Learning with a Real Purpose

Two years ago I had a class that studied the 2008 Horizon Report and published a wiki as the end product of their work. What I have found interesting is that while they finished their work 2 years ago, their wiki site still attracts around 50 unique visitors per day from countries like the US, UK, Russia, Canada, Ireland and Australia - oh, and a few from NZ.
This reinforced to me the importance of having a real purpose for learning. In the past if students had created a research report on the Horizon Report it would likely be be shared with at most two people - the student and the teacher. Here - the students have created a resource which is being shared with upwards of 1000 people per month.
Alan November talks of learning with a real purpose in his TEDxNYED. This neat little 15 minute talk of several student stories has one really cool one - the one about the 13 year old girl using Fan Fiction. "When I wake up I have to decide - do I write for my teacher or do I write for the world?"
Enjoy Alan's talk - he's a great thinker and practitioner.