Global Collaboration, sometimes it just happens

There has been so much much talk around global collaboration in recent years and in fact there are many companies, particularly in the USA and Canada who are built on the premise of this being a developing aspect of education, that is well worth tapping into.

In Australia we always have the excuses of "time differences" that make connecting with Europe and the USA untenable, and so I recently looked at cities in either the same or within 2 hours of my time zone and came up with a list to start focusing on:
Vladivostok, Seoul, Tokyo, Port Moresby Guam, Shanghai and Beijing.

However sometimes things just happen.....last Saturday morning I was driving my daughters to the local shops when my daughter got a Facebook message form a friends 17 year old son in Brooklyn New York. He was asking if she knew how Ned Kelly was. She responded, "Of course! Why?" 

Here he was at home and he'd just downloaded the Ned Kelly movie, the version starring Heath Ledger. He asked what we knew about him? How far away was Glenrowan? My daughter asked him if he had an opinion whether Ned Kelly was 'Friend or Foe'?  They discussed Australian History and Irish immigration, all via the Facebook messaging inbox. I must admit I did butt in with a recommendation for him to read Peter Carey's "True History of the Kelly Gang" (with a warning about the colonial Australian lingo) and so I hope he gets in touch again after he reads it, to continue the conversation.

Now is this not global collaboration? Is it not 'online learning'? Is is not authentic? Surely far more authentic than him asking his U.S. born, U.S. educated teacher what she knows!