I would much rather the discourse on Globalization came from economists like Joesph Stiglitz (Nobel winner for economics and was Chief Economist at World Bank), Paul Krugman (Princeton), Pankaj Ghemawat (Harvard)etc. Ted Koppel interviews Friedman and Joseph Stiglitz, who ofcourse doesnt find a mention in Friedman’s book.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/opinion/25friedman-transcript.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

Two books to read, which offer a counterperspective to Friedman’s “The World is Flat.”

The Harvard Professor, Pankaj Ghemawat’s latest book, “Redefining Global Strategy,” is more academically inclined. I read an article of his published in the journal, “Foreign Policy”, where he argues that the world is, at best, only semi-globalized. His argument being that Cultural, Administrative, Geographic and Economic aspects of a nation come in the way of total globalization from taking place and cites examples of the same.

The other small, but interesting book, is by Aronica and Ramdoo, “The World is Flat? A Critical Analysis of Thomas Friedman’s New York Times Bestseller.” It is a small book compared to the 600 page tome by Friedman, and aimed at the common man and students alike. As popular as the book may be, some reviewers assert that by what it leaves out, Friedman’s book is dangerous. The authors point to the fact that there isn’t a single table or data footnote in Friedman’s entire book. “Globalization is the greatest reorganization of the world since the Industrial Revolution,” says Aronica. Aronica and Ramdoo conclude by listing over twenty action items that point the way forward, and they provide a comprehensive, yet concise, framework for understanding the critical issues of globalization.

You may want to see http://www.mkpress.com/flat
and watch http://www.mkpress.com/flatoverview.html
for an interesting counterperspective on Friedman’s
“The World is Flat”.

Also a really interesting 6 min wake-up call: Shift Happens! http://www.mkpress.com/ShiftExtreme.html

There is also a companion book listed: Extreme Competition: Innovation and the Great 21st Century Business Reformation
http://www.mkpress.com/extreme
http://www.mkpress.com/Extreme11minWMV.html

I had seen Will’s posting and agree. I liked even more Laura Deisley’s comment to Will’s posting, where she said:

“I agree with you that leadership ‘at the top’ is really important; yet, what makes the telling difference … is that it doesn’t stop there. … There is a culture in that place that is owned and nurtured by all the stakeholders, notably the faculty and students. And that shared vision, that SHARED STORY, makes all the difference. Because it is shared it is owned and therefore is sustainable.”

love the quote! As Richardson said there are some differences from school to school. And I add, from country to country. For eg., in Romania, the main issue is not to block the content or access to the information available on the Net but to LEARN teachers how to learn their pupils to be safety online.
Our kids have more digital skills than teachers or school heads and lots of time the learning process is going in the opposite direction: things like plagiarism, cyberbulling even copyright issue come from the kids.

Will Richardson made a recent post here: http://weblogg-ed.com/2008/tale-of-two-schools-and-some-questions/
that dovetails nicely with your observations in your online course. He points out that the experience is diverse and can vary widely from school to school. He cites top level admin. and school-based leadership as key factors about what unfolds at a particular school. I have to say I agree!

The other thing that I’d throw into the mix here would be that being “connected” and “participating” may well be important for engaging in a global economy, but perhaps even more so for engaged citizenship in a networked culture.