SUBSCRIBE TO TMCnet
TMCnet - World's Largest Communications and Technology Community

CHANNEL BY TOPICS


QUICK LINKS




 
| More

TMCNet:  Programming people to read

[February 28, 2013]

Programming people to read

Feb 28, 2013 (The Columbian - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Vancouver's first all-city read sprang to life Wednesday morning at City Hall with free copies issued of the program's first book and a discussion about our knowledge-based future.


A150-page paperback treatise, "Program or be Programmed" by Douglas Rushkoff, was selected to be the program's first read for its sweeping guidelines to the rapidly advancing digital age. Community members and businesses alike can better prepare to navigate the era by reading the book together, said Dene Grigar, director of the creative media and digital culture program at Washington State University Vancouver.

Grigar and her students raised $30,000 for the three-year program called #nextchapter and modeled after the concept of a small book club discussion expanded to cover the whole city.

In keeping with today's digital literacy, the program's name is prefaced by the hash symbol "#," also called a hashtag. The character classifies categories and similar topics that connect users of social media programs such as Twitter.

Grigar said she hopes the all-city read will spark digital conversations throughout the entire community, an effort that could even help draw tech-savvy companies to the area if its perceived to be on the cutting edge of technology.

Vancouver already has a plethora of technology-based businesses, she said, including tablet-maker Wacom; Logitech, which makes and distributes computer products; ITI, a provider of interactive computer programs to train truck drivers; and Gravitate, a Web design, development and branding business.

Grigar and her students want citizens to take ownership in these local industries.

"When we do bring on (more) companies that are tech-centered, we won't have this cultural gap," she said.

Author appears via Skype Rushkoff also made an appearance at the event, piped in via Skype from his office in the media studies department at The New School in Manhattan. Rushkoff's book "Program Or Be Programmed" is formatted in an easy-to-read style and arranged in chapter titles that provide simple tips for moving through the digital era. For example, the book's first chapter is titled "Time, Do Not Be Always On"; and its second chapter, "Place, Live In Person." "I've been interested in our migration from the industrial age to the digital age for some time," Rushkoff said.

He said participation is the biggest difference between the television-era technology that he grew up with and the computer technology of today.

The #nextchapter event and its all-city read are sponsored by a list of local institutions, including WSUV, Clark College, Evergreen Public Schools, Vancouver Public Schools and the Fort Vancouver Regional Library District. It is also sponsored by the city, the Columbia River Economic Development Council, Comcast, and nonprofits CougParents and The Community Foundation for Southwest Washington.

The tools of technology are changing within every one of these entities, said Nancy Tessman, executive director of the local library district.

"This idea is terrific to come together and read about an idea," she said, reminding her audience that books are merely the packages that hold ideas. "Remember that libraries are here to make sure communities share an idea, and this idea is so pivotal for us right now." Organizers said about 75 people participated in Wednesday's event.

.

___ (c)2013 The Columbian (Vancouver, Wash.) Visit The Columbian (Vancouver, Wash.) at www.columbian.com Distributed by MCT Information Services

[ Back To Skype News 's Homepage ]

FREE eNEWSLETTER








Technology Marketing Corporation

800 Connecticut Ave, 1st Floor East, Norwalk, CT 06854 USA
Ph: 800-243-6002, 203-852-6800
Fx: 203-866-3326

General comments: tmc@tmcnet.com.
Comments about this site: webmaster@tmcnet.com.

STAY CURRENT YOUR WAY

© 2015 Technology Marketing Corporation. All rights reserved | Privacy Policy
http://skype-news.tmcnet.com/news/2013/02/28/6958425.htm
skype-news.tmcnet.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2015-35
57049
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:BYTF7DXV2HT25GRWQMZGHMACTVXTZ7BY
<urn:uuid:aefe6b29-ad3f-4610-af44-a3be78d6350c>
2015-08-28T07:26:20Z
24.38.43.200
sha1:XRE34G2EZP4BST7PEE5L7HOHVGHF7LLA
<urn:uuid:2b029823-a50b-4943-b06d-31d1712e042f>
http://skype-news.tmcnet.com/news/2013/02/28/6958425.htm
response
<urn:uuid:35783205-a86a-4e6e-b0f9-430bc90b6a38>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-171-96-226.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2015-35
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for August 2015
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf