These site volunteers in Northern Uganda are undergoing web 2.0 training: learning to access and assess information in wikipedia, posting to a wiki, getting familiar with a range of Google services (gmail, chat, docs, search, maps, etc), and exploring twitter and other social networking sites. These are users who are living in what three years ago was a war zone, and who must travel to the district capital of Gulu to have a stable source of electricity. Web 2.0 opportunites, coupled with solar power, wifi wireless technology, and low-powered PCs, together consititute a set of technologies that are bypassing traditional infrastructure requirements and enabling users to overcome isolation and enter the global conversation.
We might keep this example in mind as we work to integrate web 2.0 technologies into classrooms in the United States. The rest of the world isn’t waiting.