Global Villages

In one of our readings for our CI501 class, we read about global villages. The concept of a global village is a reference to a world-wide community of people who have come together through the capabilities of technology. The tone of the article we read was fairly negative about global villages, giving examples of it destroying cultures. However, I disagree with this. I think global villages are a good thing in that they allow people from all over the world to come together and learn about and from each other. Sure there can be miscommunications and other problems, but you can have those same sorts of issues in face-to-face groups as well. Someday, if translation capabilities improve, people from the United States could more easily converse with people from other countries. We should welcome and embrace these new capabilities.

Global villages affect K-12 classrooms in various ways. Global villages can be organized around certain websites, message boards, or Wikis. Kids may be exposed to ideas these global villages believe in which may conflict with cultural beliefs they have. Global villages can also be of great help in some ways. If there is a community of experts on a certain subject matter, allowing kids to converse with these experts can lead to more in-depth research into the subject. Participating in a global village requires good, clear communication and exposing kids to this can be a good thing.

My job as a software engineer has forced me to interact with people all over the world. I have worked with labs in Mexico, India, China, and other parts of the world. At times this has been challenging due to the time zone differences, cultural differences, and maybe more importantly language differences. However, these communications have provided me with new experiences and new ideas that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Exposing our K-12 students to individuals across the United States and world will give them a chance to grow as well.