FLAT CLASSROOM WORKSHOP AT ASB UN-PLUGGED
February 23 to February 25, 2012 Full
details for those planning to attend are on the
Flat Classroom ASB Unplugged Wiki
Online registration form for teachers to
sign up classrooms is now open!
Workshop Leaders:
- Julie Lindsay
- Vicki Davis
- Kim Cofino
All inquiries:
fcp@flatclassroom.org
Overview
Flat ClassroomŪ Conference and Live Events Inc.
have joined with ASB Unplugged to proudly host
the Flat ClassroomŪ Workshop at the American
School of Bombay, 2012 in Mumbai, India. The
Flat ClassroomŪ Workshop Strand will include a
unique, project based learning approach allowing
participants to use cutting edge technology
tools AND interactions with educators on the
leadership strand to redefine learning while
involving students in the process.
Co-founders of the
Flat ClassroomŪ Project,
Vicki Davis and
Julie Lindsay, have joined forces with
colleagues and supporters from around the world
to provide another opportunity for a
face-to-face, real-time gathering that also
includes a virtual element. The aim of getting
together in the one place is to fully extend and
foster connections and collaborations that will
ultimately improve classroom practice and
pedagogical approach using technology as part of
a global flat classroom.
In an ever-changing world the impact of the
Internet, in particular Web 2.0 tools, has been
so significant it has changed the way students
and teachers can interact and learn. There are
opportunities for different learning
relationships and for multi-modal outcomes using
multimedia and online tools. The conference will
provide opportunities for leaders in education,
classroom teachers and administrators as well as
students to learn with and from each other in a
flat classroom model. It is envisaged the
workshop experience will culminate in actions
that are then shared around the world and
sustained by continued projects based on
community and curriculum needs.
What is the Flat ClassroomŪ
Workshop?
The aim of the workshop is to bring together
geographically dispersed participants with a
view to sharing ideas, while using mobile
computing, learning about Web 2.0 communication
and collaboration tools in a flattened world,
and working on a project theme that can be
transplanted back into their home school. The
selected theme will inspire unity and action as
well as fostering continued connections after
the event in Mumbai. It is envisaged this will
improve global understanding and cement
friendships for ongoing collaborations. It is
also envisaged that this will provide an
opportunity for students and teachers together
to 'create the future' through exploration of a
global or social issue and developing an
'action' plan to work globally to overcome this.
Who Should Attend?
The workshop is aimed at Middle and High school
students. It is envisioned that past and present
participants in Flat ClassroomŪ Projects and
previous workshops projects will be interested
in coming as well as classrooms who are wanting
to have a flattened learning experience and take
the ideals and skills back to their own schools.
Each participating school is encouraged to
register up to 6 students, and if interested, 2
teachers. Workshop teams will be made up of
participants from different schools and
countries. The workshop is a process therefore
attendance for the entire conference session is
required.
What will you do?
An essential element of the workshop is to join
students (and teachers) together in a
constructivist learning environment, and by
using global collaboration tools, work through a
project-based, action-oriented learning
workshop. Skill development in Web 2.0 and
multimedia tools along with enhanced cultural
understanding and digital citizenship support
the pedagogical approach to collaborative
learning in a digital world. The skills and
tools will provide the scaffolding for
developing ideas and putting into place actions
that could make a difference to the world. We
invite you to browse the
Flat Classroom Workshop in Hong Kong, as
well as the
ASB Unplugged 2010 wiki to see what we did
there. Essentially teams work together on
brainstorming problems and solutions to the
workshop theme. They pitch these ideas to
educators for feedback and then develop
multimedia presentations based on their topics.
All conferences and workshops connect via the
Flat Classroom Conference Ning.
Flat ClassroomŪ Conference
In recent months co-founders of the Flat
ClassroomŪ Conference, Julie and Vicki, have
established a non-profit organisation, Flat
Classroom Conference and Live Events Inc.
through which they run conferences and workshops
globally for students and educators. Riding on
the success of the inaugural
Flat Classroom Conference held in Qatar
2009, at the
Flat Classroom Conference February 2011 we
saw 250 educators, education leaders and
students from 45+ schools and 14 countries come
together in Beijing, China to envision and
create material to foster better communication
and global collaboration and embed new
approaches to curriculum design into the
classroom.
What is the Flat ClassroomŪ
Project?
Information at -
http://flatclassroomproject.net
Inquiries -
fcp@flatclassroomproject.org
The project is ground breaking and
internationally recognized. It joins hundreds of
students from various cultures, countries, and
backgrounds into a meaningful collaborative
writing and digital storytelling project to
study the trends in information technology.
After the initial project won multiple
international awards and was included in Thomas
Friedman's book, The World is Flat v.3,
it has been remixed into many different projects
following the same model. These projects have
joined together over 3,000 students from more
than 20 countries and is widely considered a
best-practice holistic and constructivist
educational approach that creates students who
are competitive and globally minded.
The project was co-founded by Vicki Davis
http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/
(Westwood Schools, USA) and Julie Lindsay
http://123elearning.blogspot.com/ (Beijing
BISS International School) in
2006 when they were located literally around
the world from one another. This project uses a
wide variety of Web 2.0 tools including wikis,
educational (social) networks, cross-timezone
calendaring, collaborative digital storytelling
and publishing to "flatten" or lower the
classroom walls to join two or more classes
virtually to become one large classroom.
A little more about the projects:
The current projects cover the following topics:
-
Flat ClassroomŪ Project - The topics
studied and discussed are real-world
scenarios based on 'The
World is Flat' by Thomas Friedman.
Students collaborate on a wiki then produce
an individual multimedia piece in response
to their topic. A clip in this piece is
'outsourced' to a team member in another
classroom, so not only do students study the
flatteners as discussed by Friedman, they
use them in the project. This project is run
two times each year.
- As a sister project to the Flat
Classroom Project the Horizon Project, as
mentioned in Don Tapscott's recent book,
'Grown Up Digital', is now renamed as the
Net Generation Education project and
also lowers or 'flattens' the classroom
walls by emphasizing connection,
communication, collaboration and creativity
as well as higher-order thinking skills and
problem solving. This project is based on
the Horizon Report released annually by
New Media Consortium and the
Educause Learning Initiative that
outlines 6 trends they believe will be
impacting college and university campuses
within the next five years.
- The
Digiteen Project which also runs two
times each year, has linked classrooms of
middle school students from Australia,
Canada, USA, Spain, India, Qatar, USA and
more with the aim of promoting better online
citizenship through research and discussion
and culminates in each school taking action
within their own community to promote this
- The 'A
Week in the Life.....' (an Elementary
School level project) was piloted in 2009-10
and is now a successful collaborative
project that joine 8-10 year old students
together, once again using emerging
technologies, to connect and co-create
product
- Other projects include
Eracism (a global debate amongst
students) and in 2012 a new K-2 project will
be piloted.
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