We often think and type more than we think and talk. The interesting phenomena is that our typing cannot only be read by the local mailman, or the telegram officer at the post office. Communication has become limitless. Our words travel to distances we may never visit. Our thoughts, ideas, and notions do not only communicate information to new and far off lands, but they connect us.
Technology has enabled us to be connected to other human beings we may never have the pleasure of introducing ourselves to one day.
A hand shake may connect one being to another, but it is limited. A persons arm can only reach so far. A handshake can go about two feet in distance and the relationship probably 5 years. Although ink letters typed on a piece of paper have a finite livelihood, the words typed on a digital device are timeless in lifespan and endless in bandwidth.
In the classroom, this outrageous ability enables students to transcend not only the boundaries of their desks, but even their classroom walls, district boarders, and more so, their continental shores.
One medium useful for connective learning is known as collaborative note taking. With my fellow MIT peers, I was able to expand my imaginative horizons and through google docs experience the pleasure of working on one single project, with 45 people, at the same time. The online document stored through google chrome gave us the ability to type simultaneously on the same project. This ability was invigorating while also proving to be a little challenging because, at times, there were 'too many cooks in the kitchen.'
Providing my future students with opportunity to engage with other students around the world via online connection is an astounding feet. Others perspectives not only become a story, they becomes tangible. The fourth grader in Paris, France whose relative passed horrifically one evening on a cobblestone street can now know, resonate, CONNECT with another 10 year old in New York City whose uncle was tragically captured in a twin tower.
Internet is power.
I look forward to experimenting with this learning medium for the rest of my life, for my personal development, and also in my classroom with young minds that simply want to explore.
A common trade mark found in public school districts today often include some kind of 'environmentally friendly' or 'globally aware' or 'community oriented' poster phrase we desire to impart to millennials. What a better way to teach children how to engage in the global world than by imparting a tool that can inspire 'connectivism' with the entire universe, for the rest of their lives.
The world is at their fingertips.
I agree with your comment that the world is at our students fingertips. I think there are many reasons to advocate for our students having greater connections to the outside world. Education takes many forms and I feel that it is more important now than ever before that students reach out to other students from other ares of our country, from other countries, with other backgrounds and learn as much as they can from each other. Violence grips and debilitates our world and it is only through education and understanding that we can end violence and we are at a tipping point. We have the ability to show younger generations the world, to have them meet people and put a name to a face, to know who a person is and not as just a country of origin or religious belief. And that, I believe, should be one of our main goals in education.
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