The latest Pew focus seems to be on cybersecurity and social media use. I couldn't find any mention of 'creators', or critical thinking either. http://www.pewinternet.org/category/publications/

Like much online, it's difficult and time consuming to separate fact from fiction. A year after this study was published The Sims Online ($9.99/mo) was rebranded and another year later shut down according to Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sims_Online

Ashley Richardson is the avatar of Laura McKnight, a middle schooler from Palm Beach, FL. according to Jenkins' article in https://www.technologyreview.com/s/402737/playing-politics-in-alphaville/

Heather Lawver still has a blog; http://www.heathershow.com

Blake Ross found out he has no ability to visualize; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/aphantasia-software-engineer-blake-ross-writes-mind-blowing-post-about-being-unable-to-imagine-a7000216.html

Josh Meeter makes animations for sporting events and short films: https://vimeo.com/99398204

The students I meet lead completely mediated lives, are afraid of social spaces as potential places of conflict and uncritically consume vast amounts of commercial media.

As a retired worker, adult learner and student representative after returning to a community college, I've been encouraging Administrators and Faculty to model the "skills, knowledge, ethical frameworks, and self-confidence needed to be full participants in contemporary culture." I've had little success and will be leaving schools just as mired in the past as they were when I arrived six years ago. Despite spending nearly $200M a year, my CC District is on the lower end of recent CC statistics. http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/03/15/520192774/national-survey-shows-high-rates-of-hungry-and-homeless-community-college-studen

As a retired worker, adult learner and student representative after returning to a community college, I've been encouraging Administrators and Faculty to model the "skills, knowledge, ethical frameworks, and self-confidence needed to be full participants in contemporary culture." I've had little success and will be leaving my schools just as mired in the past as they were when I arrived six years ago. Despite spending nearly $200M a year my CC District is on the lower end of recent CC statistics, yet they continue to create new administration positions while the four college libraries close during evening classes and are only open a few hours on Saturdays. http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/03/15/520192774/national-survey-shows-high-rates-of-hungry-and-homeless-community-college-studen

The focus of the latest Pew reports seem to be on cybersecurity and social media use. I couldn't find any mention of 'creators', or critical thinking either. http://www.pewinternet.org/category/publications/

Most of the students I meet lead completely mediated lives, are afraid of social spaces as potential places of conflict and uncritically consume vast amounts of commercial media.

I was happy to see the AAC&U add eportfolios as the 11th high-impact practice (HIP). Perhaps that will accelerate students taking responsibility for their work and making it portable across multiple academies and communities. http://www.theijep.com/current.cfm

From down here, ivory towers look to be built on layers of reification. (spellcheck suggests deification) There are no such things as numbers. There are no 2s in the world. Numbers are symbols created by mammals. Some mammals have evolved to the point where they can manipulate symbols to do things. Some would say it's just the universe playing with itself. ;-)

"the ePortfolio experience enhances other high-impact practices (HIPs) by creating unique opportunities for connection and synthesis across courses, semesters, and cocurricular experiences, thus enabling students to reflect on and construct a cohesive signature learning experience." https://www.aacu.org/whats-new/high-impact-eportfolio-practice-catalyst-student-faculty-and-institutional-learning

Allowing student representatives multiple voting seats on curriculum and technology committees would be progressive. Having students co-create their classes syllabi is revolutionary. @krisshaffer

A retired worker and returning student at a Community College in Oakland, California, I'm amazed at the culture of my four college District. A hierarchical culture based on race and gender, they are still struggling to digitize basic support operations. I spent three years as a representative in shared governance and we accomplished very little. Meanwhile, the District spends $200M a year as enrollment goes down and the number of administrators goes up. I have seen four Chancellors, a dozen college Presidents and countless VPs and Deans come and go. While one more college recently opened its library on Saturdays, the majority of students are adults that work and they still don't have equal access to basic support services. I have a name for this majority of Community College students - taxpayers. It's no wonder that support for education is decreasing.

One of the most important things I've learned about the internets is that links always break. Less than two months after posting, the Audrey Watters link is broken. I don't have a solution, but perhaps including the title of the linked article will be enough to help people find it.

Capitalism, like state socialism and Fascism, seeks to enclose our thinking into a manageable political system. Institutions like religion, the military and education have evolved to this end. Capitalists often impose rents to limit ideas. Liberty is the opposite of this history.

This may well be, but there are numerous structural impediments built into educational institutions, their faculties and relationships with publishers. As Upton Sinclair famously said; "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

Hypothes.is link does not work in Chrome, Firefox or Opera.

"A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access" by Peter Suber

(www.lib.umd.edu/binaries/content/assets/public/drum/suber-oa-intro.pdf )