"One of the great assets of the digital, and what it encourages and enables is multiple voices entering into a dialogue and creating new knowledge out of conversation and discussion."

"I was lucky enough to be taught by some of the greatest international authorities yet it was never assumed that their voice in the conversation was necessarily more important than mine. Far more important than who was talking was the quality of thought expressed and the nature of knowledge that emerged from the dialogue, and I think that's quite right."

"DH is…a collaborative field. We have to learn to work together and understand the different languages that are spoken by different partners in the dialogue: geeks, humanities scholars, information professionals, technical support people & indeed the public. In that sense, therefore, the voice of the DH scholar is of use as an interpreter between different languages & cultures. But interpreters cannot, but the nature of their job, exist in isolation."

"Cloudworker lifestyles…create a psychological transformation that is very similar to what happens when animals go feral. In animals, it takes a couple of generations of breeding for the true wild nature to re-emerge…But in humans it can happen faster, since most of our domestication is through education & socialization rather than breeding.

You might think that the true tabby-mutt human must live outside the financial system…that’s actually a mistaken notion, because that sort of officially checked-out  or actively nihilistic person is defined & motivated by the structure of human civilization. To rebel is to be defined by what you rebel against. Criminals & anarchists are civilized creatures. Feral populations are agnostic, rather than either dependent on, or self-consciously independent of, codified social structures. Feral cloudworkers use social structures where it accidentally works for them…and improvise ad-hoc self-support structures for the rest of their needs."

"Personally I believe our society is broken in that people mainly associate with people their own age. My relatives in the Philippines, if they threw a party, would include everyone -- babies, kids, teenagers, people in their 20s, 30s, 40s -- and grandmas in their 80s. This was not unusual, and I think, the mark of a healthy society. However I rarely see this kind of intergenerational mixing in the States, except with first generation immigrants."

"I recently transferred this video interview with me about homeschooling and unschooling that I did for Christian Science Monitor television in 1991. It is almost exactly 20 years ago to the day (2/16/1991) when I filmed it, but since so much of the information is still relevant I thought it would be of interest. I'm struck by how in those 20 years we went from the estimated 500,000 homeschooled children in 1991 to nearly 2 million today, and yet we are still being asked the same questions, particularly "How will homeschooled children be socialized?" What I like about this interview is how thoughtful and prepared John Parrott, the interviewer, was. He handled the socialization question differently than I expected and I was pleasantly surprised."

Another photo here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/studies_and_observations/5116315813/

"I thought this was just an exemplary platform for conviviality.<br />
<br />
Coffeesmith's multiple zones readily support:<br />
- prospect and refuge;<br />
- solitary drinking/reading/studying/people-watching;<br />
- socialization at a variety of scales, from couples to mid-sized groups;<br />
- a range of options for lighting and ventilation."

"Now that most children no longer participate in this free-form experience — play dates arranged by parents are no substitute — their peer socialization has suffered. One tangible result of this lack of socialization is the increase in bullying, teasing and discrimination that we see in all too many of our schools."

"The reason you feel most comfortable with a job (unless, like me, you're in the minority--a job would destroy my psyche) is that you've been brainwashed by many years of school, socialization and practice. I pick the word brainwashed carefully, because it's more than training or acclimation. It's something that's been taught to you by people who needed you to believe it was the way things are supposed to be. [Download Brainwashed: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/files/66.01.brainwashed2.pdf ]"

"As the Web makes this goal of lifelong learning easier, free-er, and more fruitful than ever, the idea was to create a sort of syllabus for "a university that has no physical space . . . snippets from an imaginary course catalogue."

"New Liberal Arts is [...] a "syllabus for a university that has no physical space ... snippets from an imaginary course catalog" -- [...] this university is a part of internet culture that sees the web and other digital media as a place for perpetual college -- education, socialization, job training, acculturation -- everything that college is -"

"Before the development of buses, railroads, and trams in the nineteenth century, people had never been in a position of having to look at one another for long minutes or even hours without speaking to one another.“

"Not once have I seen or heard an expert explain WHY kids absolutely and unequivocally NEED regular activities with children their age. Never have I seen or heard anyone explain why children NEED social interaction with other children at all. I know it's important for children to have social interactions with other people. I'd just like to see the evidence that suggests those people must be children. The "experts" say interaction with other children (preferably in a school setting, of course) teaches kids they can't get their own way all the time, that rules must be followed, and all about the complicated experience that is friendship. They suggest this is the only way children will learn how to interact in the "real world.""

"Ennea records real-life data by looking at social contact and interaction between pupils within a school environment. This is done with mobile-networked objects, which can be carried around by the pupils."

"set of small, cute, wireless-aware objects that students carried with them for a few weeks. The objects measured interactions between children, timing the interactions each child had, and whether they were with individuals or groups."

"challenging=giving ourselves tough problems to solve; broadening=more diverse your knowledge, more interesting interconnections; surrounding=interesting & diverse things & people around you"

"explores trends in cultural preferences & differences in tastes of children (& parents) from diverse cultures, ethnic groups as well as gender socialization & identity...raises other issues...relationship between gender & consumerism, urbanization, globa

"opportunity to launch critical evaluation ...inequities of private ownership & hierarchical authority on which it was founded...promote a contrasting set of values: collectivity, collaboration, resource-sharing, and full democratic participation."

"If on the one hand, we live under the assumption that everything in life can be a matter of choice, on the other hand, the very choice itself seems to be anxiety provoking and deeply dissatisfying...suffers from tyranny of choice and an abundance of free

"an on-line publication and blogging community. We homeschool. We unschool. We live our lives without school. For some, Life Without School begins as a conscientious choice that is whole-heartedly embraced."