Clever fellow, as I said. But then, I've probably lost you all by now - but if not, please bear with me a moment more. Actually, much the same goes for me - I understand hardly a professional word Tom writes!
Andrew Sutton, I get the impression, was somewhat underwhelmed by the video I posted a couple of days ago: The Future Internet: "a piece of text so jargon-bound as to be unintelligible, and a video too choked with its own portent to make the slightest sense", says Andrew. Brightened my day, that did!
Critics of Twitter assert that it is trivial babble. Much of what passes every day between friends probably is. As an English teacher, I used to set a fun drama-writing exercise as if of threaded conversations over-heard on the top deck of bus. The imaginary captured conversations, apparently so inconsequential written down, were largely meaningless to the imagined theatre audience - but could deal with life-and-death matters to the imagined characters. And the resulting text was great fun to read in class. So, Twitter. It's all to do with who is supposed to be listening. If it's not you, it's pretty meaningless.
Tom - who is my nephew as it happens - is writing for an audience of his professional peers, of whom I am, with my very limited amateur enthusiasm for the internet, decidedly not one. However, I come across all sorts of things (Has the hyper-local movement anything to offer CE, for instance? Perhaps I should blog about that one day?) and wonder if it can help us parents or practitioners of CE.
I'm still trying to make sense of Web3.0 or what Tom calls "The Semantic Web". I'm still trying to make sense of that video, Andrew, if truth be known. But don't you just love the idea of a milk carton having its own URL? (See the end of the video.) Made me smile. I shall watch it again, if I get a moment.
In December 2010, the 7th World Congress of Conductive Education takes place in Hong Kong. I am greatly looking forward to the adventure of being there. I am also wondering how the social web can be deployed to (a) enhance the experience of all of us who aspire to be there and (b) engage everyone who cannot in the experience - before, during and after the Congress. What would we need to do? Could 2010 be the first internet World Congress? How?
(Just so there's no doubt: neither Tom Heath nor Talis had anything to do with the Future Internet video.)
