My Mashup of Mike’s Mashup of My Mashup

My Mashup of Mike’s Mashup of My Mashup, originally uploaded by cambodia4kidsorg.

Hi all, this is Brian, one of the putative instructors…

I like this image for a lot of reasons. The multi-dimensional tensions it illustrates between digital and analog, read-only and read-write formats. The clever, low-tech mixture of media… paper, photography, Second Life. The way it playfully explores an ongoing controversy concerning alternative copyright approaches. The slightly mischievous insertion of Stephen Downes (the first ed tech blogger, so far as I know) makes me smile.

I came across this image while preparing a presentation on mashups. I didn’t end up using the image, but it was too cool to pass up. So I did what I often do when I encounter something I don’t know what to do with — I blogged it. And was delighted the following morning to see that Beth Kanter, a very interesting and accomplished educator and the creator of the image, had commented on my post. She shared some resources having to do with how social media can be employed by people in the non-profit sector, which I have subsequently shared with others.

I’ve since come to think of Beth as part of my personal learning network. And this image and the stories behind it illustrate to me how content, and the reuse of others’ materials, has moved beyond simply managing inert resources. Increasingly, the work we do online becomes the framework for rich and ongoing social learning relationships.