The biggest spreaders of Islamophobia in the US

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/08/islamophobia.html

These are the groups spreading Islamophobia in the US.  There are about 5 million Muslims in the US.  The vast majority, just like the vast majority of Christians, are peaceful people who just want to make a good life here and to contribute to society.  There are nut cases and extreme fundamentalists both from Muslims and Christians here.  So spreading Islamophobia simply stirs up useless and wrong hatred and fear.  It should be stopped.

the power of social media, by socialnomics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5a4kSMA2b5k

This is a powerful presentation of the power of social media, by Socialnomics.

I have another blog, internetcollectiveaction.com.  A lot of times I think I should post the same thing on both sites because of the power and influence of social media and the changes that are coming so quickly. 

Great article on how the present looked impossible 20 years ago

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2011/08/why_the_impossi.php

"Twenty years ago if I had been paid to convince an audience of reasonable, educated people that in 20 years time we'd have street and satellite maps for the entire world on our personal hand held phone devices -- for free -- and with street views for many cities -- I would not be able to do it. I could not have made an economic case for how this could come about "for free." It was starkly impossible back then.
These supposed impossibilities keep happening with increased frequency. Everyone "knew" that people don't work for free, and if they did, they could not make something useful without a boss. But today entire sections of our economy run on software instruments created by volunteers working without pay or bosses."




I love Kevin Kelly.

How about if the university comes to us? For free?

http://www.floatinguniversity.com/

"
In Fall 2011, The Floating University will launch its first course, Great Big Ideas, a survey of fourteen major fields delivered by one of its leading minds. Each hour-long lecture explores the keys questions in a field, lays out the methods for answering them and makes a case for the relevance to the student and the significance to humanity. As a whole, the course serves as an introduction to knowledge and a primer in the diverse modes of thinking necessary for success in the 21st Century.
Three colleges, Harvard, Yale and Bard, will offer the course for credit this Fall, with distinguished members of their faculties leading the discussions on campus based on video lectures, readings and related content delivered through The Floating University's e-learning platform. At the same time, portions of the course will be made freely available to the general public and interested life-long learners can subscribe for access to the full Web offering."

http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2011/08/free-online-class-shakes-up-photo-education/

"The breadth of content and openness of the class is enough to make any online education junkie salivate. The class’s RSS feeds host audio-recorded lectures, class assignments and special discussions. Worth’s Fall course attracted over 10,000 visitors to its website from 1,632 cities in 107 countries and the Winter course is available as an iPhone App. Lectures from the course have been downloaded thousands of times on iTunes."

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/

http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/

http://www.khanacademy.org/

  I certainly hope this is the wave of the future, where our intellectual resources are available to everyone.  Of course, I got my 2 degrees the old-fashioned way, by attending classes and workshops.  But for any time and any way educational data can be made more accessible, I'm for it.

Update: Stanford kicks in:
http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/08/21/1820240/More-Stanford-Computing-Courses-Go-Free?utm_source=headlines&utm_medium=email