Techlearning blog

A few weeks ago, Dean Shareski shared his analgoy for explaining just what RSS is, and why it can be so powerful for educators.

I’ve recently assembled a team of researchers who go out on a daily basis and find out what’s happening in the world of digital learning and education in general. This team is comprised of teachers, consultants and experts who really know there stuff. Some live in China,New Zealand, Scotland, United States and Canada. They send me their findings in an instance. Some will even call me to discuss their findings. If there are questions, I can get clarification and often leads me to others who are also working on the issue. They are relentless.When I wake up in the morning, I’m always amazed that the work they’ve done. Sometimes it’s too much but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

He supplemented the analogy with the following image:

I love the analogy. And I would even take it a few steps further. They're my friends, my online family, and most importantly my network. Every day the network grows and its value increases to me.

At Discovery Education, we're looking at Wordpress MU along with a few other options for a blog engine. While I didn't know anything about it, James Farmer stepped up to the plate. When I needed to explore Second Life, I reached out to Kevin Jarrett who has been an amazing resource for me. And when Firefox was crashing on me, no less than six people offered their advice on Twitter.

Why do I mention these examples? Because as pwoerful as a Google search may be, it's no substitute for having a network of your peers to draw upon. Every teacher emphasizes collaborative work, and how to function within a team. But does your program teach students how to find experts online in order to reach out and communicate directly with them? How to build up their own research team that they can count on when problems arise? And most importantly, how to interact with them online or offline in a safe and appropriate way?

The idea of a student contacting a complete stranger, peer or adult, would certainly be more than just a little worrisome. And yet it's going to be an occurance that will be increasingly commonplace in the coming yeasrs. Did I mention that just about everyone in the examples I mentioned were people I've never met face to face?

Which is the more valuable skill in the 21st century: Knowing the answer to a problem, or having a network of people that can help you solve just about any problem?

One of my many networks, Flickr
Created by Flickr Graph