Going Global,Culture Shock,Convergence, and The Future of Education

I tuned in to an archived K-12 post on the above title, and here are my ruminations:
1. A recurrent theme: what students want to learn and what they need to do with what they've learned has changed, so American (actually global) education needs to change as well. I felt many of my inherent biases (biases I didn't even know I had) under fire here, and had to acknowledge that although I like to think of myself as fairly progressive in my educational philosophy--as well as my practices--that, indeed, I have a long way to go. Historically, online universities have always seemed a bit suspect to me: Can such institutions really compare to the ivy covered Georgian architecture and the cordoroy blazered professors of my own undergraduate days? Weren't the late night fiery political debates which happened long after dorm lock down really where much of my education was spawned? How can the (what I considered) solitary interaction oif man & computer ever compete with the dynamic post secondary experience most of us had in the sixties? Aha! (English teachers love to talk of --& create--"Aha! moments"): the internet as collaboration. As preposterous as it may seem to those of you much younger and more technologically savvy than myself, the computer has been more akin to Hal 2001 A Space Odyssey than a feast of global collaboration.
The bell has rung (I'm a teacher, you know) so more later....