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Transforming learning through global collaboration

Crowdmap allows you to... Collect information from cell phones, news and the web. Aggregate that information into a single platform. Visualize it on a map and timeline. Search for Existing Deployments More Popular Deployments Expand Window What Exactly Is Crowdmap? Crowdmap is designed and built by the people behind Ushahidi, a platform that was originally built to crowdsource crisis information.

What is the Flat Classroom™ Project? The Flat Classroom™ Project is a global collaborative project that joins together middle and senior high school students. This project is part of the emerging tend in internationally-aware schools to embrace a holistic and constructivist educational approach to work collaboratively with others around the world in order to create students who are competitive and globally-minded. The project was co-founded by Vicki Davis (Westwood Schools, USA) and Julie Lindsay(Beijing (BISS) International School, China) in 2006when Julie (then in Bangladesh) and Vicki joined their classrooms together for the first time to study and emulate the emerging flattened learning environment. The Flat Classroom Project 2006 is featured in Chapter 13, 'If it's not happening it's because you're not doing it', of the 2007 edition of Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat' upon which it was based. (pages 501-503) One of the main goals of the project is to 'flatten' or lower the classroom walls so that instead of each class working isolated and alone, 2 or more classes are joined virtually to become one large classroom. This is done through the Internet using Web 2.0 tools such as Wikispaces and Ning. The Project uses Web 2.0 tools to make communication and interaction between students and teachers from all participating classrooms easier. The topics studied and discussed are real-world scenarios based on 'The World is Flat' by Thomas Friedman.

In an historic speech in Cairo, Egypt in June 2009, President Obama expressed his desire to "create a new online network, so a young person in Kansas can communicate instantly with a young person in Cairo." Since then, the Secretary of State and Secretary of Education have both emphasized the importance of learning other languages, gaining a global competency and traveling to other countries.  A number of organizations linking US schools with others around the world are coming together in a new "Connect All Schools" consortium to meet a very specific goal: to connect every school in the US with the world by 2016.

Eracism At the Flat Classroom(tm) Conference in Doha, Qatar in January 2009, a visionary group of students proposed that a series of debates be held to promote awareness of racism on a global basis and how we need to work together to solve the world's problems. This multi-national group of four students proposed their project and were promoted through an extensive voting process including a global vote on the next project to be run by the Flat Classroom(tm) project founders, Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay.

The Flat Classroom™ Conference is a unique limited-seating conference including students and educators to envision the future of education as they use leading technology tools such as wikis, blogs, social networking and multi-media storytelling. The conference is diverse in participation while allowing smaller groups with leading world-class presenters in a "flattened" environment where virtual participants join in the conversation from remote corners of the world. Educators will leave the conference understanding how to collaborate globally and with skills and contacts in hand to start projects. Students will leave the conference with leadership skills, technology skills, presentation skills, and a better understanding of diverse cultures and collaboration.

About Through Global Lenses Worldwide collaborative project to share photographs and writing

As part of the evaluation of this project, I interviewed a few students to get their feedback. You have no idea how long it took me to convert the interviews to film and embed them in this blog. Sorry about background noise. We will also ask all students in the global cohort to give feedback in a survey. Stay tuned!

This wiki has been created by Vicki Davis, who blogs at the Cool Cat Teacher Blog, and teaches computer science at Westwood Schools in Camilla, GA. If you are interested in contacting Vicki for your conference or online webinar, please review the About Me page. (This page is only to be edited by me, you may see everything without joining!)

Teaching students with new tools, enthusiasm, and belief that teaching is a noble calling.

Welcome to Julie Lindsay's Professional Learning Environment

E-Learning Coordinator at Beijing (BISS) International School, China. This blog exists to share ideas about E-Learning, ICT integration and digital literacy in education.

The point of the Flat Classroom book is to promote global collaboration. By encouraging book clubs to happen during the launch, the resources we've created to link classrooms will kick in. The book has: an embedded PD project, Twitter hashtags, Mobile device qr codes, an online forum, and more.