Cooperation,_Collaboration,_Connectivism

//"People have always been compelled to think about life and our meanings in it, how what we do always connects to what others do." --__To Kill a Mockingbird__//

I don't know how educators can continue working in isolation. How can teachers, for example, close their door and pretend this is the best way to teach? People do not understand that students will continue to move onto another classroom, to another another building, to another chatroom, another blog, wiki, facebook. They will not stop surfing the net to connect with other people, to find other information, to create new communities with similar interests.

Why, then, is there such a battle to prepare our students and encourage our students to be as productive as possible in this plugged-in, networked society we live in? Why are we fighting against the idea that students have cell phones, iPods, myspaces? Why not use these to our advantage? Why not try to replicate these experiences in their learning? Why don't we allow them to use these tools when they will depend on them so much in the future?

We need a shift in the system, but the shift may need to happen one classroom at a time. People ask all the time, "Why do we need to learn how to do this? We can't even use this because we do not have the computers." I have a better question, "How can we not seamlessly integrate technology in the world we live in? Do we have a choice?"