To illustrate this point, I’d like to point you over to Google’s 10th birthday celebration. By typing in “Colorado Avalanche”, the first entry that comes up is the hockey team’s official website. What Google is allowing you to do is see what it looked like back in 2001 (the farthest their most complete index of the Internet goes). By clicking on the View old version on the Internet Archive, it takes you to the webpage as it looked in 2001 at this time of year. And look! The Avalanche are the Stanley Cup Champions again, just like that!

In all seriousness, what this means is that there are hundreds and thousands of copies made of the Internet (aka indexes) by Google and many other organizations and people. So the next time you think to speak poorly online about the finest run hockey club around, you should remember, it’s nearly impossible to take it back.

As Mr. Noon notes in his post on the New York Times blog, Tell the Raven is still a work in progress.  He hoped that the blog would help connect his students with other schools in Alaska, but so far that hasn’t happened–although they have been connecting with students in Australia.  I admire that the students are encouraged to write and share their thoughts, and that they have an adult mentor like Mr. Noon to review their posts and help them consider how they want to present themselves to their classmates and to the world.  The students get to learn about everything the Web has to offer, and have a guide to show them how to have a positive experience online.  For Mr. Noon, he gets to learn more about what his students are doing and what interests them in class, and of course parents get learn more about their children.  Everybody wins.

If you’re a teacher using multimedia in the classroom, tell us about it and share your ideas!

I think it’s pretty cool because it grabs my imagination. (I have to confess that it has the word “media” so prominently in the middle is somewhat validating)

Would love to hear what you guys think!

On our YouTube channel, we subscribe to another organization’s channel by the name of Common Craft (leelefever). They are an organization that makes videos that breakdown seemingly complex matters - social media sites, twitter, rss feeds, zombies - in fun and approachable videos. In a way, they are expanding the audiences for the different tools and ideas, bringing more and more people into a dialogue that has usually been reserved for those with time and relevant experience to stay informed. The good folks over at Common Craft have actually posted a very timely video entitled “Electing a US President in Plain English”

It does an excellent job of streamlining a very complex and sadly misunderstood elective system, and what with all the talk from both candidates about making this election about you, the voter, and changing a complex system in Washington D.C., you’d think that they would find this video and the larger issue of media literacy quite in-line with their campaigns’ goals. Well, we at the LAMP are patiently waiting.

*The goal of OneWebDay is to focus attention on a key internet value (this year, online participation in democracy), focus attention on local internet concerns (connectivity, censorship, individual skills), and create a global constituency that cares about protecting and defending the internet.  So, think of OneWebDay as an environmental movement for the Internet ecosystem. It’s a platform for people to educate and activate others about issues that are important for the Internet’s future.

We celebrate OneWebDay every September 22nd in locations all over the world.  This year, in New York City, festivities kick off on Saturday the 20th and culminate in the main event on Monday the 22nd.

**9/20 - 2-4pm - Educational Workshops* *

*
*Eight workshops to help you make the most of the web.  Located at NYU’s Courant Institute at 251 Mercer St., corner of W. 4th St.*

**How Wikipedia Works:* Mike Verilli will cover the basics of how and why Wikipedia <http://www.wikipedia.org/> is so successful, and how you can edit an article.

*The Open Video Project: *The purpose of the Open Video Project is to collect and make available a repository of digitized video content for the digital video, multimedia retrieval, digital library, and other research communities. Dean Jansen will walk you through the theory and practice behind this user-powered project.

*Creative Commons Licenses: *Fred Benenson will walk you through the Creative Commons <http://www.creativecommons.org/> licensing scheme and teach you how to share your work and protect it at the same time.
*

**Media Literacy — Breaking Ads with Digital Media - The LAMP: *We’re way past the age of only receiving one-way, top-down, corporate media messages. Today digital media and the Internet allow us talk back, interrogate, and re-create corporate-produced persuasive messages. In this session you’ll see commercials broken down to their persuasive essence, then re-created to reveal the truths left out. How are digital media and the web used to do it? Why would we want to do it? Is it legal? Find out here.**

*Citizen Journalism: *Mike Meyers of NowPublic.com will teach you how to get started as a citizen journalist.

*An Introduction to the Grassroots.org Web Builder: *Representatives from Grassroots.org <http://www.grassroots.org/> will show you how to build an effective web presence for your nonprofit in a single afternoon.

*SEO and Google Grants: *Kevin Lee will cover how and why search engine marketing is a critical tool for non-profits including some tips for both organic SEO best practices and how to maximize the return from your Google grant, as well as how to apply for a Google grant if you don’t have one.

*Understanding CRM for nonprofits and activists: *Develop an understanding of how/why online databases and organizing tools are game changers when it comes to lobbying, fundraising and communications. Presented by Charles Lenchner of Democracy in Action <http://www.democracyinaction.org/>.

**9/20 - 7-9pm - Tech Demos - The Latest Tools for Online Participation in Democracy**

Grassroots Web <http://web.meetup.com/27> and OneWebDay have teamed up to provide our own version of the New York Tech Meetup. We’ll be hosting 6 demos, all in tune with this year’s theme of online participation in
democracy. Here they are:

 - Speechology <http://www.speechology.org/>
- MixedInk <http://www.mixedink.com/>
- WorkInTown <http://workintown.com/wordpress/>
- Open Congress <http://www.opencongress.org/>
- Democracy in Action <http://www.democracyinaction.org/>
- Independence Year <http://iyear.us/>

The demos will be held in Room 101 at NYU’s Courant Institute, 251 Mercer St. at the corner of West 4th St. Please RSVP at http://web.meetup.com/27/calendar/8642107/

The demos will also be webcast at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/OWD
**9/20 - 9pm-midnight - Party!**

Contact: Anne Singer, 202-271-4679 or Susan Crawford, 202-669-0430

*OneWebDay Brings Internet Visionaries to New York City*

*Workshops for the Public, a Teach-in for Seniors and a Rally Starring Hon.
Gale Brewer, Sree Sreenivasan, Craig Newmark, John Perry Barlow, Tim
Westergren, Lawrence Lessig *

*and Others*

New York, NY – On the third annual “Earth Day for the Internet”, communities
across the country are holding events to learn about and advocate for that
marvel of modern infrastructure, the Internet. It happens in the United
States and around the world on OneWebDay, Monday, September 22, 2008, with
New York City, where it launched three years ago, the epicenter of this
year’s celebration.

“Earth Day was the model when I founded OneWebDay in 2006,” says Susan
Crawford, a professor of law specializing in Internet issues at the
University of Michigan.  ”In 1969, one man asked the people to do what their
elected representatives would not: take the future of the environment into
their own hands.” According to Crawford, “people’s lives now are as
dependent on the Internet as they are on the basics like roads, energy
supplies and running water. We can no longer take that for granted, and we
must advocate for the Internet politically, and support its vitality
personally.”

The theme of this year’s OneWebDay is online participation in democracy,
coinciding with the U.S. elections, and that will be the central focus of
events in Washington, DC.

The online hub for OneWebDay 2008 is www.onewebday.org, but New York hosts
the biggest real world events on September 20 and 22, including a cyber-star
studded rally where audience members will text questions to the moderator.
All events are free and open to the public.

*New York City Events*

* *

*(1) WHAT*: Rally for the Internet Main Event

*WHEN*: Monday, September 22, 11:45 A.M. – 2 P.M.

*WHERE:* Washington Square Park Teen Plaza, W. 4th St. @ University Pl.

*WHO*: Susan Crawford, Founder of OneWebDay;

Hon. Gale A. Brewer, New York City Council;

Sree Sreenivasan, Columbia Journalism and WNBC-TV;

Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora free Internet radio;

Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law and author of “Code V.2″;

Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist;

Dharma Dailey, Research Director at Ethos Wireless consulting;

John Perry Barlow, founder of Electronic Frontier Foundation;

Andrew Baron, producer at Rocketboom video news blog;

Samuel J. Klein, Director of Community Content at One Laptop Per Child;
others TBA.

*Details at:* http://www.onewebday.org/base/index.php/New_York

*(2) WHAT*: Seniors Rally for Digital Inclusion, City Hall

*WHEN*: Monday, September 22, 11 A.M.

*WHERE*: New York City Hall, 260 Broadway, New York, NY 10007

*WHO*: Older Adults Technology Services (OATS)

*Details at:* http://www.onewebday.org/base/index.php/New_York

* *

*(3) WHAT*: Workshops on E-activism, E-journalism, E-citizenship

*WHEN*: Saturday, September 20, 2-4 P.M.

*WHERE*: NYU’s Courant Institute, 251 Mercer @ West 4th St., Rooms TBA

*WHO*: Katherine Fry, The LAMP, NYC - media literacy; Charles Lenchner,
DemocracyInAction - tools for nonprofits; Grassroots.org - easy website
building for nonprofits; NYC Wireless - build your own router, etc.; Fred
Benenson, Creative Commons; Dean Jansen, Open Video; Mike Verrilli -
Wikipedia; Mike Meyers - citizen journalism; Kevin Lee - SEO/Google Grants.

*Details at:*
http://www.onewebday.org/base/index.php/2008_Workshops_Planning

*(4) WHAT*: Tech Demos for Online Democratic Participation

*WHEN*: Saturday, September 20, 7-9 P.M.

*WHERE*: NYU’s Courant Institute, 251 Mercer, @ West 4th St., Room #101

*WHO*: Matt Cooperrider and other Grassroots Web experts

*Details at:* http://web.meetup.com/27/calendar/8642107/

*****

OneWebDay, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization. It has a Board made up of
online luminaries (Doc Searls, David Weinberger, David Isenberg, Mary
Hodder), business people (Kaarli Tasso, Allison Fine, David Johnson, Rick
Whitt), a NYC PR person (Renee Edelman, Edelman), and a former state AG (Jim
Tierney, Maine). Its president is Susan Crawford, a professor at the
University of Michigan Law School. She is committed to working on this
holiday for the next seven years.

One can see how there are lots of pros and cons to Spinspotter. First, in true Web 2.0 fashion, its effectiveness is entirely dependent upon its users. I read a good amount of news about a variety of topics, and so far my Spinspotter tool hasn’t lit up once in three days. If Spinspotter doesn’t catch on, and nobody else is creating markers, it is almost entirely useless to me. One thing I do like is that encourages me to think critically about the news I’m reading, and provides an outlet for me to share my findings, all while demanding some level of responsibility on my part. I can’t flag just anything; I have to be able to name specifically what about it is spin, and since I can’t create a marker as an anonymous Spinspotter user, I am being held accoutable to a degree for my opinion. On the other hand, my marker appears almost immediately, which suggests to me that it’s not being reviewed by anyone for accuracy or appropriateness. So in theory, I could actually be using Spinspotter to create more spin–suppose I marked an article about the pro-life movement. I could choose any rule of spin I wanted to, and then use my explanation space to air my personal opinions on abortion. Should another Spinspotter user find the article, they would then be subjected to my invectives which may or not be have anything to do with the quality of journalism.

I’m all for anything that encourages a real understanding of media, and I think Spinspotter was designed with the intention that people ask questions about the news they read, and share their ideas with others. This is crucial to being an active and responsible citizen and human being, and I applaud the people at Spinspotter for their efforts. I hope that it won’t be too long for teachers and students to couple tools like Spinspotter with other multimedia classroom activities. Such critical analysis is needed more than ever; perhaps it’s not a coincidence that the tool has debuted just after the Democratic and Republican conventions, when candidates and their supporters are working overtime to make their cases for should be elected President in two months. It has always been too easy for those in the media to spin reality–we are, after all, imperfect humans with our own opinions and needs. Journalism itself is a great example of how anything that can be used for good can also be abused for ill purposes, and the possibility that Spinspotter could be used the “wrong” way is not a good enough reason not to use it. They have an incredibly talented journalism advisory board, and after all, it’s only in its beta stage. I have a lot of hope for Spinspotter and its potential to transform the Internet, making media literacy a part of our every day lives.

All of this is a bandage over the real problem, which is a lack of media literacy and plain old responsibility. Everyone, not just athletes, needs to understand the possible consequences of material that is posted online, and it needs to be taught beginning at a young age. Right now, few if any of the average college-age students have received any formal media literacy training, and one could argue that they make these mistakes because they weren’t carefully taught. Of course, knowing that a certain action could be hurtful doesn’t necessarily keep people from doing bad things–but at least they go into the situation with awareness, and they have no excuse but to take full responsibility for their actions.

When I was in high school, the athletic code was breached all the time but rarely enforced, even in the case where a student was found drunk by her father, who happened to be the coach of her gymnastics team. If that were to happen today, her father would have to stand up to the entire athletic department and explain why she should be exempt from punishment, even as a video of her drinking is playing on their computer screens. Accountability is always a positive thing, and it is a tough lesson that we must each take responsibility for what we do every day of our lives. People are people, and by definition we all make mistakes, but the Internet can completely change the lessons we learn from them.  Perhaps our mistake lies in not teaching students about the power of media, but the lesson–which some have not yet learned–should be that quick fix-it measures, like banning social networking or the signing of an Internet ethics policy, are not enough.