The horrible wake up call to a new day where technology is our friend, journalist, and safety

The new news site... Wikipedia.

Fascinating blog post from Megan Golding, Wikipedia gets the news right...

"Not until I clicked on the Wikipedia article’s citations did I wind up at a major news outlet. I think Wikipedia-as-news-source is an important trend (and was the shining star in citizen journalism, according to one blog) ...I gave my students an opportunity today to see and comment on the Wikipedia-as-news-provider trend. After reviewing the article, the students talked about being impressed by the details. We also discussed the idea of smart mobs, which was new to most of them."

Last time I checked the Wikipedia article, it had 138 sources. Although the talk page bounces around like a ping pong ball, actually many of the items "broke" there. This page has been edited over 500 times.

On another note for bloggers, many in the blogosphere are calling for one day of blog silence on April 30th.

I plan to honor it, however, I find it a disturbing trend. I personally think that what blogs to best is to speak out and I believe that bringing attention to the important issues,

like why every school and college should stop banning cell phones and instead make SMS systems and cell phones mandatory. (See Andy Carvin's article.)

An SMS system like the one Virginia Tech was planning to install last September, would have saved many lives.

Use cell phones for safety.
Use wikipedia for news and

Realize it is a new day in education and it is time to use technology to make our campuses better and stop living in the papertiger past where such needless tragedies of nonconnectedness happen. A text message in the car would have saved lives!

The day is coming when you will not be allowed to make them leave the cell phone at home. And I for one will factor in the presence of an SMS emergency notification system when my children go to college in 6 years.

By the way, I found out about this from Andy Carvin at PBS.... on twitter.

We are all grieving and praying for the families and university.

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