Michael Wesch has an on-going project Digital Ethnography with his students at Kansas State University. Looking at what they have done impressed me, and gave me ideas for things that I might do with my own classes and research. I like the engaged, participatory style and with issues like substance use or health care seeking, it proves so useful to show people what it is like. Students doing the work and then sharing that with a broader world, that is a good model.

Wesch has one popular video The Machine Is Us/ing Us, covering Internet 2.0 and the revolution in interconnected digitial communication. In many ways, I found his message about the Internet as quite similar to the message we are promoting here at neuroanthropology, that connections matter, that we drive change in our brains, that we need to rethink traditional concepts. So enjoy that.

His students came up with a great video A Vision of Students Today, which helps justify spending time on a blog rather than traditional papers (hey, students are more likely to actually read this) and also the need to teach in non-traditional but equally effective ways. And it’s just well done.