Other than wanting to post somewhere that I will be heard there is a reason that we should pay attention.
After the live forum today I want to respond to some of the fear that I encountered.
I am writing with the comment that "we all have wisdom" at the top of my mind.
My attitude is not the same as many in the Lethbridge room today, what I heard from many around me has challenged my thinking about why we are doing this, it has also made me think about the negative consequences about a "push" towards more tech. rich less traditional environments. These are legitimate concerns, which I am very glad I have heard and can think about, it is too bad they are oftern expressed as fears.
I want to respond to the fear, so that we can hopefully focus on adressing concerns.

An election with a result that was in part decided and determined by new info. spreading tools (I think I need to work on my terminology, but like my group advises --> keep the language accesible). Without new generation tools Obama would not have mobilized his grassroots support.

There is a generation that needs to learn this power.

John Ralston Saul, "The oral at its best is a force of creativity and change"
We, whether we want it or not, are experiencing a paradigm shift away from the written and into the oral.
Think about blog posts - they are recorded, but would anyone want to read a post written 10 days ago. It is an ongoing conversation that, although typed down, is fundamentally oral, in constant flux, in nature.

The reason I am excited about this movement is because of its power. We can guide the use of these tools away from the negative and into the creative cultural expressive force that it deserves to be.

To tell you the truth it is already happening, being created by people much more "with it" than I. Even if it is brief, which I doubt, we owe it to the students of Alberta to equip them, or at least help reveal to them the potential.

Does anyone think that Obama could have been elected without Youtube or text messages? Yet, this democratizing, empowering, creative capacitity building force is looked upon with fear by so many that have the decision making power to make it viable and useful.

One video by that Antro. prof, you know the one I am talking about, talked about the idea of context collapse. I didn't know what it means, I asked my ELA 30's what they thought it means, they werent sure.
I realized today what it means.

I could not share my ideas with a Dr. of education in a F2F environment, there is too much context determining our roles, but here, here. If the idea is valid it is listened to. Now extend that to your students - they dont need an identity, or even a name - all they need is a creative idea to share. 666@gmail could have something valid, dammit earthshattering, to say if we collapse their personal and classroom context. No one will know it is the student that no one really likes.

ok settle...
the message:
dont be scared, lets see where it can take us.

students will continue to need the school environment to survive - all of us are social animals - this is choice and using what we are now surrounded by.

"Change has come to America"

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It has Steve, we have just witnessed a major historical event with the election of Obama. Thank you for your work today and your previous and I trust ongoing contributions in the field of DL.