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Each week, we’ll cull the interwebs for the most relevant articles, videos and commentary about Millennials and social change, and then present them right here in a weekly round-up. It’s not to say we won’t also provide our own fresh content and perspectives throughout the week, because we will—as will our provocative and savvy Social Citizen Ambassadors. But you can view this space as a central repository for all of the great stuff that’s filling our newsfeeds, twitter feeds, and Facebook streams.

We’ll do the curating for you, just come by and pay us a visit – and drop a comment every now and then to let us know how we’re doing and what we’re missing. And now for this week’s round-up…

A New Generation of Musicians

I’m betting that at least half of the people reading this have taken a music lesson at some point in their life. I remember packing up my piano books for lessons at Mrs. Murray’s house each week when I was a kid—critical to those memories were the familiar smells that always greeted me when I entered, the feel of the well-worn piano bench, and of course the guiding hands of Mrs. Murray as I tried to play a difficult measure or passage of music.

Those memories are so integral to the learning process that I could not separate the two. So I was surprised to read an article in The New York Times about the increasing popularity of video chat platforms as a way to teach music. The trend of teaching online seems to be working for everything from math and science, to cooking lessons—but music? Really?

Catherine Saint Louis reports that Skype, Google+, and others have “transformed the simple phone call, but the technology is venturing into a new frontier: it is upending and democratizing the world of music lessons… There is no data on the number of video music lessons, and many people certainly will prefer face-to-face lessons. But many music teachers said in interviews that they were conducting more lessons over broadband connections.”

What do you make of this novel approach to learning music (or any subject matter)? Would you ever take lessons or teach online? Do you think this will catch on? 

Where’s Waldo?

Searching books for an illustrated character outfitted in a trademark red and white shirt and blue pants is a task most young Americans can do without much difficulty. Ask those same people to point to the city of Miami or the country of Kenya on a map of the world and you may be surprised by the results.

Victoria Johnson writes for Fortnight about the lack of knowledge in geography among young people in America. She cites “a 1989 Gallup poll by the National Geographic Society’s then-president Gilbert M. Grosvenor [who] challenged young people (ages 18-24) in nine countries to label sixteen locations on a world map. Americans averaged 7/16, and only 25% could label the Persian Gulf, despite the US teetering on the brink of the Gulf War.” Similar studies by National Geographic in 2002 and 2006 resulted in essentially the same findings--of young Americans performing poorly when it comes to geographic aptitude.

A cartographer and a Millennial, Johnson sights the increasing decline in our collective knowledge of basic geography. She notes, “Geography education, of course, is so much more than just labeling places on a map. But it’s a fine indicator of an individual’s geographic awareness. After all, you need to know where things are to fully understand their relationship with one another.”

For future generations this dearth of geographic knowledge, or should I say lack of geographic awareness, seems like a relatively minor problem—what’s the big deal after all, when one can simply search online for these places. Geographic borders no longer carry the same meaning in large part due to advances in transportation and the internet. Problem solved, right? Or is it? Johnson argues no—“A basic understanding of geographic principles relies on having some knowledge of relative location. Without that, you’re nowhere. You are actually no where.”

What value do you think geography has in our education and society? While this post from Johnson focuses on young adults and their knowledge of the world, how do you think other generations would fare if asked the same questions? 

Tomorrow is July 24, and with the exception of a few notable events -- the return of Apollo 11 to Earth; the day the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to surrender the Watergate Tapes; or the day Lance Armstrong "retired" after winning his 7th Tour de France in 2005-- it's an otherwise unremarkable day in the history books. However, July 24, 2010 marks what could amount to be a fascinating and unprecedented day in the land of user generated video content.

A new experiment hosted by YouTube, “Life in a Day,” will attempt to document one day, as seen through the eyes of the 6.7 billion people spread out across our globe, each of whom have a unique story and perspective to share.  From the mundane to the extraordinary, over the course of the next 24 hours professional film makers and amateurs alike will attempt to capture a snapshot of their lives from sunrise to sunset.

Kevin Macdonald, the Oscar-winning director of The Last King of Scotland, will then edit the most compelling footage into a feature documentary film, to be executive-produced by Ridley Scott, the director behind films like Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, and Thelma & Louise.  The film will premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and if your footage makes it into the final cut, you’ll be credited as a co-director and may be one of 20 contributors selected to attend the premiere.

Want to take part and learn more? Here’s what you need to do.

1. Visit the “Life in a Day” channel and learn more about the project. Be sure to read through the steps you need to take to participate and the guidelines for creating your video(s). Also check out some of the sample videos for inspirational ideas.

2. On July 24, capture your day on camera.

3. Upload your footage to the “Life in a Day” channel any time before July 31.

Regardless of whether your footage makes it into the final film, your video(s) will live on in the “Life in a Day” channel as a time capsule that will tell future generations what it was like to be alive on July 24, 2010.

If you participate, we’d love to see what you capture – please share a link to your video in the comments below.

With video recording and publishing readily accessible through smart phones, flip cams and even the “old-fashioned” digital camera -- nonprofits are finding new and low cost ways to create compelling stories of their good work.  

1. Go to "edit" your video: and fill out the fields in the section marked “Call to Action Overlay”
2. Click “save,” cross your fingers, and the overlay should appear on your video

• Last month the Chronicle of Philanthropy hosted a very rich online chat called Using Video to Spread Your Nonprofit's Message and Mission.
• Nancy Schwartz offers her picks of 6 Nonprofits Who are Putting Great Online Video to Work along with links to the videos.
• Michael Hoffman at See3 Communications offers readers his 11 Tips for Using Online Video to Raise Money
• Need a camera? Flip Cam is giving cameras to eligible nonprofits through their Flip Video Spotlight Program.