Family connections:I went to my Godmother's 85th birthday celebration yesterday. Her reminiscences are my connection to my late father and our common history. (Unlike many WW II vets, my Dad wasn't content to stay stateside. His job as a GE engineer took him to England, France, Germany, and Japan. One of my favorite books as a child was his well-thumbed copy of Richard Halliburton's Complete Book of Marvels. My Mom, who saw service in France and England, was a reluctant traveler and turned down a trip to Sweden because she could see all the snow she needed at home.)
The cousins I spoke with came from the Albany, NY area (our home base) and further afield: Las Vegas, Sedona, Houston, New Orleans. We shared stories of visits to Montana, Wyoming, and of one couple's journey to the Italian village from which our grandparents emigrated in the early 20th century.
I think we inherited a predisposition towards the global perspective, without recognizing or naming it as such.
Professional connections:
I've "met" dozens of articulate, knowledgeable librarians, authors, and IT bloggers through my RSS feeds. Their experiences and insights have expanded my horizons considerably. Each day I add more ideas and links to the Google Document which will serve as the backbone of my new Current Events class. I could have taught such a class in the pre-digital era, but it would have lacked the depth and texture that are now possible.
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while I was in high school. Our American History teacher had us assemble scrapbooks with newspaper clippings and magazine articles. Imagine the project students could create now, using the visual, audio, and collaborative tools available in a world 2.0!
2 comments:
Thanks for the kind comment on my blog. And thanks for alerting me to your new, very thoughtful contribution to the blogosphere!
Your comments about Kennedy and world 2.0 remind me that we recently unearthed my library's carefully stashed newspaper clippings from time of the Kennedy assassination (I was in sixth grade). Surely there's something 2.0-ish we could do with them?
Francey, Good question. We still have a few lone remnants of our school's vertical file taking up space in a dented cabinet. Besides scanning, what could they be used for? Is there some "killer appp" that more tech savvy teacher/librarians than I are privvy to? I love gathering information online, but a lot of our cultural trivia is being discarded with the ephemera. I once recorded a football game for my son, when he was younger. I very carefully deleted all the commercials. He and I both regret the loss of those fleeting glimpses of America as it was...the food, the clothes, the flavor of a time he already waxes nostalgic over in his twenties.
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