Tonight I hosted our biweekly committee meeting for the South Philly Food Co-op that myself and a small group of community members are working hard to open. There's something special and intimate about having a group of people who are not necessarily your friends, but with whom you share a connection, sitting in your living room.

Part of our efforts have included door-to-door surveying of neighbors and community members as well as participating in community events and speaking at civic association meetings. I have never learned so much about my neighbors or my community. In the process of finding neighbors to survey I officially met my neighbors two doors down whom I have been smiling and saying hello to for a year now.

Which got me thinking.

With all of the amazing opportunities that technology offers to open up our classroom walls and make global connections between students across oceans are we forgetting the importance of the community across the street?  Technology has the power to connect students with their neighbors and to become active members and participants in and spokespeople for their local communities.

So lets open our classroom walls to the world outside our window as well as the world beyond our reach.

Photo courtesy of Bill Gracey on Flickr