What is The Interconnect?

Welcome. You’ve discovered a place to consider technologies in the broader context of our lives, and especially, kids' lives today—interconnected with the natural world, the climate emergency, biodiversity challenges, social justice, the state of education, and wellbeing. . .

We need vistas—to recognize the bigger interconnected picture

A favorite book to read with my granddaughter features a tiger trekking through a variety of landforms, starting on a steppe, and moving through a gorge, valley, plain, tundra, isthmus, and many more. At the center of the book is a scene with fold out pages giving a wide four-page spread—Vista. It’s a glorious moment in this special book, Most of the Better Natural Things in the World, written by Dave Eggers and illustrated by Angel Chang. 

We need vistas today more than ever. It’s so easy to get lost and disheartened, bogged down in fears about the future and our children’s wellbeing. My goal with The Interconnect (and a book in progress) is to offer vistas for parents and caregivers, grandparents, educators, therapists—to widen the frame on the serious challenges we face, and provide inspiration, resources, and practices for creative, playful, critical thinking and courageous, compassionate action required of us.

And who is Claudia?

I wrote the Mindful Digital Life—Grounded in Nature and Connection blog just about every Friday from December, 2016 to June, 2022. I took a sabbatical in summer of 2022 to work on a book about the topics I covered in my blog. 

The Interconnect is my new basecamp. Thanks for visiting.

Once upon a time, I…

Co-edited with David Cole the 21st Century Notebooking project, a series of 4 books for teachers and students on papercraft and electronics; designed an open source curriculum on Citizen Science and Air Quality Monitoring for Manylabs; developed and launched a “community-sourced” online teacher professional development environment for the Monterey Institute of Technology & Education (MITE)

Directed Education Programs at Linden Lab, creators of Second Life, an early 3D Virtual World. At Linden Lab, I advised universities, colleges, large urban school systems, small rural schools and international Ministries of Education on best practices for learning and teaching on the 3D Internet. (2006–2010)

Presented on Creativity, Virtual Worlds & Inner Space at NASA Next Generation Exploration Conference. (2006)

Produced videos about second order cybernetics and first generation cyberneticians. See the clip, Origins of AI in cybernetics. (2000)

Co-authored Creating Learning Communities (Solomon Press, 2000).

Founded my own eLearning consulting company, providing leadership on pioneering internet projects in the U.S., Brazil, Fiji, Europe, and the Middle East. Yes, eLearning was once a thing. (1997-2005)

Provided the technological expertise for early Internet video conferencing experiments like the First Summit in Cyberspace (participants were Prime Minister Shimon Peres of Israel, former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter) with Dan Mapes and SynergyLabs. (1995)

Performed with Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter at the first Interactive Multimedia Festival in Los Angeles, and with Ornette Coleman at the San Francisco Jazz Festival doing real-time video improvisation with the Cyberlab new media ensemble. (1994)

Co-founded Journey, an innovative new media apprenticeship program for teenagers, with Jim Schliestett. Participants worked side-by-side with animators and artists on real world projects in Digital Media Studios, a proto-hackerspace. The Journey apprentices showcased their work at SigGraph in Los Angeles. (1993)

Lived off grid in a 100-year-old cabin with my daughter and her father in an oak dell, watching the Milky Way and learning the habits of wild boar. Hint: they like acorns. (80s)

What you can expect

Weekly posts will arrive most Saturday mornings in your inbox, free to all subscribers.

Paying subscribers are invited to comment on all posts and join bi-monthly video calls with special guests on a range of topics.

I’ll meet up once a year online with founding subscribers to talk about whatever’s on your mind and to express my gratitude and appreciation for your support.

Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for reading. And thank you for supporting my work.