Global Opportunities Available to Learners

Technology has brought the everyday person to new locations throughout the world. With many universities offering online courses, a student could be enrolled at a school in Florida, but travel to Austria during the semester to visit with in-laws. My brother did just that, he went to Austria for almost 4 months while still keeping up with his classes online. I even got to "meet" several of my sister-in-laws family with webcams and the internet. I completed my student teaching in Australia a few years back and through those connections started pen pals with a middle school in Fort Dodge, IA and the 7th grade students I was working with in Australia. Now, with the advances of technology, we could even have the students "meet" online through programs likes Skype. Now that would have saved me a lot of money in airfare if I would have been able to "travel" places through the internet back then. Although, I would never replace actually traveling to Australia with just going there through the internet.
So, while we can talk to people face-to-computer screen from almost anywhere in the world and we can see how the cultures differ from place to place. If it was a perfect world, I would like to actually see the place or person in person.