If you haven't already done so, go spend a few minutes playing with Intel's "The Museum of Me." It's a slightly amusing meme that people have been enjoying for a few weeks. You simply put in your Facebook credentials, and Intel creates a "movie" of a museum, showing you, your Facebook friends, videos and pictures you've uploaded to Facebook, etc. It's a bit creepy seeing how easy it is to draw up a "digital footprint" of one's self, but it also is an impressive idea, leaving me wanting more: we really should have "Museums of Me."
In a sense, we do--- we have a digital footprint that can be called up with all kinds of tools on the Internet (Google being the easiest). But what if we really were able to have a digital museum, where we could pull together everything that we wanted people to see and know about us, in one place, rather than scattered Across the Universe Internet?
Of course, what I'm really thinking about is a living museum for students to keep their work viewable and preserved--- from Kindergarten (or before) onward. Intel's fun little tool is a tiny vision of what could be, but is limited more than by its brevity or Facebook-centric focus. One really has no control as to what gets added to the museum, or what the museum looks like, or even how long it will survive.
A smart company (like Intel) could easily create real "Museums of Me" for people at little or no cost, but I would especially like to see one created for students to capture their work in a reliable and stable environment that will still exist when they graduate college (Google: "Will you still be here in 20 or so years?")
All across the nation, unfortunately, trash bins are being filled to overflowing with student work as schools close up and begin the summer cleanse. It happens every year: out with the old, to make ready for next year, because all the paper work takes up space.
Digital work (or digital captures of work) takes up very little space. There's really no reason to ever throw it out.
If our work that we do with students is important, then it should be preserved and revered. Every student deserves his/her own personal museum.
