The TWAIN blog

I found two interesting sites today in my regular Hollywood/Entertainment news sites: Ain’t It Cool and DListed. Both of these sites give a different perspective on the Hollywood/Entertainment scene by gathering information from its page visitors who supply info.

The first site is called MagCloud and it is a site for people who want to get into publishing magazines without having to purchase their own print areas. You can upload your magazine while they print and distribute it for you. Is this where printable magazines are headed? Regardless of the Web 2.0 interaction and the decline of print material, couldn’t cost be saved by using Mag Cloud for printing resources for a limited readership? And if you are a blogger who wanted to publish a yearly summary of the blog, what better way than with MagCloud?

The second site is called I’m from Driftwood and it is a blog/social network for gay teens to post their own “Coming Out” stories from the small towns they belong. It is more than just a perspective on gay teenagers; it is a perspective of small town life and acceptance. Very interesting and true stories with great perspectives from the group gathering and posting on this site. Posts include a Google pic taken from the satellite perspective of the small town in which they belong.

What is really interesting about the author of this site is that he helped push the nation’s number one dating site E-Harmony to include gay coupling as part of its site.

With so much “change” in our country, it is great to see more than just the propaganda from both sides of this issue. It is inspiring to read the stories of the citizens in the small towns. I really suggest you check out the site. As a teacher, it would be interesting to develop a similar discussion on a perspective on any issue and share what it is like to live in a smaller town and how that issue affects the citizens in that town. Go back to slavery, to voting rights, to women’s rights, to prohibition, etc. and write from the perspective of your own town on how these rights and the STRUGGLE itself affect you or someone in the town..

November 4 marked the introduction of a new president-elect for our nation. It also marked the end of equality in California as defined by the act of marriage for both heterosexuals and homosexuals. The campaign funding for both opponents and proponents raised $35 million for proponents and $37 million for the opposition to Prop 8. Close gap for funding. The vote was close as well: 52% voted yes for Prop 8 and 48% voted no.

Whether you are for Proposition 8 or against it doesn’t matter here. This message is about the rise of a civil rights movement under our noses but using the technology to connect nationwide. I ran a search on Facebook this morning and found over 108 groups already setup to join members of Facebook to petition against “Proposition H8″. Over 500 with the use of the words “Proposition 8″ and another 500 using the phrase “Prop 8″. I ran a Google search on these titles and found many wikis, blogs, websites, and videos for and against Proposition 8. I also found sites that were actively recruiting for future planned events for protesting these causes as well.

This past weekend, major cities (and some smaller ones as well) had protesters at their capital buildings voicing opposition to California’s reversal of marriage rights. How did all these protesters organize? And what’ next for them?

They organized using the same tools we are using in education – Web 2.0, social networking, social streaming. They too are part of the “Human Network” as Cisco calls it in their commercials.

Without listing different sites and all different perspectives here, just know that there is a network supporting or protesting the movement for same-sex marriage nationwide. There is a civil movement taking place around us. And they are planning more events and more ways to spread the message using these social networks and social impact resources.

Imagine 1955 if Rosa Parks had a wiki or a Twitter about her day on a bus. What if the Million Man march in Washington was advocated on a NING, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.? How would the anti-war demonstrations of the Vietnam war gone if they had Web 2.0 tools?

Beyond just this current movement, our president-elect has plans on his site to deliver a weekly video state of the union address using YouTube embedded videos. He already used Twitter to cover his movements in the campaign. Now, he is embracing change using the technology tools.

Now is the time to get our teachers and administrators onboard. The world is passing all of us by when we are limiting the access to these tools to our students and teachers. The world is connecting around us and we are still in the “one-room schoolhouse” mentality. A civil-rights movement is underfoot here in the US of A. What better time to introduce the idea of collaborative network environments than with the movement of civil action? Now is the time to share about “Personal Learning Communities” as these protesting communities are developing and working together world-wide.

Now is the time for our teachers, administrators, students, etc. to connect to connecting.