Here is the video from Thomas.

And here is Peter singing Biko in the 1980s.

For Immediate Release

Unfortunately my weekly report to For Immediate Release was not aired on Monday to a minor technical glitch.  The report has been posted here as an FIR Cut, and you can tune in when you have 7-8 free minutes.

This week I discuss a Nielsen report revealing a divide between media habits of Westerners and Asians.  Being the year of the ox, I move cautiously and make sure I understand what appears to be the important message and its limits.

Thanks to Thomas Crampton for sharing this report.

John Kerr in the Singapore office shared the link, and now I pass it on to you.

2009 Trust Barometer

You can also find Richard Edelman’s blog post here.

Enjoy!

I am not entirely sure what to think of the benchmark against US ad revenues in this analyst’s report. While certainly a clear point of comparison, does the constant U.S.-centric focus on ad revenues distort our view of these companies? I need to do some digging today and learn more about each company.  The links above will take you to financial statements if you are deeply curious.  Call me an academic, but I just like to look a little deeper and learn for myself.

Food for thought, but mostly a big congrats to Baidu and Sohu.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

I have been free to focus on my Web 2.0 interests these past 36 hours,  meaning my year of the ox is already off to a prosperous start.  I have also been diligent, as an Ox year requires, and read everything carefully.  Here are a few of the education 2.0 items which I have found most useful.

First, HASTAC has shared a report on the future of education 2.0.  Titled Horizon 2009, specifically the report discusses six emerging technologies which are likely to have an impact on education and learning.  You can download the .pdf here (look on the right under “links”) and also see a summary here.

As a quick illustration, think about China’s move toward 3G this year.  The reports discussion of mobile technologies and learning strikes me as having value to educators on the mainland.  For educators in the hard sciences, the use of geolocative data seems an easy way to begin plotting data on a map and allowing learnes to see the broader patterns (e.g., migration).  The report has left me thinking about my own course, Digital Media Across Asia, and the way I need to begin integrating these tools into my courses and exploring how they can be used not only to enhance our learning community but also to explore business and marketing applications.

Another idea, which I first picked up from the Harvard Business School teaching RSS feed, is called connectivism.  Simply put, connectivism is the idea that knowledge is spread across networks, and as technology-centered educators we must help learners build a network, successfully engage that network, and build reciprocity so that knowledge flows in and out of our network.  We are accessing knowledge which we most likely would not have had access to.  Educators should help learners become a valued node of exchange (my own term) within these digital learning communities.

Ok, that is a non-expert’s description.  Here is the Wikipedia entry on connectivism.

Having read several articles and on-line discussions, I personally have concluded that connectivism is not a learning theory, but instead a description of how our pedagogy can “play out” when we add technology to the mix.  You can decide for yourself by reading here, here, and here.

Though I have a different view than the connectivism advocates, I have appreciated this discussion because it has helped me to clarify my thinking about links and networks in education.

How does this happen?  Going back to my participant-centered learning courses at Harvard Business school, experiences become a critical point.  We must help learners have successful connected experiences.  We must call into question decision making processes and help students think about where the information came from, its reliability, its value compared to other data, and more.  Such a process seems inherently democratic in that we are engaging people in an exchange, and diversity should typically add value to most exchanges.  Of course such a process is also relational, and reciprocity would seem to be an integral part of networked learning activity.

So while there really is nothing new in connectvism, I have loved the discussion simply because it helps bring clarity.  And think about it…doesn’t this sound an awful lot like a management theory for 21st century knowledge workers?

So where to go if you want more?  I have picked up a few blogs and added them to my feeds.  Perhaps you will find a couple of these interesting.

• elearnspace
• Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning
• Informal Learning Blog

And bringing this all home to Asia, these learning networks have the potential look different in each country.  Japan, being a strong mobile market, may want to explore mobile devices in learning (as illustrated in the Horizon 2009 report) while Singapore and South Korea may be focused on the Internet.  Hong Kong, specifically, may want to look at YouTube.

And what about linguistic currency.  How much of the world’s knowledge gets symbolized in English, Chinese or Spanish?  How good are the on-line translation tools?

Ah, so many questions…and such a short Chinese New Year.  I need more time to be patient and diligent about my own connected learning.

Do check this one out.  As I have been feeling sad to see so many of my favorite blogs and feeds slowly migrate across the tracks and into the self-promotion realm (been happening for a while), here is gem worth reading and keeping your eyes on.

And on that note, I would like to say it is nice to see my friend Jeremy in HK kicking off his blog entries for 2009.

All nutritious entries for the mind.  Enjoy.

Check out this video, and programmers may also be interested in the technology as well.  If so, visit the Vimeo post for more details.

History of the Internet from PICOL on Vimeo.

If you have not already taken this survey, and you can spare 2-4 minutes (literally…these are simple questions), then I would be grateful for your support.  The link is here.

Click Here to take survey

Please spread the word. My target is 500 responses by mid-January.

Thank you for your support!

So I hope you enjoy this video.  Thanks to Catalist for pointing this out.

Iran: A nation of bloggers from Mr.Aaron on Vimeo.