Group items tagged

From my friend Kyle Dunbar - if you want to join in - sign up on her blog. "I am giddy with excitement about the opportunity to host a Virtual Book Club discussing the fantastic book Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration One Step at a Time by Julie Lindsay and Vicki A. Davis. The book club was announced last Sunday night in my school division and I am thrilled that we already have thirteen teachers signed up! Even better, we have teachers from across our school division and from all different grade levels. It is a wonderful thing when already busy teachers find time in their lives to discuss powerful educational ideas with their peers.  Now, I am ready to get some global participation in this book club. I can't think of a better way to brainstorm about global projects than to have teachers from across the globe in the session together. So, we are inviting all teachers, parents, students, thinkers and learners out there to join us for six live meetings to share what they think about the projects, resources, and research discussed in Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds. We will be meeting on Mondays at 7:30pm EST on the following dates: January 7th January 21st February 4th February 18th March 4th March 18th (find the time in your area here) Meetings will be live using Blackboard Collaborate and will last one hour. We will spend the time sharing thoughts about ideas raised in the book. It will also be a great opportunity to connect with other educators that share similar passions and beliefs about flattening our classrooms walls. We will share strategies and resources for building those 21st century skills like collaboration, communication and creativity in authentic ways.

"Teacher Preparation for the Global Age: The Imperative for Change, highlights promising practices identified during this meeting and subsequent discussions and suggests a framework for internationalizing the education of all pre-service teachers and increasing the number of world language teachers, especially in less commonly taught languages."

Video created by Flat Classroom teacher Avylon Magarey as part of the Flat Classroom Certified Teacher course http://www.flatclassroomproject.net/certified-teacher-program.html

Tom Whitby writes a provocative blog post about Connected Educator Month, August 2012. He states: "No, to be a good teacher, one does not need to be connected. However, the question is if you are a good teacher and unconnected, could you be a better teacher if you were connected? Shouldn't we strive to be the best that we can be? It's not only an Army thing. Being connected offers not only exposure to content and ideas but also the ability to create and collaborate on ideas. Being connected fosters transparency and debunks myths of education that have been harbored in the previous isolation of the education profession. This is the stuff of a true learner's dreams, and, as educators, are we not all learners?"

Wanted to research what are the twitter hashtags for teachers and found this.

Jason Graham completed this video as part of the Flat Classroom Certified teacher course, and the Flat Classroom project for teachers assignment.

Excellent collaborative work by teachers in the Flat Classroom Certified Teacher 12-1 cohort re designing a handshake for Middle school students using Glogster.

An outstanding post from Jodi Amri from Stafford Primary School as she shares her end of project reflection via this teacher blog for the A Week in the Life project, a Flat Classroom Project for Grades 3-5 (8-10 year old). Her last paragraph: "We are teachers and students who want to make a difference in our world. We know we can do this when we reach out to others around the globe to share our common interests and concerns and build bridges of understanding between us. The Week in the Life project has given us this opportunity. It has also shown us what technology integration should look like. In this season when we give special focus to the things we are grateful for, we want to acknowledge the opportunity we have each day to learn with and from each other, as well as to be inspired by the learning all around us."

A list of essential tools created by a technology integrator and IB teacher. Used by PYP students for their exhibition work. Of all the tools in the world, it is hard to narrow down to 7, but I admire this teacher for their thoughtfulness in doing so and in sharing with us!

"Collaborative projects broaden teachers' horizons, too, connecting them with colleagues from around the world. Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher) and Julie Lindsay (@julielindsay), founders of the Flat Classroom Project, had never met face-to-face when they launched their first collaborative project several years ago. Now, they have co-authored a book, Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds to share their field-tested insights about collaborative PBL. They lead teachers from around the world on several "flat" projects annually, using technology to overcome distances and connect learners in shared inquiry and problem solving. "

We've created the Digital ID wiki with a two-fold purpose: Provide students, teachers, and administrators with a toolkit of reliable information, resources, and guidelines to help all of us learn how to be upstanding Digital Citizens who maintain a healthy Digital Identity (ID) in the 21st Century. Build a collaborative platform for teachers and students the world over to contribute to our ever-g

"After more more than a decade of e-safety work in UK schools, the evidence suggests that most young people, who are supported and informed, know the key e-safety issues and are able to stay safe online."

A list of the many Flat Classroom Teachers presenting on global collaboration and learning at the Global Education Conference, November 12-16. All details at http://globaleducationconference.com

From Alfred Thompson - former Microsoft Blogger but now CLASSROOM TEACHER. He's one of my go-to people for 21st century skills and I'm glad he's in the classroom again - some kids are very lucky. "Code.org has released their highly anticipated video to encourage more people, especially students, to learn how to code for computers. It's one of the better videos I have seen with a lot of names and faces students will recognize and a few they will not. They may want to learn more about that later BTW. Starring Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, will.i.am, NBA All-star Chris Bosh, Jack Dorsey, Tony Hsieh, Drew Houston, Gabe Newell, Ruchi Sanghvi, Elena Silenok, Vanessa Hurst, and Hadi Partovi. Directed by Lesley Chilcott."

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

Global Project starting in December for upper elementary/middle school Aaron Maurer - Flat Classroom Certified Teacher

'Quad-blog' post by Flat Classroom Certified teachers in the 12-2 cohort. Excellent resources and discussion points. A very well written post!

Created by Lisette Casey, as part of the Flat Classroom Certified Teacher course

Publication by Steve Katz,Technology Integration Specialist Korea International School South Korea @stevekatz. Very useful and thorough, highly recommended for teachers across all disciplines.

This blog post really resonates with me. Content delivery is only part of the answer to teaching and learning now. All teachers and schools need to broaden their horizons.