Technology+Leadership+Book+Summary

The world is open by Curtis J Bonk is a very interesting and analytical summary of “how Web technology is revolutionizing education” (Bonk, 2009). Basically, as the titles explains clearly, the changes that are affecting our times are mostly related to the Web where “we can be adventurers, explorers, writers, dreamers, and learners” (Bonk, 2009) In our days, many things move around the Web and education is not the exception. 'If the book could be shortened to its narrowest point, it would exist as a one-line proclamation of that states, “Anyone can now learn anything from anyone at anytime” (Bonk,2009) what also points to the idea of an open world where ideas and knowledge flow freely all around the globe without any restrictions. As the book states “We all learn” because of this open world flow of ideas and knowledge. “We are living in a time period of the most monumental changes and challenges to arise in education since Plato” (Bonk, 2009) This changes and challenges are of course related to the Web era where information flows extremely fast an continuously in this open world. The opportunities and challenges of this era are expressed clearly when the author says “ I am also certain that my grandfather could not create his own learning materials with some of his classmates that could be edited by still other peers, experts, instructors, or complete strangers in a wiki.” (Bonk, 2009) I do not even think my grandparents' teachers were able to do this either. It is exiting how we have these tools of learning where students and teachers can create instructional materials, edit them and post those materials online so people around the globe may be able to explore and learn. In a few worlds, this means technology is transforming the way we learn and of course technology is or should be transforming the way we teach. It is clear we all need to participate and get the benefits of this new era. “Technology by itself will not empower learners. Innovative pedagogy is required” (Bonk, 2009) Additionally, I would say that technology is not empowering teachers by itself either, technology should be used integrated with a strong academic curriculum. Web 2.0 communication and web collaborative software are adding a new dimension to all these tools and helping to create what The Open Society Institute is trying to establish in Cape Town, South Africa during their meeting in Sept 14-15, 2007; the world is open for education. I believe the message for teachers is clear; we have the tools. Supercomputers that were part of science fiction movies years ago are a reality. There is the movement for an open education where students and teachers can access global resources like google maps, wikis, blogs, open access software to increase their knowledge. Our world is moving towards a global sharing open culture were learners participate and contribute in an open learning community. It is our decision to participate or not but what is sure is that if we decide to participate we are going to be left behind and certainly we will regret that.

Cited Work: Bork, C (2009). The world is open. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.