I am an independent thinker, researcher, consultant, author, and speaker. I am mostly known for my work on communities of practice, though I consider myself a social learning theorist more generally. Theoretically, my work focuses on social learning systems.
I am trying to understand the connection between knowledge, community, learning, and identity. The basic idea is that human knowing is fundamentally a social act. This simple observation has profound implications for the way we think of and attempt to support learning.
I'm Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine. I wrote The Long Tail, which first appeared in Wired in October 2004 and then became a book, published by Hyperion on July 11, 2006. You can order it here. My next book, FREE, will be published on July 6th, 2009 by Hyperion. You can read more about it here.
His new book, "The Success of Open Source" (Harvard University Press, April 2004), addresses how open source came about, why it has taken hold, where it is going, and what it all means in terms of understanding how property and economy work in the first place.
Nicholas is founder and chairman of the One Laptop per Child non-profit association. He is currently on leave from MIT, where he was co-founder and director of the MIT Media Laboratory, and the Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Technology. A graduate of MIT, Nicholas was a pioneer in the field of computer-aided design, and has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1966. Conceived in 1980, the Media Laboratory opened its doors in 1985. He is also author of the 1995 best seller, Being Digital, which has been translated into more than 40 languages. In the private sector, Nicholas serves on the board of directors for Motorola, Inc. and as general partner in a venture capital firm specializing in digital technologies for information and entertainment. He has provided start-up funds for more than 40 companies, including Wired magazine.
I direct the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the Media Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I develop new technologies to engage people (particularly children) in creative learning experiences. I serve as Head of the Media Arts and Sciences academic program and Director of the Okawa Center.
I argue in favor of complexity, against the simple-minded notion that things should be simple. Simplicity is boring. We want richness and depth in our lives. Moreover, the world and our activities are inherently complex, so the tools we use must match that complexity. Arguments against compexity are misplaced, i argue (see my essay "Simplicity is not the answer.") We don't want confusion, perplexity, and confusion. Thatis, we want our complex tools and activities to be understandable.
I've been Technology Director for MIT OpenCourseWare since our pilot site was launched in Fall 2002. My job is to ensure that the OCW publishing team at MIT has the technical infrastructure and tools it needs to collect, edit and publish OCW content to the world. I also get involved in projects involving the interface of OCW technology with other MIT infrastructure such as DSpace, MIT's digital archive. I've been around MIT off and on since I was a student in the 1970s. Prior to OCW I was VP, Operations at a small Internet company that I co-founded in 1996. During the 1980s and early 90s I worked for MIT's central IT organization in a variety of roles.
Tim Berners-Lee is the Director of the World Wide Web Consortium, the 3COM Founders Professor of Engineering in the School of Engineering, with a joint appointment in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science MIT's CSAIL where he leads the Decentralized Information Group (DIG), and Professor of Computer Science at Southampton ECS.
Stallman pioneered the concept of copyleft and is the main author of several copyleft licenses including the GNU General Public License, the most widely used free software license.[5] Since the mid-1990s, Stallman has spent most of his time advocating for free software, as well as campaigning against both software patents and what he sees as excessive extension of copyright laws.
Chris Dede's fundamental interest is the expanded human capabilities for knowledge creation, sharing, and mastery that emerging technologies enable. His teaching models the use of information technology to distribute and orchestrate learning across space, time, and multiple interactive media. His research spans emerging technologies for learning, infusing technology into large-scale educational improvement initiatives, policy formulation and analysis, and leadership in educational innovation.
Susan E. Metros is Associate Vice Provost for Technology Enhanced Learning and Deputy Chief Information Officer at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Her faculty affiliations are with the Roski School of Fine Arts and the Rossier Scool of Education.
Vijay was the Principal Investigator of O.K.I (Open Knowledge Initiative), an MIT-led collaborative project to develop an open architecture for enterprise educational applications.
Alen is an artist and designer trapped in a business-driven world. His primary interest continues to be data-driven user interfaces for education, gaming and publishing.
Tim O'Reilly is the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, thought by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world. The company also publishes online through the O'Reilly Network and hosts conferences on technology topics. Tim is an activist for open source, open standards, and sensible intellectual property laws.
Graves' perspective derives from over 30 years of experience as a professor and higher education executive, including leadership and management experience in encouraging the systemic use of technology in the educational process. He has given hundreds of invited presentations at conferences and on campuses, advised hundreds of institutions, and published over 60 articles and books on the academic applications of technology.
Dr. Mark David Milliron is an award-winning leader, author, speaker, and consultant best known for exploring leadership development, future trends, learning strategies, and the human side of technology change. Mark works with universities, community colleges, K-12 schools, corporations, associations, and government agencies across the country and around the world.
Heidi Elmendorf is Associate Professor of Biology at Georgetown University.
TechSoup just got its own Facebook page--come be a fan! We have a Facebook group as well, but we're planning on using the Facebook page going forward for our Facebook presence, as we've found there is a lot more functionality with having a Facebook page vs a group.
Unlike groups, fan pages are visible to unregistered people and are thus indexed (important for reputaion management, for example);