A new book due out next month from Don Tapscott (whose Growing Up Digital was great) looks at the potential of collaboration on a mass scale and looks like it might offer up some more ammunition to the conversation around rethinking what we do in our classrooms. Not sure if there is an education specific piece to the book as only the introduction and first chapter are online, but here’s a quote that whetted my appetite:

These changes, among others, are ushering us toward a world where knowledge, power, and productive capability will be more dispersed than at any time in our history—a world where value creation will be fast, fluid, and persistently disruptive. A world where only the connected will survive. A power shift is underway, and a tough new business rule is emerging: Harness the new collaboration or perish. Those who fail to grasp this will find themselves ever more isolated—cut off from the networks that are sharing, adapting, and updating knowledge to create value.

And, can you say “irrelevant?”

And, just ’cause I like to play with words, here’s another snippet with some “editing” (the original is in the brackets):

For smart schools [companies], the rising tide of mass collaboration offers vast opportunity…Schools [Companies] can reach beyond their walls to sow the seeds of innovation and harvest a bountiful crop. Indeed, educators [firms] that cultivate nimble, trust-based relationships with external collaborators are positioned to form vibrant classroom [business] ecosystems that enhance learning [create value] more effectively than hierarchically organized schools [businesses].

More to read during my break for the holidays…

(Via Steve Cohen)

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