The World is Flat
I just started reading this book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Thomas Friedman, but I wanted to quote a paragraph from the first chapter. I think this book, while not directly referencing our educational system, provides a theory for a technological future that educational policy makers would do well to attempt to understand.
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. As I detail in the next chapter, we are entering a phase where we are going to see the digitization, virtualization, and automation of almost everything. The gains in productivity will be staggering for those countries, companies, and individuals who can absorb the new technological tools. And we are entering a phase where more people than ever before in the history of the world are going to have access to these tools—as innovators, as collaborators, and alas, even as terrorists.”
Why is the world flat? “Everywhere you turn, hierarchies are being challenged from below or transforming themselves from top-down structures into more horizontal and collaborative ones.” Very much like what David Weinberger suggested in his NECC keynote: The New Shape of Knowledge.
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