{"id":652,"date":"2013-02-18T17:05:57","date_gmt":"2013-02-18T17:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rosarioconsulting.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=652"},"modified":"2013-02-18T17:13:23","modified_gmt":"2013-02-18T17:13:23","slug":"how-might-we-improve-the-way-citizens-and-governments-interact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/how-might-we-improve-the-way-citizens-and-governments-interact\/","title":{"rendered":"How might we improve the way citizens and governments interact?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!-- Facebook Like Button v1.9.6 BEGIN [http:\/\/blog.bottomlessinc.com] -->\n<iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Finspiredtoeducate.net%2Finspiredtoeducate%2Fhow-might-we-improve-the-way-citizens-and-governments-interact%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height: 30px; align: left; margin: 2px 0px 2px 0px\"><\/iframe>\n<!-- Facebook Like Button END -->\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/rosarioconsulting.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/allHandsIn.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-653\" title=\"allHandsIn\" src=\"http:\/\/rosarioconsulting.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/allHandsIn.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"347\" srcset=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/allHandsIn.jpg 500w, http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/allHandsIn-300x208.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you read the news paper, it\u2019s impossible to avoid headlines related to big issues facing our culture.\u00a0\u00a0 How do we value people and human life? \u00a0How do we address poverty?\u00a0 How do we improve our education system to foster a culture of great teachers?\u00a0\u00a0 For our exceptional teachers, how do we celebrate those teachers with a great salary?\u00a0\u00a0 How do we stimulate the local economy to create jobs?<\/p>\n<p>As common citizens, it\u2019s easy for us to feel powerless in the face of these big problems.\u00a0\u00a0 We often think about government as this \u201cbig entity\u201d that we influence by voting, writing letters, and getting involved in local councils. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Like many others from the \u201ccode for America\u201d movement, I believe that social media and the internet give citizens a new opportunity to connect with each other and local leaders to create positive change in our neighborhoods.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Social media, however, is only a tool.<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 It takes great leaders, engaged communities, and a common vision to address some of the big issues facing our culture.\u00a0 How do we get more of this?<\/p>\n<p>Jennifer Pahlka, one of the founding leaders from Code for America, has an awesome quote about a new vision of government:\u00a0 <em>\u201cGovernment is about doing together what we can\u2019t do alone.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 Government isn\u2019t just the people we elect to public office.\u00a0\u00a0 Citizens have the potential to connect to each other, self-organize, and form communities of reform. \u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/SeeClickFix.com\" target=\"_blank\">SeeClickFix.com<\/a> is an example of an app that can be used by citizens to identify issues in their area and encouraging citizens\/government to resolve them.<\/p>\n<p>I wanted to shine a light on an open innovation event sponsored by the Knight Foundation.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I believe the Knight Foundation has a very cool and important mission: \u00a0\u201cKnight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. We believe that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newschallenge.org\/open\/open-government\/brief.html\" target=\"_blank\">How might we improve the way citizens and governments interact?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>They seem to have a passion for engaging citizens and solving \u201cbig problems\u201d in novel ways.\u00a0 In their current innovation challenge, they are asking citizens to address the following question: \u201cHow might we improve the way citizens and governments interact?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 You can learn more about their challenge to government and local citizens by visiting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newschallenge.org\/\">http:\/\/www.NewsChallenge.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I believe their approach to this challenge is cool since they are executing this challenge using <a href=\"http:\/\/openideo.com\" target=\"_blank\">OpenIdeo\u2019s social innovation platform<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 This platform has many of my favorite ideas:\u00a0 online collaboration, gamification, and designing engagement experiences with focused missions.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eUApgJBZU8M\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>At the time of the writing, the challenge event has<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newschallenge.org\/open\/open-government\/brief.html\" target=\"_blank\"> collected 109 innovation ideas<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the spirit of previous Knight Foundation challenges, they hope to financially support some of the top ideas.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What one idea would you want to share?\u00a0 What\u2019s important to you?<\/li>\n<li>From a project based learning perspective, can we use these open innovation challenges to create \u201cmini-challenges\u201d that can be shared with students?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>Related posts:<\/div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"Jennifer Pahika challenges us to \u201ccode a better government\u201d\" href=\"http:\/\/rosarioconsulting.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=322\" target=\"_blank\">Jennifer Pahika challenges us to \u201ccode a better government\u201d<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"10 Strategies To Inspire Innovation and Fun In Projects\" href=\"http:\/\/rosarioconsulting.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=537\" target=\"_blank\">10 Strategies To Inspire Innovation and Fun In Projects<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!\" href=\"http:\/\/rosarioconsulting.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=211\" target=\"_blank\">Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Can gaming have a positive impact to students? Answers from GamesForChange.org\" href=\"http:\/\/rosarioconsulting.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=30\" target=\"_blank\">Can gaming have a positive impact to students? Answers from GamesForChange.org<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo taken from\u00a0http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jiheffe\/3462940215\/sizes\/o\/in\/photostream\/<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<!-- Facebook Like Button v1.9.6 BEGIN [http:\/\/blog.bottomlessinc.com] -->\n<iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Finspiredtoeducate.net%2Finspiredtoeducate%2Fhow-might-we-improve-the-way-citizens-and-governments-interact%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height: 30px; align: left; margin: 2px 0px 2px 0px\"><\/iframe>\n<!-- Facebook Like Button END -->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you read the news paper, it\u2019s impossible to avoid headlines related to big issues facing our culture.\u00a0\u00a0 How do we value people and human life? \u00a0How do we address poverty?\u00a0 How do we improve our education system to foster a culture of great teachers?\u00a0\u00a0 For our exceptional teachers, how [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,14,6,15,17,18,16,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":655,"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652\/revisions\/655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}