And Bob, I agree with you that we should not mindlessly give up agency in the face of new technologies. I am currently hanging my hat of hope on transparency when talking about politics, government, news. Computer-mediated transparency in government is a logical extension of sunshine laws as well as open records laws. We have only to look at the prior administration's record regarding non-Whitehouse email accounts to see that without diligence, public officials can easily (deliberately or accidentally) bypass public records requirements. We didn't talk about the almost invisible trail of direct Twitter messages, something that could make it relatively easy to conduct campaign business from government computers, for example. Arghh. I just thought of that! And I truly dislike this suspicious side of myself, because I believe that these actors are in the minority.

Gad, we did not talk directly about Twitter's use in organizing protests, but yours is a good point. We have many anecdotes.

In retrospect, I think I should have given my "intro to Twitter" or my "Twitter and Iran" talk rather than try to talk about pedagogy.