Online it’s harder to judge integrity. You lack those face to face indicators which have evolved over millions of years. Despite that this add on lie-detector for Skype is a worrying development. I know such technology is already used by insurance companies to detect potential fraud. But I think the solution to bridging the online trust-gap is simpler: spend more time getting to know people.
Month: December 2006
The Path to Perfect Play – a new podcast on the Grassroots Channel
“Play is a every child’s human right”
After a decade or more working with after school clubs and play schemes Laura Watts established a new organisation in Birmingham called Dens of Equality. She wanted to help the families who found their children effectively barred from the pleasure of full blown play because they had some form of disability.
Dens of Equality is a central hub which helps groups of parents create their own autonomous organisations. With these the families can apply for funds and also approach play workers directly, encouraging them to find new ways to include all children in their play schemes. They create tight new relationships which work for professionals, parents and children, all using a system which hands power to the people closest to each child.
Please leave comments on this blog.
Links – mentioned in this episode:
Written version (pdf) of this story with more information (dead link)
Birmingham Early Years and Childcare (dead link)
Todd Hannula (dead link)
Soweto Kinch Podcast– direct link to mp3
Roger Telphia Podcast – direct link to mp3
Kings Norton Farmers Market Podcast – direct link to mp3
It works. Good luck Michele
Last month I wrote a little something about how technology is defined by the simple truth that it is somehting which doesn’t yet work properly.
Today I got another point of view. Writing on the Bamboo Project blog (another frequent user of the nptech tag) Michele Roy Martin describes how her daughter and ex-husband found themselves intimately involved in a shooting at a school in the US. The news spread fast. Michele’s take, though, was:
What struck me about all this was not only how quickly news spread through the use of technology, but also how the kids and families were able to use this media to begin connecting, processing, discussing and mourning what had happened. I thought about how as a parent, if it had been my child, I would have been so grateful to go to a site and see this outpouring of love and connection coming from other people, people who didn’t even know my child. As the mother of a child who saw what happened, I’m also grateful that she has the ability to process her own trauma and grief by connecting to so many people. It’s astonishing to me to see what technology can accomplish in creating human bonds.
I read a lot of stories about how people are worried that online community interferes with “real” community. That may be true in some cases. But this is one time when I believe that technology may actually help in healing “real life.”
I hope things settle quickly for you and your family. Take care.
Birmingham bits and bats… a new podcast on the Grassroots Channel
Just a couple of things I wanted to mention. Thanks a bundle to Pete Ashton of Bournville (the place where we make chocolate) who wrote this about the Grassroots Channel:
Podnosh is a podcast station based in Birmingham that I stumbled across recently. I like that this pretty established outfit with high aims exists outside of my awareness – it implies there’s even more happening online in the city for me to discover. I’m particularly taken with the Grassroots Channel which “is here to provoke and inspire anyone who thinks they just might want to change the world around them”. For a quality sample check out this interview with Soweto Kinch, a jazz saxophonist and rapper from Handsworth who recently released an CD set in a tower block in B19, samples of which can be found on his MySpace page. Given what he says in that interview I intend to investigate Mr Kinch further.
Pete come and talks to us – I bet there’s loads I’ve yet to discover. Perhaps together we can get dear old web 1.-1 Digital Birmingham listening?
But double thanks to Pete for telling me that Birminghamitsnotshit won the annual Birmingham Pantomime Horse Grand National on just the second time of asking. Unbelievable. Jon Bounds you are in big trouble for not sharing your triumph with us here, first.
soweto kinch grand national horse racing birmingham is brill