Rowan tree: Twitter/social media and social and political change - how has/does/could it work uniquely in Africa?, Upcoming "Information Technology, the Network Society and the Global University" course, Connecting in virtual spaces for this course, Social Theory

Hi Jo,

You're from Kenya, Africa, and studying at University in Germany - great! Twitter and social and political change - how does it work uniquely in Africa?

What's your avatar's name in SL? I just went into SL and didn't find any contact from a new avatar that could be yours; mine again is "Aphilo Aarde". The course's long-standing group is called "Soc & Info Tech - Aphilo on Berkman." Besides finding and joining the group, please simply come to the course in SL this Saturday, Sep 27, 2014, at 11am Pacific, which is, I think, 1900 hours in Germany. Please let your researcher friends know in the colloquium (by reading parts of this email?) about this Saturday's course; after the first hour in SL, we'll all migrate into a Google + group video Hangout for the second hour.

The first half of this course is significantly informed by Manuel Castells' research on the Network Society especially in terms of the generative history of the IT revolution as it unfolds, which I find captivating and riveting. The significance of the network society (Castells) as it develops and comes informs social network sites is fascinating. It will be interesting too to come into conversation with all of you who come vis-a-vis Fuchs, Morozov and others as the course unfolds. The second half of this course will involve discussing shaping a wiki MIT OCW-centric Global University, planned for all 7,106 languages and 242 countries, plus much much more. I'm hoping all who participate can blog or post weekly about the emergent conversation.

Have you seen this Harvard video on the ethnography of Internet cafes in Ghana by UC Berkeley's Jenna Burrell - http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2013/02/burrell ?

Here too are the Media Studies wiki subject plus main links - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Media_Studies#World_University_and_School_Links, the Visual Anthropology wiki subject page plus main links - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Visual_Anthropology#World_University_and_School_Links, and Africa World University and School - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Africa#World_University_and_School_Links, the beginning of online MIT OCW-centric Universities in African Nation States and in main African languages, as resources and examples of how WUaS works. Check out the MIT OCW courseware here, and please add some resources, or teach to web camera and add this to WUaS.

Please do share this email and invite everyone in your colloquium to the course and looking forward to meeting you in-worlds!

Best und Alles Gute,
Scott

PS I'm reposting further access information and relevant links below.

http://scottmacleod.com
http://worlduniversityandschool.org


*

"Information Technology, the Network Society, and the Global University" at WUaS Introduction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j2kxndl77U


*

Dear Uni-Bonn researchers,

(I'm not sure my email to you went through from info@worlduniversityandschool.org just now, so I'm resending this in Jo Ok's email thread here, Best regards, Scott).

Greetings, and welcome from Harvard's virtual island in Second Life (my avatar's name is Aphilo Aarde - search for and find this avatar in SL where I am presently) to the course "Information Technology, the Network Society and the Global University" which meets today, now, to get familiar with the information technologies and actually begins next Saturday.

You'll find further information about the course here -
http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2014/09/humpback-whales-information-technology.html and here -
http://worlduniversityandschool.blogspot.com/2014/09/information-technology-network-society.html .

From 11am - noon Pacific Time, we'll meet on Harvard's virtual island in Second Life in SL (get an avatar), at this SL URL - http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Berkman/105/63/25 - and from noon to 1 pm Pacific Time we'll meet in Google + group video Hangouts (add the worlduniversityandschool@gmail.com address back in G+) from this URL:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/108179352492243955816/+WorlduniversityandschoolOrg/posts.

Come learn how and why the information age emerges (a Manuel Castells' informed approach), come contribute to beginning MIT OCW-centric World University and School, planned for all 7,106 languages and 242 countries, and come become familiar with these synchronous teaching information teaching technologies.

Please invite your friends to join this "Information Technology, the Network Society and the Global University" conversation, and I look forward to meeting you in-world.

All the best,
Scott

*

...