The world is not flat

I just realized today, after reading a myriad of posts in dozens of blogs reporting on the NECC and BLC conferences in the US that, with one possible exception*, I have never met another "edublogger" face to face.

This week, thanks to some new social networks at Ning, I've met online some Argentine edubloggers (none from Catamarca yet), and one from Guatemala (I'm waiting to see if she's from anywhere near Tacaná). These connections, and the possibilities they hold, amaze me every day. Some would even say the world is getting flat.

Not me.

The world looks flat to some people because they are on the rooftops of high rises, waving and cheering to each other across the gaps; closer to each other than they are to the people on the ground floor of their own buildings.

To carry the metaphor further, visibility at ground level is so bad that people can barely see across the street.

While a relatively few people are becoming ever more connected, there are still millions who never go to school. I have known adults who did not know how to look at a photograph or how to dial a phone. I have known children who died of diarrhea and adults who died of measles. I have known women who didn't know if they were widows, because their government wouldn't tell them. ICT? Information at that level is scarce, communication is paralyzed, and technology is busted.

This isn't about guilt. It's about the frustration I feel that, in spite of all the talk about bridges, the bridges are connecting like to like. I don't want to give up the technology we have, and I don't think we should. Yet at the same time we can't leave so many behind. Sure we need bridges, but we also need elevators, chair lifts, moving sidewalks. We need to connect vertically as well as horizontally.

*a friend who blogs mostly on politics, occasionally on school politics.

Comments

[clay burell]

Your "spiky-worlder" comment on Ning has been a riddle I've puzzled over since reading it last week.

Is this what you mean?

It's a good point, clearly.

[Wesley Fryer]

You're sharing a much-needed perspective out here in the flat world or psuedo-flat world we're each living in, Tom. Speaking for myself (because who else can I truly speak for) I think I often get so used to living in the bubble of existence I'm in, that I forget conditions are QUITE different for others in different contexts. The fact that we're having this conversation at all is an indication of a different world than the one we grew up in, I think. Certainly there are LOTS of people not presently experiencing access to this digital world, but I feel pretty confident those numbers will continue to grow. It sounds like you've seen and experienced things in your life that give you a intense perspective on issues of poverty and prosperity, digital-haves and digital-have nots. We all may not have the good fortune to be international travelers, but to the extent we can rub minds and swap perceptions with others down the street or thousands of miles away across the planet, I think we can enrich our own lives and hopefully make us better human beings-- more informed, empowered, and motivated to make a positive difference in the fields in which we find ourselves currently planted.

[Jane Nicholls]

Yours is the 'voice in the wilderness'. A much needed voice saying something different to the majority of the blogosphere. Thank you for your perspective and adding a new dimension to the conversation