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They’re handing these out at CoSN. Nice way to pump up ETI!
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A new, widely reported study on kids and media from the Kaiser Family Foundation says they’re spending over 6 hours a day engaged with some type of media and that for more than a quarter of that time they are using more than one medium at a time. Sheesh. TV, unfortunately, is still the king of all media (nearly four hours a day including videos and dvds) with just over an hour a day spent on the computer. Also, 86% of kids live in a home with a computer. Good, but still not good enough. (Only 31% have a computer in their bedrooms.)

Other findings in brief: socio-economic divides continue to exist, the Internet is becoming a “universal presence” in kids’ lives, and home Internet access is up from 47% to 74% in the last five years.

But so here is the “Don’t That Beat All” part of the survey: young people who spend the most time with media also report spending more time with their parents, being physically active, and pursuing other hobbies.

Go figure.

Lawrence Lessig on the Comedy of the Commons–Ever since I saw Lessig at the I-Law conference at Harvard last year, he’s been one of my heroes. If you haven’t heard him speak, carve out an hour, grab this lecture/discussion on the importance of free culture, go to a quiet space and listen. One of the reasons that I love Lessig’s stuff is because he’s one of those people who can take very complex but important ideas and put them in a way that challenges my brain but in the end, helps me “get it.”

(BTW, just a plug for I-Law which will be held June 22-24 at Harvard this year. Registrations go online March 16, and if there is any way that I can make it, I’m going. Last year’s gathering was by far the most intellectually stimulating experience I have ever had.)

Stephen Downes–Parts 1 and 2 of his Skype interview with Teemu Arina from FLOSSE. The sound quality is bearable at best, but the ideas are very cool, especially in Part 1 where Stephen talks about what he has in store for EduRSS 0.2.
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