exploring the intersection of new media and everything else

The way we interact with our social institutions will change. Or at least that is my hope with the development potential of Google Moderator. Moderator is a perfect example of how new media technology can be used to do more than just entertain us or make life more convenient. Moderator has the potential to broaden democratic participation and invigorate civil society.

Although not necessarily an educational technology per se, as a 25 year old uninspired lad who has only very rarely participated in the democratic institutions to which I am entitled, this presents an educational opportunity – the opportunity to become an active citizen. All of a sudden I can participate and interact with others without having to go out of my way to drop in at the City Hall or pay for my dinner with Barack Obama. I can pose my questions and receive my responses on my own time.

Combine Moderator with a Twitter aggregator like Election 2008 and you have a powerful new way of participating in civil society – a virtual civil society. For technophiles like myself this is a wonderful new way to get in touch and stay in touch with the happenings in your community. This has implications for those of us who are too lazy to participate otherwise, but also those of us who cannot participate otherwise because we are living overseas for instance.

So in a nutshell what is Google Moderator?

Moderator is another one of Google’s infamous “20 percent” projects, produced on the 20 percent of Heath’s time that Google allots all of its engineers to work on their own ideas. The simple idea behind Moderator is to offer a public forum in which users can submit questions that they believe should be asked during a specific meeting or event.

- The above was borrowed from David Chartier at Ars Technica