The power of the Internet boggles the mind.  Today, during the Coordinating Council meeting of the Colorado Association of School Executives (CASE), we hosted a guest speaker via Skype video call.  Principal Yang Weigou is the school leader for Fuxing High School in Tianjin, China.  At 6 :00 PM in Breckenridge, Colorado, Principal Yang and his staff made a Skype call from Tianjin where the local time was 8:00 AM... the next day.

Principal Yang's message was one of peace and goodwill.  He spoke of China's initiative to educate the young and described how most young people in his city are now enrolled at school.  He emphasized the importance of an education and the considerable need China has for educated professionals.  He concluded his message with hopes that our schools in Colorado will collaborate with schools in China... his in particular... on exchange projects, visitations and even exchanges of staff and students.

The Council, as I have been, was amazed by how simple and yet how powerful this all was.  But that's just it.  This stuff is commonplace in today's world... or at least is becoming common.  It is one thing for us to teach students how to do this kind of thing, but ultimately collaboration on this scale needs to become the norm.  When we achieve that, we'll be getting somewhere.

Here's a video of the call...

VIDEO LINK