Teaching and learning has not changed much at all,
but the tools used to do so have been installed,
upgraded, patched and begun to evolve.
Where Aristotle might use a stick to draw in the sand,
now a teacher draws on a digital blackboard for one hundred grand.

Where face-to-face conversations were once needed,
online chat-rooms are monitored, sold and seated.
Now I can see and hear you talking.
Now I can raise my avatar’s hand to ask Stephen Hawking,
Any question I might think, if he answers I might get a blink.

At the very core of this discussion is the reason for evolving
as the present day model of higher education is dissolving.
Many technology geniuses are college dropouts such as
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg with a net worth of $17.5 billion.
Facebook changed the world forever.
Facebook and Twitter were necessary to empower
the Arab Spring and Occupy Together.

In Tunisia, one video emerged filmed inside a hospital in the town of Kasserine:
a young man lay dead with his brains spilled clean.
Posted and re-posted hundreds of times on YouTube, Facebook, and elsewhere,
[the video] set off a wave of revulsion across North Africa and the Middle East.
Many thought or stated, You don’t want to see this, it’s horrible, but you must.
You have a moral obligation to look at what is happening, even if in disgust.

At the core of these movements is the reinvention of power structures.
The toppling of dictatorships be it governmental or corporate,
is the driving force behind these movements which were all initiated online.
All along, the price tag of a bachelor’s degree has continued to increase.
Student protests have popped up all over due to extreme tuition hikes.
These peaceful protests have been met by brute force by the police.

They question the value of student loans and the trickery of college recruiters
pulling the unwary into student loans in order to drive profit margins.
Profits never seen by the average faculty or students.
One can see how traditional learning programs might be threatened
by online learning’s rapid and exponential adaptation.
What we are seeing is an evolution of higher education.

A “Mic Check” on the ivory tower, where knowledge has for centuries
been kept from the general public through over-specialization
of research and academic elitism, disconnected from the practical,
to a more populist approach of community driven education.
Programs are being designed with the students’ needs in mind to empower.
Self-efficacy is something almost entirely new and extremely desired.

Now, professors and universities must evolve quickly
to a world that questions the value of the ivory tower,
that questions the structure of its power,
that questions if the tower should have ever existed at all
and if so how should it be rebuilt before it falls.

Put it under a microscope and watch it grow. What is the view? Does the single-celled organism multiply and divide? Does it become a network we can use to communicate the politics we often despise. Can we watch it from another height? Wait ten years and see if it has become more. Will a survey help? Can we ask neutrons and protons what party they voted for? Did they use social media inside their atomic core?

We often try and examine our literature in order to examine the “bigger picture”. We often forget the
Doppler effect when we explore. The color of the frequency that approaches us is blue. As the wavelength slows it reddens in hue. And the wavelength slooooows down. We can examine a super nova after it has passed. We are not able to measure it before its blast.

Politics in social media is much the same. We will not be able to understand the effect it has had until decades have come and gone. What we need is to look inside. What did you feel in 2008? Did you feel the world of politics had changed? Did you feel the momentum of which opinion was shaped? What were your emotions on election day? Did it feel differently than before? Win or lose I felt things would never be the same as I cried for joy.

I’m not sure how I was pulled so strongly into the race. Maybe it was my health. Maybe it was the economy. Maybe it was the two wars. Maybe it was the sense of change that might come. I look at all the studies I have read about social media and what it might have done and I know one thing. I was engaged. Not through Facebook, Twitter or blogging but through my heart. That feeling can never be measured, bottled or caged.

No study is perfect.
It casts a net on what it must.
Its narrow vision is part of its crutch.
To show what it wants.

Illuminate what it chooses to.
More research is always needed.
Pointed out because it is deserved.
The net is too shallow to serve.

I think of Twitter as a device.
How it is used can not be measured
For what you focus on is but a slice.
PR versus journalists at war.

Who will get the recognition for
A story they did not create.
Picking pieces from a carcass.
Vultures earning their purpose.

I see them all intertwined.
One needs the other to survive.
Facebook a tool gone awry.
To be replaced by another soon I subscribe.

The written word a tool we will always need.
People putting letters in front of another
To make sense of the digital world we feed.
With the Tweets and Wall updates we seed.

Trying to connect it together
We will need more research one way or another.
At the end of each paper we all struggle.
Our nature is bias.

Our sources are biased.
We are always looking through a lens we create.
We are always searching for truths we mediate.
To gather a scrap of flesh to live.

To mount a head on a wall for a trophy.
To archive the tweets and articles that makes us feel alive.
That validate that we existed.
That we made a difference if only for an instance.

There are savages among us.
They live next door.
Waiting to know more.
They are in your friend list.
They are in our politics.
Bending laws to rule us.

We fear Stalin.
We curse communism.
Now the iron fist of data exists.
We fear our information
Being taken from us.

But we want bliss.
To be surrounded by people we trust.
So we must give away a little privacy
So that we might find the community
We have lost.
Which technology promised.

Will our data be sold?
Will a status update
One day make us an inmate?
Will our location be used
To track our habits?
To sell a product or stab us.
Is there any escaping this?

Tracked like mice
We submit to the maze.
Not caring what price we pay.
Bandwidth the water of knowledge
That grows cities.
Expands minds.
Is money and time.

Trapping families inside.
Glued to the network.
Smart phones the new slave collar.
Paid for by the mighty dollar
Created out of thin air.
We play this game of monopoly
Because it is better to be unaware.

Watching.
Tracking.
Selling.
Stalking.
Listening.

Submitting.
Updating.
Posting
Commenting.
Sharing.

Freedom is fading.

There are two ways through life.
The way of nature and the way of grace.
Grace is forgiveness and love.
Nature seeks to put you in your place.

How we wandered.
How we ran through the woods.
Walking sticks in hand.
Defending our imagined land.

The trees we climbed.
The forts we destroyed and built.
Animals seeking the divine
That some might find.

Decades ago kids played
Board games and kick the can.
Fathers were hard.
Nature they showed.

Sir and mam a title bestowed.
Passing of notes in class
Passed as sexting video.
Check Yes, No or Maybe.
I think I like you baby.

Sweet talk was done between
Lockers or parks we roamed.
Now our children are at risk.
Pedophile’s photos pasted in the parks we visit.
Anonymous emails sent to our children’s friends.
A naked photo taken for fun and jest
Shown for the entire world to digest.

The broken hearted finishing a war started.
Cowards masked behind the internet.
They let their hate speech grow.
Burn the whole house down they say.
Someone hurt me once now it’s hell to pay.
For this is natures way.

Right now my children sit in the backyard.
I worry about them being out of site.
I worry about the friends they will make.
How things have changed.
How technology has sped up everything.

I remember playing all Summer long.
Playing in the woods till the dinner bell rang.
No adults around till the evening came.
We would run and bike all day.
Bullies were met with fist fights
A bully could become your best friend despite
The bullshit you went through for that right.
Because people change.

I see them outside throwing rocks into the ditch.
The two of them so young and perfect.
I pray that they find the way of grace
And that nature is kind on their human race.

Is this how it ends or how it begins? Millions of people networked online through social media ready to take a stand. To take to the streets. To live in tents through the winter and rain. To send a message. That revolution is among us if things don’t change. That good people have done their jobs and played the game. As it was laid out. As the rules were made. Just to have the debt masters change the rules again. Tick tocking the clock ticking. Social networks and Twitter have changed how the game is played. Like radio and TV in the sixties. A text message or a Tweet flys in the face of our puppet masters. In the process it could circumvent disaster. Steer us from the cliff that we so willingly march towards. As the West buys more and more. GDP the standard we worship for economics is our corporate overlord. Pulling the invisible strings at everyone’s core.

My social networks are a reflection of me. I have family and friends. Strangers that I trust in. The more extroverted they are the more I’m in. Share about the world and how you would recreate it. The ones that sit and watch I forget. I notice them every month or two, when I delete down to 150 inside this network of friends I grew. I see value in the people which I am connected to. I want to know each and every one of them not collect them like old shoes.

I tweet therefore I am. I am part of the hashtag revolution, understand? This is bigger than me and bigger than you. This is bigger than any country that I might include. This is global. Livestreaming. Now. As tweets are thrown into the river. What fish will make it to the surface to swim? Make it to the top tweet and make a connection. Be retweeted by millions and change reality’s direction. How many characters does it take to to spell Revolution? How many times must we talk to our audience? Invisible but there. Billions living in despair. As they ask and hope for change. Just to see the same policy enforced and rearranged. Rewritten and renamed. I tweet therefore I am. Part of the human collective. Demanding that we all be treated with empathy and respected.

Is not round.

There is no way to understand what is going on.
No theory of connecting these new media dots that will fit.
That will make it all make sense.
That will create a new model for dead paradigms.
It is alive.
It is thriving.

It is how you put your ear to the ground.
Do you hear the sound?
Powerful winds are flowing.
Through all the data systems we know.
There is a fearless revolution growing.

It asks you to know more.
To consume less.
To invest in our collective futures.
To be conscious.

The silver bullet is you.

Out of a vacuum it swells. The mantra of trillions and trillions of cells.  Begin to whisper. Begin to speak, the story of the overlapping media we seek. So many stories. Too many to tell. From the prophets of past to the stories reshaped to sell. Old ideas wrapped up in new packages. Put under the tree for Christmas Day. Sold on discount the next day on eBay.

I have been part of these groups. Collected our intelligence. We were Borg. One cube floating through cyberspace. We could not be denied. Our presence well known, print media relied on the tidbits of knowledge we had grown. Hijacked by flamers I was threatened and scorned. Stolen information deleted by our own kind. Two admins who no longer wanted to share their time.

They believed their livelihoods threatened, no more spoilers withstood. We never became involved in unreal online hoods. We always discussed our lives and the world we saw. We attempted to define truth, justice and write new laws. The deeper we pushed the more abandoned we became. The more we questioned the more hatred reigned.

Many fake identities began to grow. A group swelled to crush the experiment we now know. As Globatron. An art project with many lives. An extension of many and a reflection of one. For there are no new ideas under the sun. From the beginning everyone experienced what they saw. Not being able to read we drew on cave walls. Not not knowing the Messiah we believed what was told. As stories were passed down for generations to thaw. From the frozen tundra of the Dark Ages. From the philosophy of the massacred Gnostic sages.

So this Matrix we speak of, will never really be understood. It is the Tao. The Way. The everything and nothing, we say. It is collective consciousness. Universal. It is movies. Comics. The games we play. It is all the subcultures we live each day. We all live inside this web of media we discuss. We may never really know, but Do We Must.

I report. Media collides. All voices compete to be heard. From the lips of few to the ears of many. Top down or bottom up. Now all words spoken can be searched. Corporate or public. Citizens or professionals. Hyperlocal or through the wire. Houses will always be on fire. But where. Big media now needs all eyes and ears. Zero in and you might have a place. Maybe featured with your avatar face. Using your smart phone while in the battle zone. Tweet in real-time headlines that might be used by the Times.

The specifics of content are changing. Citizen journalists cover more. See more. The crowd will always know more. Professionals do fact checking many say. But who can we believe today as we watch the talking heads and pay. I can google that quote and know right now. See where those stats came from and where they were found. Citizens are part of the growing knowledge pool. Big media has begun to assimilate all voices like droplets into the flow. Like the water cycle our news is in states. All knowledge pulled from the oceans and streams. The cloud condenses all data and spits it out through the stratosphere. Where those droplets fall many fear.

Let us now hope when any government decides to slaughter. That their are citizen journalists willing to carry the cross and pain of stigmata. Fear of taking the photo or writing the story that could lead to justice. Let us now hope that when these photos arrive. That corporate owned media doesn’t decide to hide the truth that could save thousands of lives. That their agenda is not set by the same lobbyists who buy votes and decide what story is alive. Frustrated. Weary. But hopeful.

Hi there, I’m David Simon. You worship me. I know. You and your wife sat on your couch and watched all five seasons of The Wire in a few weeks. I know you were addicted. I could see your tongues drooling till 2 a.m. as you realized how brilliant I am. And you know how I saw that? You know how I know that? Because I am God. That’s with a capital G mate. God. And so are you, I think. Maybe you are. I’m still pondering that one.

What I did with The Wire has never been done before. I know that too. I know it’s the most under-rated (and possibly the best) T.V. drama in the history of the medium. You think I don’t know. For Pete’s sake man, I’m David Simon. I know what happened to the newspapers. I know the police beat I worked at the Baltimore Sun all those years ago. I know the crime rate. The  know the names of all the cops on my beat. The knew the right judge to call. I know how backwards the educational system and how corrupt the police were and still are. I know that because I saw it. I put my feet on the ground. My ear to the ground as well. I made the calls. I did the following up that you won’t see right now on blogs or on television.  I lived by the journalistic code so many speak about as if it also has a secret handshake. I was not perfect. I made mistakes but I cared. I always saw my story through.

And that’s where The Wire came from. It is an extension of everything I saw. Everything I experienced as a police reporter. I saw everything you want to know on those media outlets you look at and ask why? Why does it not work? I saw why. Why do the newspapers not sell? Why do bloggers think they can do my job? Why did the housing bubble burst? Why is there so much corporate greed? It is all connected my friend. Everything. From every last drop of honest sweat to every last drop of crooked blood that is released on the streets of Baltimore, to the Hills of Hollywood.

These stories are told and retold. Same town, different year, different name, same situation. Where there is money to be made it will be made. Where there is a product to sell it will be sold. Where ethics are to be upheld they will be broken and manipulated. Where careers are to be built they will thrive and then die. I tell you this because you are questioning the history and future of my beloved first career. Well, after having many years to question this myself, I am telling you not to worry. There are no Gods. There are no angels. There are just people trying to survive. Some stick to their guns. Some give it all away and ask for redemption. Some live in both worlds.

I knew for years I was leaving The Sun. I knew for years people were going to be axed. We knew the Internet was going to change things, but we did not know to what extent. You have to remember that the majority of us were English majors. We have a general phobia of technology. I’m still trying to figure out how to do email from my my smart phone. Half of the old crew from The Sun still don’t do email. Maybe it is a generational thing. Who knows. But with that said, let me leave you with this and let you put your tongues back in your mouth and finish the show.

I predict, there will be a new generation of new media journalists that will continue to carry the cross for folks like me. That is why I made The Wire. They will understand all of these new smart phones and tablets and social media gizmos. They will be the children of 9/11. They will not take no for an answer. They will demand the truth because they will be tired of eating and breathing lies. They might not be fed by the same corporate machine that put most of my pithy wordsmith mates in their cushy, lifetime careers. They will build new empires. And these empires will not be built with ink on paper. They will live in server rooms through cloud computing. Facts will be checked and the truth will always prevail. Maybe not as much sweat will drop, but the blood will still flow. That much I know.

A red fire. Caught in my stomach. Stuck in my throat. Making me choke. Making my mind bloat. Rotating lights of super sharp flat screens. A smart phone. A laptop. A tablet. This ball rotates and shows headlines. What is going on in this world? How quickly we are on the decline. Showcasing partisan bickering as if it is a game. Politics enough to make anyone veer from the path they had set out to climb. The mountain top is high and the path is hard. Boulders along the way so you must travel light. Light on your toes despite, all the weight we carry. The weight not external but inside. The weight of the world to decide which path mankind wishes to take.

A thin wire. It has no name and rotates within. Agitated, shaken and stirred. This anxiety is not for you or for me. It is to be released. It is to be given room to be. To be extinguished and to make you free. Rotating the wire pricks our stomachs from within. Acid reflux a sign of our disgust. A sign of our growing lack of trust. A different theme for today the headlines stream. A news memo released for us to read. To pick new gossip and new memes. To control the thoughts we grow and breed.

A black hole. I remember life before all of this. A child living in a state of bliss. Using only my imagination, I played. No need for media to see. Then quickly, I was pulled in. Sesame Street was my gateway drug. Indoctrinated with television, commercials and toys. With shiny packages I became a branded boy. I learned the logos that built my world. I became a slave in this capitalist drug field. That is quickly dying. Having tapped too many resources. Having developed too many molecules for our lives. There is no plastic bottle large enough for the black hole we feel.

Even more molecules needed for a new plastic belt. Our stomachs too large we all have felt. Now, we cannot unplug with all our will. This system is everywhere and has bought all the water, food and pills. Our air will have a logo soon too. We will choke on the logos printed on the oxygen in the room. As we breathe the corporate wealth vented through the smokestacks and streams. The cancer and heart attacks will grow and scream. With no one to answer is this a dream?

As a young man in the Dot-com boom and bust
I remember how easy we all lost trust
How the Internet was said to be a fad

Leaving for winter break from a digital agency
Coming back to a pink slip and a bloody lip
The creative department’s skills no longer needed
How we were given garbage bags to fill up our cubicle debris
How easily we lost the Midas touch that created this greed

Because brokers had traded monopoly money on inflated dreams
All foreshadowing a future economy soon to lose steam
Dot-com stocks bought like bad mortgages
The promises were grand
They always have been

Prosperity will last forever
The Internet will solve poverty
The Internet will free the enslaved

Digesting the ideas of convergence while reading Wired magazine
The subway shooting me through the arteries of Manhattan
Wondering if I wanted the world to fit in my pocket
T.V. and the web and a phone all in one? And who would ever want one?

I still had a pager and ran to pay phones to make ends meet
A freelancer in this new wild wild digital space
Clicking buttons on now ancient Mac workstations sitting in thousand dollar Aeron chairs
The time when digital was not interactive. When animation was by .gif. Bit by bit.

I remember the first to market .mp3 player
I remember Napster connecting every machine
I remember this as if it was a life-time ago, a dream
I remember downloading tunes, while making web banners from one long data stream

How bandwidth was talked about in kilobytes
How the sound of a dial up modem was not only the norm but the sound of freedom
How developers worked remotely and literally phoned it all in.

If I was to get in my web 1.0 way back machine I would see people
Talking on the phone
Sitting together not alone
Sitting face to face, no avatar to embrace
Writing emails not text messages.
Writing emails so beautifully crafted they were often printed and hung

I sit here in my way back machine thinking of all the little black boxes
How we were promised the sun
How we would converge all media and make the entire world free and one

And I can’t help but laugh
Laugh at how fast this world is moving
Web 3.0 is being defined as I sit here reading this on my iPad
As I watch a commercial about a 70 inch flat panel Wi-Fi Internet T.V.

And what is a T.V.?
And what is the Internet?
How has all this converged from the spoken word?
Words creating symbols creating text
The knowledge from our sacred symbols the subtext
As we continue to connect further and further
Converging into one band of data
One emotional and intellectual collection
All media from the human condition seen in this, our digital reflection

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