Group items tagged

I always love reading Jason Graham's blog - it is rich with shared learning experiences, and about students (he teaches 6 year olds!) connecting, collaborating and co-creating.

"Thank you to all the amazing students and teachers who participated. If you are interested in Flat Classroom Projects, go to http://www.flatclassroomproject.net/about.html." This is what makes Flat Classroom so special and unique - A Project Manager who takes the time to blog about the project and suggest improvements.

This is what makes Flat Classroom so special and unique - A Project Manager who takes the time to blog about the project and suggest improvements.

As Vicki and Julie state, "Once you go Flat, you never go back!" My passion for global education has only gotten stronger through the participation of this project. All of these students that I had the opportunity to work with through both teams that we operated have done nothing but remind why I love my job! Kids are amazing! Simply put. When they shine and show their talents and you know that it is all them that have done the work, then as a teacher/leader you know you have done your job. I simply sat back and watched them blow my mind. It is amazing what kids can do when you place them in a situation where there is no ceiling but the ones they place on themselves. When they remove that ceiling WATCH OUT! because it is a spectacle to behold.

Interesting project that potentially joins students across countries and cultures to discuss and create media based on 'Does my digital me reflect the real me?'

The AAS students are doing an excellent job (many of them) leaving comments on their edits, this is something that all Flat Classroom teachers should work towards. My compliments.

If you look at this editing tab, you can see that GrantG did a great job in his comments of documenting what he did. If we can get more students documenting their work as they edit, it makes the process of collaborative writing more powerful and faster as well as the ability to see what happened where. ""I wrote an introductory paragraph for our section. I asked my teacher and she said that because our topic has to do with current news, we can organize it in a way that includes introduction and conclusion paragraphs with a more list-like format in the middle. This is the reason I added a section for examples. Feel free to add relevant current news information as you find it!""

This is an excellent post-reflective post from a fantastic student. You can see that she drafted in a word processor and pasted it in and then embedded the videos. Knowing how to use features of various programs in tandem is part of being fluent in software. Not just can they use one program or another but can they use them together to become more efficient and effective in the task at hand.

Yong Zhao's new book in 2012 - "The book is about preparing global, creative, and entrepreneurial talents. It is my attempt to answer a number of pressing questions facing education today. These questions are exemplified by two new stories that have dominated the media recently, one around the Facebook IPO and the other the debt and jobs of college graduate"

Building Bridges between students and teachers

We all tend to think we are more central to a project than we really are. This is no surprise but is very important for those who think they are indispensible because you're not. ;-( I just think being realistic is important. This is also a challenge for us in Flat Classroom because students think they are important and central EVEN if they aren't communicating and reaching out to partners and this is a problem. I've had kids claim they "did all the work" and when looking at the words, it doesn't bear out. They are shocked when they realize how little they've done. I think this thought process is a a problem for collaboration. No matter what people do, they think they did it all even if the wiki says otherwise or data says otherwise. For this reason, it is important to point out this disparity to teammates and also how to quantify the participation of others. "Do you provide information or materials which are necessary for them to do their job? To what extent are the tasks you each do related? Now imagine that everyone in the group does a similar exercise, quantifying their own relationship to everyone else. According to research from Jonathon Cummings of -Duke's Fuqua Business school, you are likely to overestimate the degree to which others on your team depend on you!"

I had a great conversation with Theresa Allen, IT director in Illinois who has facilitated global connections from Kindergarten through 8th grade. She talks about the "Hello Little world Skypers" project and other projects she does with her students and how you can facilitate change.

Studnets of @ebrownorama share their experiences presenting virtually at the flat Classroom Conference, japan this year.

Google image search is being redesigned. I hope that one of the big changes that the quote below means is that we'll have more transparency with copyright. So many times, when I ask a source, students say "Google Images." No. No. No. Google images isn't a source, it is a search engine. You must quote the original source!! Hopefully this will make it easier. From Google Webmaster central... "We now display detailed information about the image (the metadata) right underneath the image in the search results, instead of redirecting users to a separate landing page. We're featuring some key information much more prominently next to the image: the title of the page hosting the image, the domain name it comes from, and the image size."

"Yesterday I worked with a librarian who is going to help 4th and 5th grade students next week record "narrated slideshows" to practice their oral communication skills telling stories with "story cards" from different perspectives. (1st person singular, 1st person plural, 2nd person, 3rd person singular, etc.) This is an excellent Common Core-aligned language project. She helped me record a 4.5 minute video tutorial about this, in which I show the steps for creating a narrated slideshow using the free iPad app "ShowMe." "

Come to Mumbai in February -March 2014 and join this unique learning experience that includes students and teachers.

Thank you to Duane from Manitou, Canada for sharing his class wiki and how the Personal Video piece is explained to his students. This is excellent teachersourcing!

Might be fun to find the closest one where the students are and share these.

Powerful Learning Practice one-day live conference September 28 in Philadelphia - lots of talking, lots of sessions, some innovation in conference design....but where are the students, and where is the true collaboration and co-creation?

"My best advice is to tap into an existing project. There are lots of them! But before you begin your search, take a few minutes to define what kind of project you're looking for. What areyour project goals? How will you incorporate your content area standards in addition to giving your students opportunities for developing global competencies? What time frame do you have in mind? Are you looking for a long-term project or a short-term one? What scope do you have in mind? Are you looking to connect with a single teacher/classroom/school or multiple partners? What kind of partner(s) are you looking for? Grade level? Subject area? Location?"