World Without Walls

I read the article A World Without Walls: Learning Well With Others by Will Richardson, it focused on the new opportunities that social networking sites give to students, and suggest new ways teachers can integrate this new technology into their teaching. 

Richardson explains how children today are part of the "Collaboration Age", kids all over the world can communicate and share ideas with each other. They are exposed to an unlimited amount of information and experience, they can find other people who share their same passions and interests even though they live nowhere near each other. 

But Richardson also reviews the down-side of the internet, and the hardship of distinguishing the well written and accurate from the amateurish and mindless. He states that it is the teachers responsibility to make this distinction and to teach the students the difference between the two.
Richardson believes that the use of more technology in schools will allow the passions and creativity of the students shine through, and allow them to truly express themselves in "safe, effective and ethical ways."

In the article Richardson writes "In our zeal to hold on to the old structures of teaching and learning and to protect students at all costs, we are not just leaving them ill prepared for the future, we are also missing an enormous opportunity for ourselves as learners." 
I found this to be a very interesting sentiment, but also very true, technology has become a big part of our culture and way of interacting, not only socially but also in the work sense too. I never thought of a technology class to be something that could help me in future career, but with technology constantly evolving incorporating it into the school system would definitely help in the long run.

What i found surprising in this article was this eleven-year old Laura Stockman, i never did any kind of service projects when i was her age and i definitely didn't have a blog about them either. That shows the difference just between 4 years, i can't imagine what eleven-year olds will be like when i'm in college.

I think the whole idea of connecting with people all over the world, people who share the same interests and passions, is really cool and could be so useful to the learning experience. i would love to find people in other countries that shared an interest in writing, and poetry.