I frequently quote Clay Shirky. His thinking is consistently deep, insightful, and thought-provoking! This video, filmed in July, 2005, was just posted at TED last month, July, 2008. I highly recommend educators follow his work.

Take about 20 minutes to watch this presentation on the norms of institutions being challenged by new collaborative infrastructures. "The printing press took us to 200 years of chaos. ... [With this new, emerging, digital, collaborative infrastructure] I'm predicting 50. ... Institutions are going to come under an increasing degree of pressure. And the more rigidly managed and the more they rely on information monopolies, the greater the pressure is going to be. ... The forces are general, but the results are going to be specific."

I have to listen to him at least a couple of times to get my head around the magnitude of what he is saying!

Photo credit: CC by eirikso @ flickr