Collaboration, Social Computing, and Presentations/Speeches

The annual Horizon Report, a joint publication of the NMC and the ELI, highlights new technologies for teaching, learning, and creative expression. This session will review the research and process behind the report. The 2008 Horizon Report and its findings will be officially released at this session.

Presentation at the Sixth Annual ECAR/HP Summer Symposium for Higher Education IT Executives, June 11-13, 2007, Boulder, Colorado. When Yochai Benkler's book, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, came out, Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig said, "This is -- by far -- the most important and powerful book written in the fields that matter most to me in the last ten years. If there is one book you read this year, it should be this." This work examines the ways in which information technology permits extensive forms of collaboration that may have transformative consequences for economy and society. Benkler's presentation outlines the characteristics of the networked information economy and the roles of collaboration and commons-based production of information, knowledge, and culture, and it suggests avenues to apply these broad trends to education and education-related policy.