This is great. Why aren't there more of her?

This evening, I was listening to an episode of Bullseye, on WNYC in New York. One segment featured an interview with Tavi Gevinson. Tavi is 16 years old. She started her own fashion blog at age 11. She became kind of famous. She now has an online magazine for teenage girls, called "The Style Rookie." Stories from this magazine has been collected (by Tavi) into a book (Rookie Yearbook One).

Her story is very impressive, and definitely speaks to the possibilities of Web 2.0. What was more impressive to me was the question I found myself asking: Why aren't there more of her out there? How could I inspire my middle school students to be themselves in such a real and public way?

Here is the interview. Take a listen.

Blogging in a Living Room in Cuba

Yesterday morning, NPR ran this story about a woman in Cuba who has established a school -- she calls it a blogging academy -- in her living room.

Twice a week, Yoani Sanchez transforms the living room of her small Havana high-rise apartment into what she calls the Blogger Academy. About 30 students cram inside to learn how to use WordPress, Wikipedia and the other tools of a digital revolution that Cuba's government views warily.

Her desire to communicate, and empower others to communicate in politically difficult circumstances is so great that she has a system for doing so without an internet connection of her own.

It made me think of what learning can look like where there is something really at stake.

You can listen to/read about the story here.
And here is a link to her blog.

People Power

An ongoing question for me continues to be: "What happens when people are given a voice?"

I ask it often of myself about my students in a middle school science classroom. But the power of the internet to allow for easy, free collaboration and networking takes the question to an entirely new level.

This week, NPR's series On the Media interviews Clay Shirky, who has just published a book called Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. The interview was (for me at least) a discussion about the question I have been asking myself.

You can listen to the interview in the player below. You can also go to the On the Media website for a transcript. According to the site, the transcript will be available as of the afternoon of Monday, March 3rd.