Bud the Teacher

    I spent some time today working through the BusinessWeek article about MySpace.  (Don’t tell anyone — I was reading the print edition — not the online one.  I still have a thing for tangible print because my computer is just so darn hard to fold.)
    Others have discussed the marketing uses of social networks, as well as the potential dangers of such.  (Heck, I’ve mentioned the dangers.  More than once.)  what I’m beginning to think about, and I think it’s partly Miguel’s doing, is the idea that maybe we could build a public social network of schools, one that is built around many of the values about safety and learning and collaborative learning that we all share.
    James is going to get to work on the advocacy issues around filtering — but I wonder if it wouldn’t be a good idea to create the type of network that we’d like to see students using in public, one less concerned with the number of times users have been drunk and more concerned with how many books users have read in the last month.  How about a social network built around inquiry and the idea that asking questions, and discovering answers,  is good for society?
    What about a network built around the idea that young people have power and voice, particularly when they choose to exercise their power responsibly (I know — we’ll all argue about what it means to be responsible.) and via a network that might serve as a bullhorn for their ideas?
    Miguel has argued for the creation of such a network of schools that exists privately, away from the rest of the world.  He calls it "Tlspace.org."  (Teach and learn space.)  But why not make such a network public?  Wouldn’t that be a positive step, particularly if we could help to protect the types of interactions that we find to be so valuable? 
What other values might we like to see in such a network?  How might we communicate those values in such a way as to compete with the popularity of the other networks out there?  Who are the best folks to try to build such a thing?  (My vote is for the guys who built Xanga and MySpace — they know how to build these networks and they probably understand the safety and security issues better than any of the rest of us.)  If a network can sell Coke, surely such a network can sell critical thinking.  Right?
    Is this a really bad idea?

Had a great time talking with Bob Sprankle and the Worldbridges gang on Sunday morning.  If you get a chance — give it a listen.