Credit: Matt Hamm

Before I begin, I think I need to make it clear that social media and social networking sites mean two different things, although in some cases, the line between them aren’t that clear. Social media is a channel to broadcast information, typically like Twitter and YouTube, where as social networking sites are sites that allow you to connect with other people like MySpace. However, it also depends on how you use the sites, they can be both social media and networking sites. Facebook is one of those that’s right in between (and also Twitter in some cases).

If we look back in the 18th and 19th century, people are sharing about their life through diaries. They write short sentences on what they’re doing or something they want to remember and they share these diaries with close family and friends. So, human nature hasn’t really changed – we still love sharing.

So, why are we so excited or talking so much about social media? The role that social media has in our life has dramatically changed the way the internet works and information is distributed. Rather than being passive information receiver, we’ve now starting to create our own content and/or participate in content creation (e.g. leaving comments or replying).

When the plane crash in Hudson River in New York, the first person to broadcast the crash was actually a resident of a Manhattan Apartment on Twitter. He sent the tweet 4 mins after the crash. People were retweeting the crash and it wasn’t until 15 minutes later that mainstream media picked it up and started broadcasting the accident.

Internet itself has become a setting, or a space, where we build relationships much like a physical space like this (referring to the hall). We go online to engage, to find information and to collaborate, and the internet has given people empowerment and confidence to achieve or do what they usually wouldn’t do in real life e.g. activism, help-seeking (depression) and building relationships.

The internet allows us to trust strangers. Friends online that we’ve never met offline doesn’t make them any ‘less friend’ than a physical friend. Take for example, the last few weeks, I want to start a movement that changes young men’s perception of “real man” and “mates”. Suicide is the leading cause of death amongst young people and 4/5 of all suicides are young men. The whole idea is to get young men to actually look out for their mates, having meaningful conversations with their mates and strip away the stereotypes of what real men means. I emailed the idea to a group of my friends and within days, I have a working group. We’ve been working together for 2 weeks now and some of these guys are from Melbourne and I have never met them in real life at all. We’re all contributing equally to the project, and we all work as if we have worked together and we know each other for ages. The collaborative atmosphere that the internet has allow is immensely powerful.

Having said that, that brings up the point on bullying, predation and addiction. These are inevitable, because like I said, the internet and social media has become a setting in which we build and maintain relationships, and thus, makes it the same as a physical space. We are just as open to bullying, predation and addiction in physical environment as we are virtual, and to me, restricting virtual access is like wrapping your kids in cotton wool. I believe that the only way forward is to promote digital citizenship and safety online (as we do, offline). The good news is, young people are actually have a better idea on cybersafety than most adults! Also, if we put these negative events in context to the immense power of technology, restricting a child’s access to technology is really restricting their ability to engage, find information and build relationship. I think its all about the balance

In our generation, virtual interaction lays on top and weaves through physical interaction and they are part of each other. To us, the online and offline spaces are just spaces – they are not merely tools or entertainment. The way we use them can make a huge difference in the world.

Social media is only at its tipping point in terms of participation, knowledge distribution and technological advancement as the web moves to becoming more social.

What we need to think about and shift our attention to is bridging the gaps, especially in terms of solving social problems and doing good. The hyperinterconnectedness that we are experiencing right now, if anything, holds a huge potential if we can harness the interconnectedness to change the world.

When we talk about technology, many think about the geeky kids who own an iPhone – but that is far from the truth. I don’t have an iPhone! Technology has become ingrained in our daily life without us even realising it – Facebook and mobile phones. However, when it comes to new technology or other digital media, its easy for us to be skeptical about it due to our ignorance of understanding it. So we cringe, shrug and say that were just “technologically challenged” – but in actual fact, its the lack of awareness and understanding. I want to shift your thinking from skepticism and apathy to actually thinking about how can we embrace technology and use it to enhance our life and bring about social good.


Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right – why not the former?


Skepticism of technology existed in the past as well [refer to quotes on slides]. I call this the WTF era.


And let’s talk a bit about the future, because we are all, hopefully, moving in that direction. The direction of social justice, equal rights, basic education for all, peace and happiness. I call this the AWESOME era. You will realise that there is a huge gap between the WTF era and the AWESOME era.


Whatever we do with technology and our life right now, will ultimately fill in the gaps – such as gaps in digital divide, gaps in literacy, gaps in knowledge, gaps in bureaucracy and gaps in financial status. With the advancement of technology, we are connecting, collaborating, innovating and filling in the gap faster and better than we have been. This is highly due to:

Let’s look at some of these innovations and change happening:


FrontlineSMS
An open source software that enables you to have two way communications between a mobile and centralised computer. It was built by Ken Banks where he got the inspiration while working in a national park in South Africa. It was the easiest way they could communicate with the local communities.


FrontlineSMS:Medic
Josh Nesbit was working in Namitete, Malawi at a local hospital with 2 doctors that provide services to over 250,000 people within 100 miles. The only way to do this was to decentralise the medical system, and they recruited 500 volunteers who travels miles each day to check on patients and cycle back to the hospital. He went back to America, and bought 100 phones, taught the volunteers how to use them and installed FrontlineSMS. Later, he started FrontlineSMS:Medic, a team committed to supporting community health workers (CHWs) in the developing world using appropriate mobile technology.


He did not build the software. He used what Ken Banks has made, and changed it to make it relevant for what he needs it for.


JumbaFund
Maybe some of you guys think, well, I don’t know anything about coding so that’s definitely not for me. Let’s look at a guy who has used digital media for good. KevJumba is one of YouTube’s most subscribed channel – with over 96 million views on his videos and over 1 million subscribers.


He started JumbaFund, as a side project that is more about his daily life like playing pranks on his flatmates and making fun of his dad. All money made from the channel via Google Ads are directed to a charity nominated by his readers. There is nothing complicated, or technical about what he does – he just record videos! The channel has over 250,000 subscribers and has raised (I think) at least $10,000 for charity.


Supercool School
Supercool School was founded based on the principle of making education relevant and “real-world” for the students. You search for a school (e.g. start up school or cooking classes) and sign up to the school if you’re interested. You attend scheduled classes and you can also request for classes. Classes are real-time and live, and also recorded in case you missed any of them. Best thing is, when sign on, you also create a profile, allowing you to connect with other like-minded people in the school, collaborate and build a community basically.


What’s exciting is, you can literally build a university from a laptop with an internet connection. Invite a group of people to sit in front of the laptop and there you have a class.


To Mama With Love
I met Stacey Monk while I was at the Non-Profit Technology Conference in Atlanta. She is an incredible woman and someone I have HUGE respect for. When I got back to Australia, I got a tweet from her explaining a Project X she was organising and asked me to be a part of it. I said yes with no questions!


Her first email sent to 70 people in her contacts from ALL around the world, very clearly outlined 3 things she wanted from everyone:

Within 72 hours, emails were flying everywhere and immediately, teams of designers, strategist, implementers, bloggers, website programmers and content creators. She delegated and leveraged, and To Mama With Love was born. Everyone were volunteers, reducing cost of the fundraising campaign to $0.


One Laptop Per Child
So how about digital divide? The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is probably one of the most successful program in closing the gap. It’s a non-profit, producing low-cost, rugged, low-power, connected laptop with open source softwares and content designed for education and collaboration.


Watch the video and it explains everything.




All these people are doing amazing things with technology – and most of them aren’t even techy geeks. They have a vision, and they build upon what’s already out there. KevJumba and Josh Nesbit definitely aren’t techy geeks at all. Working with technology and digital media is not difficult – it takes time to fiddle around and it will change the way you do things. If it doesn’t, it means that you do not need that piece of technology.


You will realise that I left a gap there [refer to slides], because we are definitely not there yet. We are not at the AWESOME era yet – not even that close but we are very well on our way. We are on the right track. My challenge for you is to fill in that gap. Whatever you do from today onwards, think about why do you do what you do (or about to do) and what value, what improvements and what changes are you bringing to yourself, people around you and the world. You’re from different disciplines (so are most people I described in the case studies), but ultimately, you all still live in the same world. Your contribution in filling that gap is vital.


It went really, really well. I can safely say that 90% of all the conference feedback forms ranked the presentation as one of the favourites or most liked. *Phew*


Action call:
Start a plan or an idea: www.PlanBig.com.au
Pressure the gov’t to provide basic education to 72 million children without it: www.Join1Goal.org
I am working with a group of innovative people building Digital For Good, a project looking at digital technology as a force of good.

“Connectivism, “a learning theory for the digital age,” has been developed by George Siemens and Stephen Downes based on their analysis of the limitations of behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism to explain the effect technology has had on how we live, how we communicate, and how we learn. Donald G. Perrin, Executive Editor of the International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning says the theory “combines relevant elements of many learning theories, social structures, and technology to create a powerful theoretical construct for learning in the digital age.”

I highly recommend reading the Wiki article if you have the time and/or work in the ICT field.

Education is relatively a new field to me, even though I am currently working in it! However, the digital world isn’t so I am only picking one slide from the entire presentation (found here) to comment on, since its the only one that has gotten quite a discussion during the lecture.

The slide show showed this quote:

“What we have here is a transition from a stable, settled world of knowledge produced by authority/authors, to a world of instability, flux, of knowledge produced by the individual … ” – Institute of Education, London, 2007.

So, that quote got quite a few discussions going and I didn’t get the time to budge in so here is my 2 cents worth.

The Way, The Truth & The Light
OK, well, I didn’t mean to be controversial with the subheading but historically, the church had the monopoly over the truth. However, things changed after the Englightenment because pretty much, everything was up for grabs! The truth slowly disperse to people in the society, and over the past centuries, the politicians, scientists and teachers control the truth. Even when the internet started booming, the truth was still very much centred and controlled. I remember when I was an undergraduate students, referencing websites was a huge no-no, unless in very very unique circumstances, you can reference huge, well-recognised organisations such as the World Health Organisation or governmental websites.

Social Media Shifted The Equilibrium
In the last few years, the explosion of social media has not only called for micro-information, but we also see a shift in the controller and communicator of the truth. Social media shifted the power to people, to everyone and encouraged conversations. This is an important point, because websites used to be static and information-relaying, but social media pushed for conversations and interactions. Increasingly, the perception of truth and information started coming in from all kinds of sources – friends, friends of friends and even people you don’t really know! (Twitter is a great example – how many people you don’t know do you follow and how many tweets from people you don’t know you have RT’ed)

It was also during this time that the smart people start to see a revolution – we’re moving into a Connected Age where we’re all becoming hyperconnected and this can be a great thing because like I mentioned before, with our powers combined (pun intended) we can seriously become Captain Planet! Those who recognise this started innovative and revolutionary ideas such as Wikipedia and Creative Commons. These ideas call for conversations, scrutiny but most importantly, credible, reliable and quality information and/or product! Everyone is an expert and everyone has a piece of truth. In the case of creative commons, someone can produce a revolutionary theory today, publish the book under creative commons and allow anyone and everyone who thinks that they have a piece of mind to add to that to tear the theory apart and add their own parts to it.

Things are continuously being challenged and at a rate that is more rapid than before. This is the perfect time for social innovation to prosper and if anything, time for us to actually believe that the answer to many social problems is potentially very near.

Back to the quote
At the lecture, the idea that we’re at “a transition from a stable, settled world of knowledge produced by authority/authors, to a world of instability, flux, of knowledge produced by the individual” was challenged and my point of view is that many traditional thinker of the digital world still does not recognise or see this information shift pushed by the digital realm. They are not backward thinkers, if anything, these are the people that will help improve the theory, idea and how we convey this very new way of thinking to them.

Some might misunderstood the use of “instability” in the sentence, but its important for us to remember that this instability is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact, more often than not, it is a good thing. This instability is the conversation that I am talking about.

And a great example of that is this post. Back in those days, what was presented in a lecture either stay in our mind or gets regurgitated into our assignments and exams, but in the Connected Age, the lecture might have ended but the conversations continue happening on Twitter, on Elluminate Live where it was streamed LIVE and on this blog. And everyone, every conversation adds at least a tiny piece of truth to the lecture.

What does this mean in Education?
Like I mentioned before, I am no expert in this area but I feel like I should add some opinions to this. I have been really frustrated with some universities approach to teaching, especially the attitude of the lecturers. I came from a work background where youth participation is taken very seriously. We work in an organisation that targets young people, but we not only provide service for the young people, but we work with the young people as well. By participation, we are not talking about providing feedbacks but giving the influence to change things. It is recognising that everyone can be an expert and inviting people that you “work” with to be co-creators with you. However, in traditional education, the teacher and lecturer remains the disseminator of the truth and information presented in lectures and assessments are based on pre-existing information, without much creative input from the students.

- + -

I am incredibly excited by the work George is doing, because that is one of the challenge I think tertiary science education in Australia is facing. I am really looking forward to next year to jump on board with Dr Mia O’Brien (@Mia_OBrien) to look at setting up Teachers Without Borders and some other projects.

Other works of George Siemens:
- Connectivism: Networked and Social Learning
- elearnspace.org: everything elearning
- his very interesting blog

Last week’s Twitter #4change Chat was around Education, in particular the role of social media in Education, so if you’re interested George’s blog has more interesting read.

There has been a number of predictions about mobile internet lately. The IDC predicted that mobile internet users will increase by up to over 1 billion by next year.

IDC predicts that, for the first time, there will be over 1 billion mobile devices accessing the Internet by year-end, gaining quickly on the 1.3 billion PCs accessing the Internet (the former are growing at 2.5 times the rate of the latter).

The introduction of smart phones, especially the iPhone definitely had a great impact on the figure, but I think the most exciting is the rapid improvement of the Android, and a prediction that there will be a Google phone by 2010, which I am sure will fuel the figure.

More Internet Users by 2010
I am super excited at all these figures, because I am sure that the cost of accessing the internet will decrease, especially in Australia where internet download is capped – which I found ridiculous when I first moved here from Malaysia, where internet is limitless. Smart phones will also become more affordable, and this means that for the first time, marginalised communities will be able to access the internet quite easily. I was presenting at Making Links recently, and David Mejia-Canales presented on InfoXchange’s Wired Community @ Collingwood project, where they installed computer and internet, and trained the multicultural community to use the internet. The challenges of the project is not only the financial costs involved, but the training proccess.

Installing broadband in a house is not cheap – you’ll have to pay for the phone line and the internet line, both of which can be quite expensive if its used and paid by only one person. With mobile internet, you do not have to know how to operate a computer, and I am quite certain that learning to access mobile web is a lot easier than via PC.

Marginalised Communities
One of the challenge of internet is reaching marginalised communities as most of these people do not have access to a PC, however, findings also suggest that most of them have at least a mobile phone. The Bridging the Digital Divide, a research undertaken by the Inspire Foundation and ORYGEN Youth Health found that the internet and mobile phones play a much greater role than expected in the lives of young people who are socially, culturally or economically marginalised, and it challenges the concept of the “digital divide” which suggests that marginalised young people’s use of technology is limited.

I guess my next point isn’t exactly “marginalised” communities, but “stigmatised” issues. Being able to access internet on the mobile phones mean that young people can access internet in private and whilst the skeptics will say that this is dangerous, my point of view is that young people will be able to access more information, especially those which typically is stigmatised in the community, such as mental health issues, LGBT, diseases and drug use. However, for this to happen, service delivery websites need to ensure that their websites is mobile compatible, which sadly, most isn’t!

Internet as a setting
I think all these highlights my point from previous posts that the internet is becoming more and more of a setting where people converge, meet and connect. It is beyond just tools, and I really hope that more and more organisations recognise this and builds platforms that allow this to happen. The potential of it is there, the challenge is for people to recognise that and do something about it.

Nathaniel also links to a few other services or ventures that have used the mobile phones for good, and the one that I’ve been waiting for since March is the Extraordinaries. It’s a really good example of how a venture draws power from the connectedness that technology has allow us. The connection is there, we just need to recognise it and learn how to use it wisely.

Photo credit: shapeshift