Early this morning I emailed Christian Long at think:lab (he’s a thought leader in School 2.0 and design for the future schools and cutting edge education) since I had sort of an "Aha!" and I knew he’d instantly understand the possibilities.

Schools constantly scramble for money. Access to thought leaders is challenging for the big Districts…let alone ones in rural schools. Same thing with respect to kids in other countries and this is acute in developing ones especially.

Connecting up kids with the best and brightest, the thought leaders, the astronauts and Senators, or even people from different disciplines whom educators would like to expose their kids to, spending huge bucks on satellite downlinks, lots of gear and technicians to set it all up simply isn’t possible in today’s current school funding situation.

But a few hundred dollars is possible and a missed opportunity if not acted upon.

When I first read Frances Cairncross’ book Death of Distance back in the late 1990′s, her premise that geography and distance would dissolve was a prescient perspective at the time. Not only has it dissolved, but the tools (like Skype and the Internet itself along with all the solutions leaping onto the scene) are accelerating the rate at which distance is becoming increasingly irrelevant.

The experiential impact of having Malcolm Cohan talking over Skype from Australia to Minneapolis (see Sydney to Minneapolis on Skype Video) was a wakeup call to me about the power of Internet-centric communications and how *I* have taken it for granted in some ways…but it caused me to have a knowing that I had to help others understand what’s possible right this minute.

Though what I’m about to describe has implications for businesses of all sizes as well as non-profit organizations desiring to have interactive venues with key people, I’m especially keen on what this can mean to schools and specifically K-12 education.  Educators could begin to tap into the knowledge and brain trust that exists globally without budgeting for big infrastructure or the expense of flying someone to their location. They could even connect with other educators — perhaps a professor steeped in knowledge of a topic *or* even another classroom on the other side of the world — for laughingly low costs.

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