Utilising connectivism we can provide the children in our community the opportunity to see world issues, global economic shifts, and challenges they will see in the future.
As educators we can engage the students in digital citizenship and collaboration by connecting them to overseas populations to discuss issues of import as well as coming up with solutions together. For example, as the northern ice caps continue to melt new shipping lanes are going to open up near the North Pole. This geographic area is within reach of many regional and global powers such as Russia, Japan, Canada, The United Kingdom, U.S.A., the EU, Norway, etc.
These new shipping lanes can shave off weeks for long voyages for cargo ships and potentially opens up new resources for plunder such as oil.
However, they is a potential that conflicting interests may try to claim the passages as their own, a la the South China Sea situation, and the technology of today can help the students of today(tomorrows leaders) begin collaborating on how to best handle the situation.
Classrooms in the regional and global powers to be affected by the opening of new north shipping lanes can work together for long lasting solutions. They can hear each others concerns straight from the source of their fellow world citizen instead of through the prism of self interested governments and corporations.
Peer to Peer collaboration can begin for the students at a very young age and help all involved better understand each other's perspective and the issue overall. This collaboration also allows the students to construct their own nuanced view on the world they live in as they learn from their peers around the world and also contribute to the global discussion.
Having children from all these classrooms start working on solutions together will only enhance the children around the world ability to collaborate on a global peer to peer scale that the human species has never seen before.
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