Sunday, February 26, 2012

Across My Desk (weekly)

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Sunday, February 19, 2012

Across My Desk (weekly)

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Sunday, February 12, 2012

Across My Desk (weekly)

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Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Flat Classroom K-2 project ‘Building Bridges to Tomorrow’

Press release, February 7, 2012

Announcing, the Flat Classroom K-2 'Building Bridges to Tomorrow' Project! Co-founders of Flat Classroom, Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis, are excited to be able to offer this global collaborative project to classrooms around the world. This project will run as a pilot for the coming semester, February-May 2012 and be open to Prep/Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2 classrooms (4-7 year old students).

Can very young students effectively connect, communicate, and collaborate in a global project? What does this look like? What products can students in mixed classroom teams co-create? What activities and structure can we design and implement to scaffold this collaboration? There are many wonderful opportunities out there already for students to connect using technology tools. However the aim in this project is also to encourage students in different places to collaborate, not just communicate, and to enhance understanding of cultures and life styles beyond the immediate environment.

We invite teachers who believe global collaboration has a place in their classroom. We invite those who want to improve digital citizenship and cultural understanding, leading to global competency amongst students and teachers. We invite teachers who have some digital fluency and access to digital tools who want to use them in meaningful ways to connect with others and learn together.

The ‘Building Bridges to Tomorrow’ call for applications is open now! Classrooms will be selected for the pilot and announced before the end of February. Following a teacher kick-off meeting, classrooms will work collaboratively through March and April with final products and celebrations taking place late April and into May.

We are looking for teachers who are creative and able to work collaboratively to help us build a meaningful experience for the classrooms and the wider school communities. Apply now!  

‘Building Bridges to Tomorrow’ is part of the series of Flat Classroom Projects created by Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis. Find out more from the Flat Classroom website, and from our recently released book, “Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration One Step at a Time”.

Application Form for Building Bridges to Tomorrow: http://tinyurl.com/flatclassK-2
Flat Classroom Projects: http://flatclassroomproject.net
Flat Classrooms Teacher Network: http://flatclassrooms.ning.com
Contact us: fcp@flatclassroom.org
Directors, Vick Davis and Julie Lindsay
For more about the pedagogy and benefits of adding global collaboration to your curriculum, buy Julie and Vicki's book Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds from Pearson Publishing.  www.flatclassroombook.com
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Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Eracism Project 2012 Forming Now!

Press Release February 1, 2012.

Announcing, the Eracism Project 2012 - a global student debate that joins diverse cultures and includes authentic debate for global competence and international mindedness.

Fact based debate is a very essential skill with students who often equate the term "debate" with argument.  The Eracism project: A Flat Classroom ProjectTM was envisioned by the winning student team from the 2009 Flat Classroom Conference held in Doha, Qatar and their concept was to hold debates using Web 2.0 tools to improve cultural understanding.  

Schools selected for the Eracism Project 2012 will be asked to enter a 4 person debate team, with the remaining students in the class being researchers around the topic,

"Government regulation requiring immigrants to adopt the beliefs, habits, and language of the dominant culture does more harm than good."  

The initial debates will be held asynchronously but in what organizers are calling a "simulated synchronous" environment with the final winning teams debating live in a virtual world.  This project was carried out in 2009 and is being run again starting in March 2012. A limited number of applications will be taken.

We welcome applications NOW from teachers and their classrooms around the world. We also need judges and volunteers to help with debate coaching. To apply for this project as a class or judge or volunteer or request to be involved in the teacher information meeting, please complete this form.

Classrooms in Upper Primary, Middle and High School are encouraged to apply (students of age 11 and above). Organisers will create two strands in this project based on demand.

Application deadline is February 29, with announcement of project classrooms by Friday March 2, 2012.

The first teacher online meeting will take place near March 5, 2012. Actual date and time to be advised.

Tentative Timeline

This project has a planned start date of March 5, 2012 with debates beginning March 25 and  concluding with the final debate held in a virtual world (and to be streamed live) in May 2012.  Schools applying must specify their school holiday dates so that they can be best placed in the project on the debate grid.
Phase 1 - Research & Coaching
This will happen at the school level as classrooms research the topic and practice debate at their local level.
Phase 2 - Asynchronous Debate Round
Students will use VoiceThread to debate with each round taking approximately one week.  
Phase 3 - Synchronous Debate
The top two teams will debate live in a virtual world with the debate streamed live on the web for students and educators around the world to watch.  
Phase 4 - Reflection
Students and teachers will reflect on ways to improve the methods for  global debates.
Process
Due to the asynchronous components used, Eracism will use a hybrid debating style that is based on Conflict or Initiative Debating.  

The teams prepare their cases; they present their arguments and evidence; and, they rebut the other team's arguments and evidence. The debate cycle will generally align with the Middle School Public Debate Program found at http://www.middleschooldebate.com

Each debate will be adjudicated by 3 judges and the winning team advances to the next round.

Most of the debates will be carried out on VoiceThread with the final debate being streamed live in a virtual world.

Thank you to the sponsors of this project: Voicethread, Wikispaces, Blackboard Collaborate. (Virtual world platform to be announced soon.)

Co-founders of Flat ClassroomTM Projects, Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis, have been planning for two years to once again run this ground breaking and inspirational global collaborative project. The project opens eyes and hearts as students debate on an issue that will bring together diverse ideas, develop transferable skills and create lasting friendships.

More information about Eracism: http://www.eracismproject.org
Application Form for Eracism 2012: http://tinyurl.com/eracism2012
Flat Classroom Projects: http://flatclassroomprojec.net
Contact us: fcp@flatclassroom.org
Directors, Vick Davis and Julie Lindsay
For more about the pedagogy and benefits of adding global collaboration to your curriculum, buy Julie and Vicki's book Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds from Pearson Publishing.  www.flatclassroombook.com
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The Book Finally Arrived in Beijing!

At last, after 2 false alarms in the past 2 days, 'the book' finally was delivered by UPS to my school in Beijing. There was excitement as I got the message from reception during morning break, and my daughter, Violet, and I rushed down. I opened the box there and then, just to be sure, and then grabbed it and rushed up the stairs to my husband's office. He grabbed the camera, then Violet took some pictures, and here is the evidence below. 

Finally I have in my hand 5 years of effort in the making, and 3 years in production, 'Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration One Step at a Time', THE BOOK, the THING that has caused much stress, tears, lack of sleep, soul searching and everything in between. THE BOOK that is not just a textbook, it is a journey of exploration into learning and teaching, it is a life journey across 6 countries as an international teacher, it is a journey taken first of all by my friend Vicki Davis and me in the creating and the writing, and now a journey that you can all take as we share it with you. 

Enjoy...........



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Location: Beijing, China

Sunday, February 05, 2012

Across My Desk (weekly)

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Sunday, January 29, 2012

Across My Desk (weekly)

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

You’re invited to the Flat Classroom Book Club!

Global collaboration starts with connecting yourself to the world. Students are the greatest textbook ever written for each other. The same is true for teachers. We are passionate about connecting and facilitating effective collaborations between classrooms because we’ve seen the power of how it can engage students and teach them the skills they need to be successful in the 21st century.

We want to bring in people who are nervous, who don’t know how, or who have tried to connect and were frustrated. We also want to bring back those teachers who tried it and got burned out. Now it is time to enlarge the circle of global collaborative excellence in a massive way.

"Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds'' is a terrific guide, by two real pioneering teachers, on how the networked world can be used for cooperative learning that can enrich education and empower students -- anywhere and everywhere.
- Thomas L. Friedman, author,  "The World Is Flat.''
Insightful, innovative, and practical, this book is a must read for any educator interested in preparing competent global citizens.
- Yong Zhao, Ph. D, Presidential Chair and Associate Dean, College of Education, University of Oregon

Open the door and find a new world! In this significant contribution to global education, Julie and Vicki have produced a resource for teachers that contains much needed information, challenges education thinking and provides resources on each and every page.  This is a book a teacher can read and immediately open a global door for their students. For me. it is so exciting (and a relief!) to see that the voice of change in education thinking is the voice of our students.
- Tony Brandenburg, Fellow, Australian Council for Computers in Education


It is our vision that if we can have enough educators linking together and learning about this at the same time, that a natural byproduct will be the creation of many new, exciting global collaborations. It is time to get past the cute stories of global collaboration into the nuts and bolts of the pedagogy that makes it happen. (Although there are a lot of powerful stories to tell.)

To help facilitate this conversation, we felt like that it would be best if we, the authors (Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis), step aside, and invite our friends Ben Curran and Neil Wetherbee of @engaginged to facilitate the conversation. They’ve done book clubs before and this is another pedagogy that we want to work out: that of having a book club that is truly global. We’d like to do this to promote conversations that transcend borders. The easiest way to get this out of the box is to get out of the classroom and connect with other educators.

Every week for 10 weeks we will meet at an alternating time - 12 hours apart. (For the East Coast USA it is Sundays at 6 pm Eastern or Monday mornings at 6 am eastern - Visit our Book club calendar to convert these times to your Time Zone. Subscribe to this calendar via Google calendar to keep up with events.This is Sunday evenings at 22:00GMT alternating with Monday mornings at 10:00GMT in our Blackboard Collaborate room https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2007066&password=M.065891D192F8072208BF5756999CE0 . It is free and everyone is welcome.

#flatclass Book Club Meeting Times

Week and DateTimeTopic of Conversation
Week 1: Sunday March 11 22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT)Chapter 1 - Flattening Classrooms through Global Collaboration (p 1-17)

Chapter 2 - Impact on Learning: Research in the Global Collaborative Classroom (p18-30)
Week 2: Monday, March 1910:00 GMT (6 am EDT)Chapter 3 - Step 1: Connection (p 31-61)
Week 3: Sunday, March 2522:00 GMT (6 pm EDT)Chapter 4 - Step 2: Communication (p 62-96)
Week 4: Monday, April 210:00 GMT (6 am EDT)Chapter 5 - Step 3: Citizenship (p 97-125)
Take a break.

Week 5: Sunday, April 1522:00 GMT (6 pm EDT)Chapter 6 - Step 4: Contribution and Collaboration (p 126-157)
Week 6: Monday, April 2310:00 GMT (6 am EDT)Chapter 7 - Step 5: Choice (p 158-196)
Week 7: Sunday, April 2922:00 GMT (6 pm EDT)Chapter 8 - Step 6: Creation (p197-214)
Week 8: Monday, May 710:00 GMT (6 am EDT)Chapter 9 - Step 7: Celebration (p 215-234)
Week 9: Sunday, May 1322:00 GMT (6 pm EDT)Chapter 10 - Designing and Managing a Global Collaborative Project (p 235-267)
Week 10: Monday, May 2110:00 GMT (6 am EDT)Chapter 11 - Challenge-Based Professional Development (p 268-293)

Chapter 12: Rock the World (p 293 - 304)


We’re also inviting the educators featured in each chapter to be with us for the conversations about “their” chapter. You’ll meet people from all over the world just like you who are doing wonderful, amazing things. This is a global story that transcends just one project, although we’re mighty proud of ours.

While you are welcome to just “drop in” you can register with the Book club mailing list and we’ll remind you each week about the session, let you know who is coming, and we’ll mention any special events that we’ll be having as part of the launch. If you run your own book club, you’re welcome to come by the club anytime for ideas and discussion points.

The hashtag for our conversations is #flatclass and the book club is, of course, free. Anyone can join us. There’s no homework - just conversation and learning. We’ll all be there to discuss the future of education with each other. We hope global collaborators from around the world will join us and share their stories too. Conversations will hinge around our new book, Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds. The book will be available in ebook format, although we’re not sure yet which ebook formats.

So, to get ready:
  1. Order the book

  1. Sign up for the book club - run by Ben Curran & Neil Wetherbee from @engaginged

  1. Mark your calendar with the dates and times

Thank you to everyone who has made this possible, now over to Ben and Neil with insights on this.

Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher
Julie Lindsay @julielindsay
Co-founders Flat Classroom Projects @flatclassroom

How will this global book club work? Will it really transform my teaching?

Have you ever read a book about teaching and thoroughly enjoyed it, only to get done and ask yourself "Now what?" Or maybe you've read something that was motivating, inspirational and chock-full of ideas, only to find after sharing it with colleagues that they "just aren't that into it?" If so, this book club is for you. We hope it will be a gathering of inspired, motivated, similarly driven friends from around the globe.

Here's how it will work...each week we will focus on approximately one chapter.  Each meeting will be divided roughly into three parts. The first part will focus on implementation--how all of us have or can implement the main theme of the week. We'll also dive into and discuss the activities (Vicki and Julie refer to them as "challenges") that are embedded in the book. The second part will be more of an open forum for everyone to discuss other topics in the chapter or other issues pertaining to the subject. This will be a great time for making connections with other teachers for possible collaborations and getting answers to questions that you have. Finally, and perhaps what we are most excited about is that each week we hope to be joined by the friends mentioned in each chapter.  They will be able to share their firsthand insight on the weekly topic as well as stories from their own experiences.

On top of all this, Engaging Educators will be providing short, free “boot camp” style webinars along the way to help you master some of the topics that might be new to you.

What we hope to facilitate is a perfect companion to Julie and Vicki's book, an experience that goes beyond "just reading" and demonstrates what a network of connected educators can learn and accomplish.

Welcome to the club!

Ben Curran & Neil Wetherbee @engaginged
4th & 5th Grade teachers and Co-founders of Engaging Educators LLC
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