Drape's Takes

When your neighbor walks your dog while you are ill, or the guy behind the counter trusts you to pay him next time, social capital is at work… Societies characterized by a high store of social capital overall do better than societies with low social capital on a similarly wide range of measurements, from crime rate to the costs of doing business to economic growth. (p. 192)

• Describe the store of social capital in our society.
• Does it vary from location to location?
• What does this mean to you as an educator?

The internet augments real-world social life rather than providing an alternative to it. Instead of becoming a separate cyberspace, our electronic networks are becoming deeply embedded in real life. (p. 196)

• In what ways have you found electronic networks embedded in real life?
• Does this integration help or harm the learning process?

Our new freedoms are not without their problems; it’s not a revolution if nobody loses. (p. 209)

• What new freedoms do today’s social tools grant us?
• If we are, indeed, witnessing a revolution, who loses?

• Shirky, C. (2008). Here comes everybody. New York: The Penguin Press.