themselves. Moreover, once someone's been interrupted it can take up to 25 minutes to return to the main task.

Maggie Jackson has been researching this syndrome and other ways we get distracted and has written a book about it. The premise of her book is that the way we live is eroding our capacity for deep, sustained, perceptive attention. In other words it's attention that is the greatest casualty of our high-tech age.

Maybe the 'syndrome' is a boring job? Comes via the excellent Peoples Geography (who host the player...thanks guys)

Software and Community in the Early 21st Century

Eben Moglen’s keynote address, titled “Software and Community in the Early 21st Century” presented at Plone Conference 2006 on October 25, 2006 in Seattle, WA.

In this inspiring lecture, Professor Moglen weaves together the industrial revolution, the knowledge economy, the free software movement, the One Laptop Per Child project and the long struggle for human dignity and equality.

Eben Moglen is Chairman of the Software Freedom Law Center, Professor of Law and Legal History at Columbia University Law School, and General Counsel of the Free Software Foundation.
MP3 and Ogg (audio only) versions of this talk are also available. Click on the FTP or HTTP “all files” links at left.