login
|
|
|
|
During the cold war, the eastern and western blocs needed to have a block party. It took email, and kids with dreams, to make it happen. posted by Jason Ohler |
|||
The Rise of the Globally Connected Student
Do you like this story?
The global village, McLuhan's description of a post-literate world that has been retribalized by an international electronic nervous system, is old news. Our neighbors are on Facebook as well as next door. Big deal.
But the eSchoolNews article, The Rise of the Globally Connected Student, reminds us that world was not always so connected. It goes on to talk about truly revolutionary programs like iEARN, that have been connecting students throughout the globe since 1988.
(Remember - in 1988 there was no Internet, or not one the public had access to anyway. Email happened over dial up connections at speeds so slow that you could hear the letters land on your screen, one at a time, with a distinctive "thunk." If any of this is does not make sense to you, find a member of AARP to bring you up to speed.)
Reading from iEARN's website:
iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) is a non-profit organization made up of over 30,000 schools and youth organizations in more than 130 countries. iEARN empowers teachers and young people to work together online using the Internet and other new communications technologies. Over 2,000,000 students each day are engaged in collaborative project work worldwide.
Me and Moscow
In 1988 I had the pleasure of establishing one of the first email connections between a school in the US and the Soviet Union, in this case between high schools in Moscow and Juneau, Alaska. Making it happen required bringing a PC through Moscow customs - a mini-series in itself - and buying a modem in the US that I picked up in Moscow. When I picked up the modem I was warned to hide it underneath my coat because there had been a spate of high tech murders recently. "You mean someone would kill me for a 2400 baud modem?" I asked. "Yes," came the deadpan reply.
As the first messages transpired between the students in Moscow and Juneau, we could feel xenophobia melt away. The eastern and western blocs were having a block party. And the kids were leading the way.
Read the entire article, The Rise of the Globally Connected Student.
