Empowering Students for Global Competition

As I watch the WEB CAST of Alan November's NECC presentation held in San Antonio, Texas, June 28, 2008, I became very enlightened and overwhelmed with sadness at the same time because of the fact in which I could relate, as a Technology Applications Instructor, to the statement in which he said that, "Americans are using IM informally while Europeans and Asians are using IM formally". I have experience instructing students in a computer lab in which all of the blog sites, IM's, etc. were blocked. I realized how important it is to have students educated in all positive aspects of technology applications in order for them to be highly competitive in today's global society. Unfortunately, we as Americans only look at how we can protect our students collaboratively instead of collaborating with the students to allow them to be more aware of how important it is to use the Internet grammar and syntax to be globally competitive.