Inside PBS Blog

This post is part of a series we kicked off last week, in which we introduce the incredible members of the Engage Advisory Board.

Engage Board Member and online community advocate Howard Rheingold claims, with characteristic gusto, that he fell into the computer realm from the typewriter dimension. He's followed and critiqued social media in all forms since its infancy, and is passionate about using the web to create community while harnessing the power of the masses for the greater good. Howard is currently advising us on how to create better discussion forums on PBS.org. Also, he paints his shoes.

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? How close to/far from that would you say you are today?

When I was awarded a scholarship in high school, I told the local newspaper that I intended to become a writer. I had been strongly influenced by Kerouac. What I wanted was to live the life of a bohemian. I realized, much later, that becoming a writer meant spending most of my life alone in a room. Which is, in fact, how I've spent my life. However, I was encouraged to learn that I could plug my computer into my telephone with a modem and connect with other people -- this after more than a decade with a manual, then an electric typewriter, and finally with a very puny PC as a word processor. I discovered the online world in 1983 and started writing about it.

What's the most compelling piece of media you've encountered recently? Could be a website, video, book, movie - anything. Why did it make such an impression?

Mike Wesch's video, "A portal to media literacy" shows how even in one of those awful auditorium-style lecture halls, a motivated teacher can engage students in collaborative inquiry -- that is, instead of receiving information as a package delivered by a lecturer, the students and the teacher engage together into questions that matter about the subject -- with the help of  Web 2.0 tools.

What concerns you the most about what you're seeing online these days, and why?

We live in a world where, as Mike Wesch puts it, all knowledge is available to be plucked out of the air -- together with misinformation and disinformation and some really ugly material. Aside from the periodic moral panics, parents and educators are not creating a comprehensive curriculum for teaching children to deal with this new world. In the olden days, authority was vested in the text, and the publisher/writer/editor was responsible for putting out accurate information. Now that everybody can publish -- a great boon in many ways -- the responsibility for determining the accuracy of information lies with the consumer of the information. Who is teaching kids how to search and verify? How to use a blog to advocate, a wiki to collaborate?

Check back soon to meet more of the Engage Advisory Board, including television producer Evelyn Messinger -- and don't miss last week's interview with Board Member and MediaShift blogger Mark Glaser.

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