Group items tagged

Kyle Dunbar is running a virtual book club. The first book is Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds. This website includes a blog that talks about the takeaways and the recordings that they are discussing. Please feel free to join in and mark your calendars - they are meeting on Tuesdays at 7:30 pm. I hope you'll join in. It is vital that you and I both connect with other classrooms around the world. Students are the greatest textbook ever written for each other - they need to connect and learn from each other. You'll meet other educators and model the kind of learner you want your students to be. If you want your students to innovate YOU must be innovative. If you want your students to collaborate YOU must be collaborative. Here's the schedule: January 7th - Meet the Flat Classroom, Chapters 1 & 2 January 21st - Connection and Communication, Chapters 3 & 4 February 4th - Citizenship, Contribution and Collaboration, Chapters 5 & 6 February 18th - Choice and Creation, Chapters 7 & 8 March 4th - Celebrating, Designing, Managing a Global Project, Chapters 9 & 10 March 18th - Rock the World

The Flat Classroom conference is coming up March 7-10. We have an option for receiving credit (if you're international) and also for full participation. Virtual participants are an important part of our face to face conference as we seek to create experiences that flatten the conference as we collaborate in a problem-based environment. You'll have a team and work with them to create a project that can be brought to the world based upon principles that WORK. Click on this link to learn more about how you can participate in the conference remotely FOR FREE. ;-) We want you.

A book study for Flat Classroom Book

This pitch for the project Perspective Detectives by Cynthia Sandler, one of our current class of Flat Classroom certified teachers completely left me awe struck and excited. Wow! What do you think? What a history project!

You're invited to join our cultural scavenger hunt!

Join in our virtual scavenger hunt - this is a quick simple way in 3 days that you can meet students from other cultures and "flatten" your classroom by participating in the flat classroom conference. Start the conversations that need to happen. We're kicking this off now, although once it starts, it can really continue for some time. Maybe some of you will bring your students in to participate virtually. If you do this, please give a shout out by replying to the discussion. Join in if you wish! Just another way to flatten your classroom and there are a growing many!

A video about the students in Texas and their struggle to raise money to come to the Flat Classroom conference - this is a great piece and captures so much of the essence of what makes this project so special - it is so much bigger than any of us and a HUGE undertaking for any teacher - but is so worth it. I find it so interesting that so many schools don't have "room" in their curriculum for these experiences.

Flat Classroom Project hosted by Julie Lindsay of Qatar Academy in Doha.

2008 Flat Classroom project matrix.

This year's project page for Flat Classroom -- added graphics and also a social entrepreneurship aspect to the project in keeping with the work we'll be doing in Qatar.

Richard Florida says world is not flat; fascinating research

Richard Florida says world is not flat; fascinating demographic research.

Leigh Newton director of IT at a school in Baku, Azerbaijan wants to talk about linking his grade 5 classes of about 30 students to others in the world. There is also a PYP (Primary years program) on the flat classroom ning about this. Some interesting conversations are emerging. If you're interested, join and join the conversation.

A teacher who wants to talk about elementary level projects with a classroom with Ajerbaijan.

The 1001 Flat World Tales Writing Project is a creative writing workshop made up of schools around the world, connected by one wiki. This blog will be the home to the award-winning stories from each group of schools that participate in the workshop, different topics, different grade-levels, different cultures, brought together by the power of stories.So, enjoy the tales, click around, meet the authors - and check out their blogs!

This is the website for the Flat Classroom conference. The 2011 conference will be in Beijing China and registration information will be posted within the next month. We are very excited about next year's conference. There are two strands which join together and separate at various times depending upon learning outcomes in this unique project based learning conference experience.

Here is detailed information and dates for the Flat Classroom certified teacher progra.

I love these views from my student and her use of the term "horizontal" teaching - I think she has inadevertently hit on a very important concept for us teachers to understand. "Everyone has different views, different things they are good at, and different things they know. In a classroom, the teacher used to stand in front of the students, and lecture all day long. Now many of those teachers have started to teach "horizontally". This means that the teacher doesn't necessarily stand in front of her class and lecture, but works with the class, not only teaching them, but allowing them to teach her new things as well. This video gave me different opinions and opened my mind to a flattened world. I agree in many ways with Mr Friedman, because I personally do not learn well by having someone lecture me, it is very easy to get distracted, and by learning horizontally, I can interact with my teacher and classmates, and I feel like I learn so much more, because not only do I pay attention, but the fact that I am interacting, and experiencing what she is teaching helps out a lot."

Love this phrase "horizontal learning"

You can find information out about the Flat Classroom conference and also view our video documentary of last year's conference also. This year Julie Lindsay, Bernajean Porter, and I are running the student strand which will also incorporate educators as well.

Excellent discussion about Blogging in the classroom from Rob Kamrowski on the Flat Classroom Ning. Rob says: "The presenter, Konrad Glogowski, an eigth grade writing teacher, discussed his use of blogs as a "third place" for students to express themselves. The first place being students home, the second school, and the third, a sort of place where they are free to creatively express themselves. At the begining of the year, Mr. Glogowski challenged his students to "grow" a blog. He presented them a visual to assist them in planning their creation and, pretty much, allowed them the freedom to make their own product. He watched as the blogs and classroom community grew. Fellow students commented on one another's blog entries, offering advice and building fellow classmates confidence in their writing. Mr. Glogowski's role as teacher evolved into a reader of work and a partner in learning rather than an evaluator and expert of information. By the end of the year, his students had great pride in their work, bonded as a communtiy, and were better, more confident, writers. The likely hood that they would continue to work on their blogs and writing was extremely high. Mr. Glogowski's strategy and his educational philosophy towards blogging was a success." This person did not attend necc, but watched Konrad present via ustream via Will Richardson's blog. Ascyhronous conferences are so important. Can we make it part of conference best practice?

Overview of Konrad Glowgoski's presentation for necc.

Mention gives you 3 alerts for free. Everyone should be following mention of their name and brand names (or school name) it is important. If you want more than 3, you'll have to pay. I use Google Alerts to track flat classroom and cool cat teacher - sad Google Alerts is gone, but here's an alternative.

Another beautiful site and student work. Students update these and use them as they apply for scholarships. As I type this, I'm listening to this student's CD. He and his friends decided to cut a CD for his passion project. I love how this project gets students to do the things they want to do. Things that are important but don't get done move up the list when they are getting a grade - especially for your strong students. I think of the beautiful music that has been recorded on CD as part of these projects and it means a lot. I wish you can hear it, but likely they will release it soon. ;-)