Surviving Technological Change

In order to survive in a world of rapid technological change, you need to first be involved in a community that is interested in the change and willing to learn; from there, if you allow yourself to focus only on what keeps you connected with your community, you can survive.

If I could change one thing about my writing

If I could change my writing I would increase my formality – I have always written in a very casual way, none of my work has ever sounded “professional”; it could never be written for an article or a newspaper (though ironically I was the editor of my high school paper).

What is an author

When you read a book or a blog or a newspaper or magazine article, and you find yourself thinking and feeling and relating to the text, and you connect with the work and think “how did this know exactly how I was feeling” -- the heart of the work-- that’s an author.

Youtube's effect on student culture

Youtube's effect on student culture can already be seen in this class: Youtube is changing the way student's learn to think, feel, communicate and interact with their friends, their campus, their community, their country, and the rest of the world.

how did I learn to write?

I learned to write through my wild imagination. When I was little I used to pretend I was a famous author and would write these stories that I thought were practically novels. In actuality they were probably ten pages long and I would stop writing after my third "chapter" (3 chapters in 10 pages? really?) because I got bored. I wished that everything that was in my head could just instantly be in writing. But I had an excellent imagination and because I wanted to be an author or journalist (in between wanting to save the whales), I worked hard at being a decent writer, and trying to get the stories that were going through my head onto pages that people would want to read.