With so much news focused on Foursquare and Facebook Places — it’s easy to see how companies like Gowalla have been forgotten. Well, while we have been looking the other way — Gowalla has forged a very nice relationship with Walt Disney.  The partnership between the companies comes in the form of a campaign designed to allow people to explore Walt Disney World Resort in Florida and Disneyland Resort in California.

The Texas-based company has set up a Disney Parks passport page. The page  has tabs for Walt Disney World Resort, Disneyland Resort, Photos, Recently Checked-In, Disney-branded stamps and Popular Places to visit. Each Popular Place also has its own Passport page.

What I find to be extremely engaging is that there are the hundreds of stamps that one can obtain. They currently have a featured stamp — Seasons Greetings. In order to receive this stamp you must complete six trips:

• “it’s a small world”
• Sleeping Beauty Castle
• A Christmas Fantasy Parade
• Santa’s Reindeer Round-Up
• Haunted Mansion Holiday
• “Believe… in Holiday Magic” Fireworks Show

As of this post only one person has completed the trip — Ben Millner.

I do wonder if Disney is looking at rewarding people like Ben Millner? As far as I can tell, that is not part of this initial campaign. Location based services is  a very young market for both innovators such as Gowalla and early adopters like Disney.  As the space matures and companies like Disney get more comfortable — I can see them using location-based services as a rewards program.

Why didn’t Disney go with Foursquare or Facebook? I am uncertian but what is certain is that this is a very big deal for Gowalla. Disney is one of the most recognized names in the entertainment business. Gowalla should be able to leverage this relationship to not only secure additional funding but carve out a very nice piece of the location-based business.

Fire up the Flux Capacitor

The next time you have a parent-teacher conference, take a quick glance around the classroom, and see it through the eyes of your child.  If you have more technology sitting in your pocket, than in that room, your education system is stuck in the Dewey Decimal age.

Outdated

Unfortunately, most schools in the world still rely on the outdated educational methodology of around 200 years ago. This digital discontinuity is becoming a roadblock to achievement, leaving students unprepared, ill-equipped, and restless.  It is no wonder why the most common complaint from students is that school is B-O-R-I-N-G.  When kids get home, they shoot right for the computer, DSi, Wii, PS3, XBox, or are already tweeting their discontent with school on their smart phone.  In fact, if you were to take a poll, “Watching Ramen noodles cooking in the microwave” would probably score higher than school, on the entertainment scale.  And I’ve never heard about any case of Ramen noodles cyber-bullying anyone, either.

Progress

It reminds me of the Walt Disney Carousel of Progress, when the family in the 1900′s commented on their newfangled washing machine, “But we do have this new washday marvel. It takes only 5 hours to do the wash. Imagine! It used to take two days.”  Now, we didn’t stop there… at least not for clothes.  Why is the classroom any different?  It seems counter-intuitive.

Clearly, as technology and society progresses, teaching much evolve also.  Let’s face it, our orientation for information delivery is changing.  Our method by which we absorb information, whether it be rich video content, audio, tactile response, co-operative tasks, or perhaps all of those, are changing.  Right now, an American student on the way to school can video-chat and share documents with a friend in Japan, interactively, wirelessly on the bus, while each are on two separate continents.  Yet, at the same time they are doing this, they are lugging around 50 lbs. of textbooks in their backpack.

If we require our children to constantly upgrade their skills, re-think old problems, adapt to new scenarios, to stay on-top of the latest gadgets and services in their leisure time, why do we settle for less in their classrooms?

An intriguing idea

In 2004, an accomplished Israeli business person, who is also an education advocate, founded a company called, Time To Know.  Their Digital Teaching Platform was developed as a philanthropic endeavor, in response to the many challenges facing schools worldwide and the lack of meaningful change in education practices.

I was really taken by the company’s mission, the genuine care they put into their work, and the passion for driving innovation in the education system.  Watch the video below, and check out the website, for more information.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/8434559[/vimeo]

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/8373409[/vimeo]