My old secondary school was recently demolished and while that took a little time for me to digest I have to admit that its demise probably came as a relief to the locals. It never had the best reputation, but what I lost in terms of education did gain me a sense of eerie familiarity the first time I saw Battle Royale.

When I was a kid the only interaction we had with other schools was at the end of summer when kids in blue uniforms would try and kick the living crap out of anyone wearing a maroon uniform and vice versa.

For a pessimist like myself it was a wonderful surprise to stumble across this Classroom 2.0 project on Hoeben’s blog:

Initially, we asked students from all schools in India and London to exchange questions as audio files and then edit them in audacity or GarageBand to create a podcast. Here is an example of five Q&As:

“Well, families are quite important in England…”

The idea that kids in India and the UK can get together and build stuff like this is not only very cool, but perhaps the first steps in finding answers to some of the questions raised in Shift Happens:

As I’ve said before the emphasis for me with the above video is not on how we compete with developing countries, but how we can pool the enormous potential.

Collaboration 2.0 anyone?