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"Who will attend to the skills gap and create stronger linkages to the workforce? This book illuminates the great disruptive potential of online competency- based education. Workforce training, competency-based learning, and online learning are clearly not new phenomena, but online competency-based education is revolutionary because it marks the critical convergence of multiple vectors: the right learning model, the right technologies, the right customers, and the right business model."

Today's learners will be key players in societies and workforces that require multi-lateral and cross-cultural cooperation. Throughout, learn why--and how--virtual exchange programs can lead to empathetic, global, connected learning that prepares youth for tomorrow's world.

Young, K. (2004). Internet Addiction: A new Clinical Phenomenon and Its Consequences. American Behavioral Scientist. 48:402

a. Although this is a psychology article, it poses an important concern over the rise of internet addiction in connected populations. This article is relevant to this course, as it relates to the notion of critical consumption; some users are unable to filter information effectively, which should be recognized as a concern. Young states many statistics from educators and researchers discounting internet use in the classroom as it is far too distracting and the loss of productivity (in both students and the workforce) is immense.

Some might argue that this article shows the downside of connected learning and e-resources, however this is not the case. Certain web activities mentioned in the paper such as chat rooms, social media, and video games are not the focus of this course. Open Knowledge deals with the light side of the internet, which is the interconnectivity, the accelerated learning, and the ability to publish ones own content. The internet can definitely be misused, but not every web activity is "junk food". If someone obsessively became a mathematician and ultimately ended up being the best mathematician in the world due to "addiction" people would call him or her a genius. The trick is to filter which content and activities one engages in.