Today all of the dots in the entire duchy heard a truly inspiring address by Alan November. At least it would have been inspiring if the dots had been able to hear the address. The sound system was so bad that most of the time nobody could even tell someone was talking. However, if they had been able to hear they would have heard him talking about the importance of creativity and global connectedness. They would have heard him asking good questions, like "Who owns the learning?" Our dots know who owns the learning in Dotland and it's not them. Our dots would like to at least be able to rent some learning occasionally but unfortunately that's out of reach as well. Alan November thinks students should own the learning. Our teachers think NCLB owns the learning. Our dots know who owns the learning but we won't speak of that.
He told us "The world is flat" (Thomas Friedman). The Duchy is not flat. It's in fact quite mountainous with steep precipices where unwary dots fall to their deaths, figuratively if not literally.
He told us we could communicate globally with email and Skype. The Black Dots don't even want us to email our friends, the librarians.
Maybe he would have been more inspiring in a duchy where such things are possible.