• Set in Our Ways: Why Change Is So Hard: Scientific American – A great article from Scientific American on the biology/psychology of why people are naturally resistant to change. Interestingly, it claims people are more tolerant of change during their 20s and then again after 60.
• Pew Internet: Future of the Internet – Pew Internet research releases the results of its survey on the future of the Internet. Much as expected, with the exception of one finding that surprised me: "The transparency of people and organizations will increase, but that will not necessarily yield more personal integrity, social tolerance, or forgiveness." I think we may see more tolerance overall as everyone moves to "wearing a transparent kimono."

• The Partnership for 21st Century Skills – Home – For the K-12 set: A wonderful site advocating the improvement of our education system to include 21st-century skills. From the site: "The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has developed a unified, collective vision for 21st century learning that can be used to strengthen American education." They hit the nail on the head by stressing Creativity and Innovation Skills; Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Skills, and Communication and Collaboration Skills.
• Moving towards the 2.0 “movie-going” experience – Ian Da Silva poses a thoughtful question about the future of movie distribution. This parallels many of the "converged" purchase models that I have discussed with my media clients. It will be interesting to see how long it is before you purchase your ticket at a theater and are given the option to pay an extra fee to download the video when it is released online…

• Web 2.0 Corporate Access : eLearning Technology – Steve Karrer and the eLearningGuild compile some statistics about corporate worker access to Web 2.0 applications. Not sure the scope validity of the study but it is in line with what we are seeing at Web 2.0 University
• Six Degrees of Separation Is Now Three – More interesting data as we move from the "information age" to the "connected age". From the post:

  "According to the study, the average person is now connected by just three degrees within a shared “interest” or social group instead of six. In fact, it found that people are usually a part of three main networks: family, friendship, and work."

• Predict The Future On WashingtonPost.com – Jason Kincaid's brief post highlight how Predictify's adoption by newspaper's is a reminder that “old media” is willing to embrace the interactivity afforded by the web.
• How to Keep Up with the Semantic Space « Shepherd’s Pi – Lewis Shepherd's great post pulling together a host of current thoughts and resources about the Semantic Web. It includes some resources from Henry Story's "My Semantic Web Blogroll"
• Twelve best practices for online customer communities | Enterprise Web 2.0 | ZDNet.com – Dion weighs in on the "the advent of the Web-based customer community, where groups of like-minded individuals focus around a brand or a set of product and services come together and interact online"
• 50 Steps to Establishing a Consistent Social Media Practice | chrisbrogan.com – Nice post from Chris Brogan summarizing steps to put a social media strategy into practice for your company.
• Literacy Debate – Online, R U Really Reading? – Series – NYTimes.com – Interesting article on how the Internet is changing reading styles and, therefore(?) learning styles.

• How Tetris Makes You Smarter – Blogs Scientific American Community – Julian Lyles Bass-Krueger, 14, of Clinton, NY does a great science fair experiment to show how you new digital environment can effect our intelligence (at least the intelligence tested in spatial questions in IQ tests).
• Microsoft Joins Effort for Laptops for Children – New York Times – OLPC continues to evolve: After a years-long dispute, Microsoft and the computing and OLPC said Thursday that they had reached an agreement to offer Windows on the organization’s computers.
• FRONTLINE: Growing Up Online | PBS – PBS program Frontline always asks: "Just how radically is the Internet transforming the experience of childhood?"
• Predictify, Inc. – Tap Into Collective Wisdom, Make Money by Predicting Future Events – Another example of a prediction market to harness the wisdom of crowds. These collective intelligence sites will have a huge impact on how people learn and discern trends.

• From The Information Age To The Connected Age – GigaOM – An insightful post from Anne Zelenka on "how the web enables us to move from one era into another, from the Information Age to the Connected Age."
• Understanding productivity in the Information Age – MIT Sloan Newsroom – In today's knowledge-based economy, it pays to be an “information hub”

These are my links for April 9th through April 13th:

• 10 Most Disruptive Technologies – eWeek pulls together Gartner's list of 10 most disruptive technologies through 2012. The annoying slideshow format asisde, it reveals technologies that will greatly impact the way we work, learn and live over the next five years.
• I Saw The Future Of Social Networking The Other Day – Another peek into the future that sees the Web (as most people predict, a mobile Web) as ancillary memory for us. As you read through Michael's blog, think about the impact this will have on learning and collaboration.