A vital link

At our campus, we’ve been involved in a several week workshop on 21st century skills and web 2.0 in particular.  Today teachers were exploring and signing up for a web 2.0 tool, to join and participate on the web. 

sandiegofireflickrslworking2.jpg  All during the workshop today, I was seeing Twitters on my twitter account from Jennifer Wagner and Sylvia Martinez, both in California, including pictures of the smoke moving closer and closer to Jennifer’s school, which I shared with the teachers in one of the workshops.

Yesterday I ran across a Google earth map set up by a local California news channel,  showing the location for San Diego residents showing areas where the different fires were, where evacuations were going on, and where large animal evacuations were also occurring.   And the same channel is broadcasting information for local residents on Twitter as well.

Tonight when I got on Flickr to locate a photo for a project, the first photo I saw was an incredible photograph of the fire, and then another one, equally incredible.

These tools and others like them are becoming a mainstream way that we get information, and share in the human community.   As we share these images, videos, and comments from people we know across the country, the events become even more real to us and to our students. 

While some people think that these tools isolate and separate us, I believe they allow us to be more a part of a global community, to empathize with those far away from where we are, and to get a real glimpse of their experiences, all of which makes us more mindful human beings.

Image credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/slworking/1706914596/

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *