10Questions.com

This is the last of the videos I shot at Elizabeth Upton's class at LaGuardia Community College. They are recent (and not so) immigrants who are in her English as a second language class (or the CUNY Language Immersion Program).

Here is part one of the series.

Then mozie on to part two.

Sultana asks the questions we all've been waiting for:

The students worked hard at coming up with questions. Sultana is actually asking the question for another student, Malva, who knocked it out of the part but was too shy to get on camera to speak her own words.

So, in the spirit of having them have a bit of a moment in participatory democracy, I asked them to get all together and around Sultana while she read the question off the whiteboard. And this was momentuous because even Sultana didn't want to participate earlier in the class. I think that seeing the others having fun and not being judged (by her teacher or me) for their performance must have given her courage.

Here are more of Elizabeth Upton's student submissions to 10Questions.com. They are in the CUNY Language Immersion Program at LaGuardia Community College. The previous videos are here.

Maria has a simple question about Iraq:

Magdalena is worried about the internet :

Elizabeth wants to know about how they will handle violence in schools:

My friend Elizabeth Upton teaches English as a Second Language at LaGuardia Community College. I went to her class to talk to them about what new things people are trying to do with technology to foster a more participatory democracy.

I have a longer post on my field trip, I just wanted to give you the students clips first.

Here's Susana (Colombia) with a question about terrorism:

Olga (Uzbekistan) on the future of the middle class:

And Miguel Ángel (Mexico) on drug trafficking:

The 10questions.com submission period is coming to an end in 5 more days. Thanks to may computer woes, I've been remiss at following up on this fantastic opportunity to ask the hard questions to the candidates; but not any more.

I am calling on all the NYC-based sponsors of 10Questions.com to come spend Sunday afternoon with me at Rapture Cafe in the East Village. I'll be there from 3:00pm to 6:00pm downing coffees and making video clips of everybody who wants to submit a clip to 10questions.

What does that mean? If you don't have a digital camera with video capabilities, a computer with WiFi or both, just bring just yourself and the questions you would like to submit. We have the cameras, we have the computers. Rapture Cafe has the coffee, beer and WiFi.

Place : Rapture Cafe - Avenue A between 13th & 12th Streets
Time : 3pm - 6pm

So take this post to starting thinking out loud what you'd like to ask the presidential candidates.

What if you could ask any question to the presidential candidates? What if the candidates could answer at any time before the primaries with the caveat that you could mark their answer a WIN or FAIL?

This is what 10Questions.com is all about.

This is a project brought by the fine people behind Personal Democracy Forum and TechPresident. Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry have gathered an amazing a non-partisan brain trust of technopundits and geeky wonks for their politics and technology shing ding. Amazing people like Morra Aarons, Zephyr Teachout, Patrick Ruffini, David All, Spencer Overton, Ruby Sinreich, Michael Bassik are part of the gang. Am an occassional bomb thrower there as well.

Out of the group's conversations came out the idea of 10Questions.com, an experiment we believe is the first one in people-powered online democracy :

Unlike television debates, the 10Questions Presidential Forum makes full use of the web's potential to expand participation in politics. Everyone has an opportunity to ask a question, and to rally support for their question being in the top ten. The candidates have plenty of time to formulate their answers, and can post in-depth replies. Finally, the community will be able to grade the candidates' answers. With large numbers of people participating, the candidates will have an incentive to pay attention. Who knows, maybe we'll even change the course of the election!