This morning at all-school meeting, I shared this video with our students and school community. It was particularly fitting to do so today, I explained to the assembly. The video features author Steven Johnson explaining the incredibly important value of on-line networking in the development of better thinking and “good ideas.”
Appropriate it was, today, because we had visiting our campus three educators from out-of-town, two from Phoenix and one from Atlanta. They were here at our school to share and develop further their own “good ideas,” and all three had come to us, in one way or another, via communications along on-line networks such as Twitter and blogging.
I encouraged our students, after the video’s conclusion, to reflect upon the ways in which they were using online networking in ways beyond the merely social: were they using it, or could they be using it more effectively (and safely, of course), to communicate with others who shared their passions and hobbies and with whom they could share their own “good ideas,” and through this intellectual networking, better develop new “good ideas.”
April 1, 2011 at 12:37 pm
Thanks for sharing as I sent this to my faculty. Looking forward to getting to meet you next week at NCAIS Innovate.
April 4, 2011 at 7:16 am
Connectivity, chance, hunches and collaboration are all wonderful and powerful agents of change. I wonder if our kids realize the power of being able to exchange ideas and simply be connected? It’s been a shrinking world throughout history. Strange that our world can shrink and expand simultaneously? But, a good strange.