This talk explores the emerging trends and forces that are radically reshaping learning and knowledge practices. Learning has left the classroom. It is being re-constituted across distance, discipline, workplace, and media as the social and technical interconnectivity of the Internet challenges existing structures for learning and education. The new ‘e-learning’ is more than a learning management system – it is a transformation in how, where, and with whom we learn that supports formal,...

Rob Kitchin discusses how cities are being instrumented with digital devices and infrastructure that produce ‘big data’. ‘Smart cities’ is a term that has gained traction in academia, business and government to describe cities that, on the one hand, are increasingly composed of and monitored by pervasive and ubiquitous computing and, on the other, whose economy and governance is being driven by innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship, enacted by smart people. This paper focuses on the...

Ethan Zuckerman explores contemporary anxieties about "a crisis in civics" and look at the idea that civics is changing along with digital media. The last decade has seen a shift in media from a world where a small, professional group produces news, opinion and entertainment to one where a much broader set of the population is involved making and sharing media. This shift has had important implications for the news business and for social change, with social media a part of popular protests...