fbpx

Howard Rheingold

I’ve written books about consciousness (Higher Creativity – 1984 and Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming – 1988), history of mind-amplifying technology (Tools for Thought – 1985 ), Virtual Reality (1991!), the birth of social media (The Virtual Community – 1993!), the social revolutions growing from the hybrid of mobile telephones, digital media, and the Internet (Smart Mobs – 2002!) and social media literacy (Net Smart — 2012). TED published my e-book about the psycho-social-technological facets of augmenting human intellect (Mind Amplifier — 2012) Note that two of my books, Tools for Thought and The Virtual Community, have been online for free since 1995. I gave a TED talk in 2005 about the need for an interdisciplinary understanding of cooperation — viewed nearly a million times. Since that talk, I worked with Institute for the Future to provide resources for cooperation studies and have taught (six times) an online course on cooperation. I also created and facilitated online courses on mind amplifiers and thinking-knowledge tools. I taught (face to face) courses on digital journalism, social media literacies, and social media issues at Berkeley and Stanford for ten years. I instigated a community-created handbook for peer learning, published nearly 100 video interviews and blog posts about digital media and learning innovators, and helped organized a MOOC for connected educators. I’ve curated links publicly about my topics, and published interviews with curation experts. I’ve shared my paintings online since 1995. More recently, I’ve been making magical objects of paint and light, using wood, acrylics, and arduino-controlled LEDs. I was an extraterrestrial anthropologist on the streets of San Francisco in 1977, an investigative video documentary project I hope to continue in 2018.