Ahem, yes. Sorry. This weeks blog post is about Global Connectivity. So, one of the things I'm contemplating for my current class and something I've been contemplating for a while now before this class is connecting my students to resources all over the globe. I find myself with a number of connections in academia (one of them's name is Caroline, thus the cheesy intro) and I'm setting out to investigate the possibility of connecting my classroom to research labs in far away places. Sounds snazzy right?
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| The world is not such a big place any more. |
Well, where to begin? First, I'm reaching out (bah, bah, daaaah) to my contacts to see if they're willing to jump on this bandwagon. While I wait for the dozens of positive response I'm going to get, I've begun researching. Shelley Terrell does a blog and has posted 28 resources for connecting students. Its a good start, but I'm a doer. I'm hoping that I can get connected with colleagues that I already know and that will get the ball rolling with colleagues I don't know. Since migrating my classroom to Google Classroom, I am looking at giving my students a more rounded education, allowing them to reach out to the Internet and delve into the subjects. If I can set up partners in advance, it would give them a head start.
Thomas Friedman does a talk about his book The World is Flat, the first three chapters anyway. His basic idea is that the world is no longer a disconnected series of countries. We are globalizing. We are communicating in ways that we can't possibly imagine. He brings up one example of McDonald's having a call center that takes your order and sends it along with your picture to the restaurant where you've pulled up to the drive through. Say what?!? Yes, you might speak to someone in Colorado Springs to order your 20 piece nugget no matter where you might be. It's a pilot program to be sure, but hey.
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| Are we sailing off a cliff? |
Until next time. . . . here's a video to get that song out of your head.
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