In Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat," he outlines ten flatteners that have helped in leveling the global playing field. Of these ten, the one intrigued me the most was his number four - Uploading.
Briefly put, uploading deals with the idea of web 2.0 where everyone has the ability to voice their opinion and collaborate to create an open source of information. Friedman says that this flattener is "the most disruptive force of all" in the global flattening. The internet has opened the door to a vast expanse of knowledge and information, but in the recent years, being able to voice an opinion and post those thoughts for the world to see has become a new and inventive way to broaden the spectrum that you see and others recieve. Sites such as YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace, Wikipedia, and even this Blogger have greatly impacted the voice of those with access to a keyboard or video camera.
YouTube has been such a fascinating tool to watch grow and develop over time, as it was only started in 2005. As I type this, over 24 hours of content has been uploaded to YouTube. These videos may be a bootleg from a Hold Steady concert, a vlog (video log) from a 14-year-old girl who just saw the new Twilight movie, or a keynote speech from the TED conference on learning disabilities. The possibilities are endless. These videos can be used for entertainment purposes, as educational tools, and as a means of social networking. Google recognized the impact that YouTube could have on the community and quickly purchased the company in October of 2006 for $1.65 billion. Since that time, YouTube has been able to monetize by selling advertisement space and paying select YouTube "partners" to post content that will be widely viewed. This may speak of an evil in our advancement of technology, but the undeniable truth here is that websites like this have truly greatly flattened our world.
One video that I personally stumbled upon that is a wonderful example of using YouTube as an outreach tool is by a young man named Dan Brown and is dealing with the state of education. He posts a video entitled "An Open Letter to Educators". If you take the time to watch, you'll see that he poses his viewpoint and opens up the discussion for anyone with a YouTube account to take part in. There are many responses via video and even more textual comments. Dan even goes as far as to rebuttal several times in the form of video. But what makes this kid so special? Why is he the voice of this? Who is he to be arguing? He isn't a teacher, just a student from Nebraska who dropped out from college to further pursue YouTube as a career choice. Dan had his idea and mentality ready and just felt so strongly about this subject that he started discussing this through a medium that is free to him and everyone else. I love that this kind of discussion can happen through a website that many teachers may be intimidated by. I think that is truly a great aspect of this fourth flattener that Friedman writes about, and is exactly why it is has that disruptive force to our globalizing world.
..not to mention that you can find videos of Minnesota hip-hop artist covering Pearl Jam songs!
No comments:
Post a Comment