I just came across this article, "We Are the Web," by Kevin Kelly of Wired Magazine. It's about 2.5 years old now, but it's a great history of where the Web has come from and where it's headed. In case you have not seen it before here's the link: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html
I found it mentioned indirectly in a presentation by Michael Wesch, an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State who's exploring the impacts of new media on human interaction. Thanks to Dave Austin who sent a link to one of Wesch's online videos, which provoked me to run down some of his other work. Here's a bio of Wesch: http://www.ksu.edu/sasw/anthro/wesch.htm
The thing Kelly is describing may be the real Web 2.0. Ultimately this will affect not just how we teach and how we think, but how we do almost everything -- the biggest collaborative project in the history of the planet.
Online Collaboration and Web 2.0
By Hall Harris - Posted on February 25th, 2008
For thirty years W. Hall Harris III has taught on the faculty of Dallas Theological Seminary in the New Testament Studies Department. Since 1995 he has served as Project Director and Managing Editor for the NET Bible at bible.org passionately steering this revolutionary Bible from inception to global impact. Dr. Harris has traveled extensively in Western Europe, especially in Germany and Italy. And as an ordained minister he has served over the years as pastor of single adults, elder, and adult Sunday school teacher.
The Kevin Kelly 2005 article is a good one, but the ending makes me think he places a lot of weight on the Matrix as a prognosticator of the future of the web.
Post new comment