It is always refreshing to to find a distinguished education researcher that has a finger on the pulse of social media. Yong Zhao’s keynote brigs a globalization perspective to the conference. I’ve known this is important, but it is covered very little in the professional development I’ve seen. Sure we mention it, elude to it, provides hints, but we do little to really extend an understanding of it. For our own state conference, I think it is going to be an essential point of my own talk. Dr. Zhao also covers Digital citizenship, Daniel Pink’s book, A whole New Mind, the rise of global virtual communities, and the drive of consumerism. Solutions? Global perspectives, discovering niche talents, looking at multiple talents as a judge of success…and in education, complementary technologies rather than technologies that compete for attention, redefining talents and what constitutes academic success. Using existing technologies to teach, rather than reinvent to wheel (Second Life to teach language)…he gave a great example of an online game (in development) to teach Chinese to elementary students.

For a nation of fear, fear of globalization in the US is not surprising. Globalization needs to be embraced. What is the alternative? Think of Vietnam shortly after the American War (pardon the global perspective). Vietnam went off the map, but are back with a vengeance. I suppose, the US could do the same. We’d cause a catastrophic failure of Walmart, but despite any animosity on my part for the chain, I don’t want it to happen. The fact is, we cannot expect to compete without being a player. To be a player, we need to find a role. And we need to redefine education.