I downloaded a couple of podcasts from the EdTechTalk site last night while watching the baseball playoffs in a motel room. Listening to this content is a great way to fill a five hour drive home, and get excited about what cool things are being done in education. One of the sites that was talked during the podcast was Worldbridges. After getting home, I found a little time to explore this site...Amazing! There are numerous video posts, and links to a wide variety of blog sites. The second half of a presentation by David Cormier has a interesting demonstration of an open source version of second life that can be run, and completely controlled locally. This is definitely something I need to learn more about. I have been hearing and reading about educational applications of using second life, but now it's time to move beyond surface knowledge and dig in. There is also a keynote presentation by Will Richardson. He has a great vision of how web 2.0 tools change the way people learn, and in turn the way we should be teaching today's students. One of the things he said during a panel discussion was that the learning has traditionally been a dependent experience. Educators are no longer the gatekeepers of information. Students now have the ability to independently design their learning. The real irony in this statement is that many students are participating in extremely large and diverse collaborative learning communities.