Learning to count via the web?
While collecting material for this column I found a post on the archive of a
discussion forum for public librarians, a post, which, by the way, was among
the very few I've found which has tried to precisely
define just what the "read/write web" is.
This particular post reported on a session at a conference:
The speaker at Computers in
Libraries helped his four-year old daughter put on the Web a book she
drew with crayons. Now she periodically asks her father to take her
to the online book so she can see how many hundreds of people have
read her book. The speaker also gave examples of teenagers who are
blogging or podcasting to audiences of hundreds or even thousands. In
the old days, students wrote papers for their teacher. Now kids are
aware of making content for large audiences.
Yes, there certainly are quite a few teenagers whose blogs attract thousands of
visitors, and some of these blogs are even very good (and even interesting, which
isn't necessarily the same thing). But unless that four year old daughter is getting
some free advertising via her father's blog, I have my doubts about whether she's
learned to count into the hundreds yet.
Go to: ... though not always kept, or
Go to: Not a new promise, or
Go to: How many prosumers can fit on the head of cyberspace?