The World is Open

First it was flat and now it's open. I just can't keep up. Thomas Friedman first published his book The World is Flat in 2005 and provided an analysis of globalization where the world has now become a level playing field in commerce with the help of technologies such as supply chains, the internet, and outsourcing. Parallel to this idea of flattening is the idea of the world being opened. The internet and personal computer has given rise to personal education allowing users to learn anytime and anywhere almost anything if your fingers type the right search algorithm. This openness has revolutionized education, allowing those to learn who were unable previously (hole-in-the-wall) and enhance the education of many others. I often try to think of a world pre-internet or even pre-personal computing. Would coffee shops even exist? It all seems prehistoric, although it really wasn't that long ago that my mom was typing a final paper on a typewriter in the library at Villanova. She tells me that they had to take turns and I just stare like she's talking in a foreign language.

It can all just be so incredibly overwhelming, the internet that is. I imagine it is comparable to a group of five year olds walking into a candy store and being told they can have whatever they want and howevermuch they want. I bet a few wouldn't even know where to start! And that's how I feel sometimes. Completely and utterly overwhelmed at what I have access to at my fingertips.

And let's not get started on taking the multitude of Web 2.0 technologies and introducing them to a group of 30 10 year old students and expect to still have control. I guess I didn't think there would be such a large technology gap among students. I have some students asking me how to turn the "brain box" on and others while others are recording and editing their own digital videos.

It is essential that educators muddle through the brain box scenarios to help students become life long learners and stakeholders in their own education, considering they harbor the world's knowledge at their fingertips.