In the last three weeks, The World is Flat - A Brief History of the Twenty-first century has popped up in conversations at least a half dozen times. Although I have my differences with Thomas Friedman's foreign policy views, I do value Will Richardson's recommendation and comments as an educator. Here is a portion of Will's connected and collaborative reflections of Friedman’s book:
We edubloggers talk and write about this a lot, this idea that the tools of the Read/Write Web necessarily change the relationships and construction of the classroom. When audience moves from one teacher to many readers, when assessment moves measuring correctness to measuring usefulness, when we ask for long lasting contribution of ideas instead of short-lived answers to narrow questions, it requires us to rethink our roles as teachers and to redefine our curricula. Remember, we don't own the content any longer. Our students teach us the tools. They are already connecting and collaborating. To hold on to the vertical classroom is to risk irrelevance...soon.
.. What an appropriate read for my June Trans-Atlantic flight, if nothing else for the irony of the flat world reference in the title in conjunction with the traverse.