Happy Christmas to All

It is difficult to get things written these days. The fog of pain meds, a lack of stamina, writing from bed, which has never been my comfort zone. But I did want to say a "Happy Christmas to All" to all of you in this corner of the Blogosphere. I think, every day, how lucky I am to live in these times, when simple tools like blogs and Twitter, email and list-serves, Skype and Google Chat, can bring so many of us together, in such vital ways.



I think about all I learn from blogs and Twitter everyday. All the tools I discover, strategies I find, resources I can add to my toolbelt, and I feel like we have arrived at someplace profoundly new in human education.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus

And then I think how many are left out of this new world. Just as Dickens' described the horribly uneven acquisition of weath in Industrial Revolution England when he wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843, so today we might describe a situation where those most in need of the empowerment that these new learning modes bring, are most likely to be denied access.

Harry Harrison's Classic Monologue

I meet students every day who languish in the back of 19th Century classrooms, while something as simple as the right mobile phone could allow them to join any number of remarkable, interactive, learning communities. I meet students every day who sit frustrated because their teachers and schools refuse to provide them with reasonable access to information. I meet students every day who attend schools which refuse to teach the essential skills of contemporary communications these kids will need to survive. And on many days, I get angry.



But today I am not angry. Today I am hopeful. Today I look out and see all of you working incredibly hard to change these facts. And I see all of you experimenting, collaborating, sharing, trying. And I see us at a moment where the technology and the intention of Universal Design have come together.

So, Happy Christmas to All. Thanks to all of you for all that you do.

- Ira Socol