10+ ways to engage with the Flat Classroom pedagogy and people

 Excellence in education includes global collaboration. No doubt about it, students are the greatest textbooks written for each other. 


This fall is the 5 year anniversary of our Flat Classroom projects. Amazingly, in that time, more students and educators have collaborated together through this program than live in my tiny hometown of Camilla, Georgia! 


Global collaboration is never about one person or one organization but has become a movement in many places and through many websites. It is our goal with the Flat Classroom projects to be the best and helping students and educators understand the power of true asynchronous collaboration with as much synchronous as we can get in. The concept of merging classrooms in excellence, collaborative learning experiences is our aim and we believe most of our classrooms are achieving that.


So, you are excited about the possibilities and want to join in? Here are some ways. 


Teachers in the classroom:
See application information in press release by scrolling down.

  • High School - Flat Classroom project and/or NetGen Ed to teach your students about the emerging trends in technology with experiential knowledge as well as authentic research and video creation. Read more.
  • Middle/ early high school - Digiteen project for experiential digital citizenship research (run through our nonprofit) Read more.
  • Elementary - A week in the life elementary project. Read more.
  • Flat Classroom Certified Teacher Program. We will run 3 of these in the 2011-2012 school year using our new book, Flattening Classrooms, Expanding Minds. Designed as a rigorous challenge, based process, you will emerge with a project designed with a group of your classmates.  Read more.
  • Submit your collaborative writing story. If you are using collaborative writing in the classroom, share your story. My second book is on collaborative writing and it will be published with Eye on Education. We've set up a website so you can share your story for review to include in the book. Anything I write will never just be my story but yours too! Please share!
 Anyone
  • International book club starting February 1st using our new book on the pedagogy of global collaboration in the classroom. Ben and Neil at @engaginged are going to help us run this book club. Sign up now.
  • Run a book club with your own group and let us know so we can plan to interact with you, if possible.
  • Flat Classroom mini-conference at ASB Unplugged in Mumbai, India in February 2012. Bring students or join us for the workshop. Julie, Vicki, and Kim Cofino will be leading workshops for students and teachers at this event.
  • Sign up to review our book. While we only have a few copies available, we are taking applications for: a) bloggers/ influencers who would like an advance copy of the book to review and b) people who make purchasing decisions and would like an advance copy for potential integration into courses or pd. 
  • Support us. We have a non-profit that runs our Digiteen project and provides scholarships to students to our Flat Classroom workshops. Feel free to support our organization if it fits with your personal mission.
  • Read the book. Sign up to get a notice when the book comes out. If you just want to know when the book hits the shelves, mailboxes, and ebook readers, you can fill out the form on our book homepage to have this come to you.
  • Read stories of global collaboration. Our Flat Classroom certified teachers and project organizers have a lively tumblr blog sharing stories and things to do with global collaboration. You'll want to follow it. http://flatclassroom.tumblr.com/
  • Join the conversations. We have a Facebook page for announcements and an intimate Facebook group where we plan and talk. Our Flatclassrooms Ning is also a core component of our certified teacher program and the online sharing hub for our new book. Our #flatclass hashtag is also a place where we will share conversation about the pedagogy of global collaboration in the classroom and content around the book. We are also on Twitter at @flatclassroom @digiteen @netgened

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Current Press Releases for our Projects
Flat Classroom Project Applications Now Open
Applications are invited now for a selection of internationally recognised and award winning global projects run by Flat Classroom® to start in September 2011. Co-founders Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay are excited to be offering these opportunities for classrooms globally to connect, co-create and learn together in a carefully designed and supported digital environment.

The Digiteen™ Project explores digital citizenship through interaction and provides an opportunity for students to not only talk about digital citizenship, but experience via online connection, collaboration, shared research and presentation. It also has an action project component where a classroom designs an action to be carried out in their own school community and then shared back to the global partnership.

The Flat Classroom® Project is designed to develop cultural understanding, skills with Web 2.0 and other software, experience in global collaboration and online learning, awareness of what it means to live and work in a flat world, while researching and discussing the ideas developed in Friedman's book.

The ‘A Week in the Life...’ Project aims to join Elementary School classrooms globally with a view to exploring what life is like in each area/country through discussion, sharing and collecting multimedia to create final products together. The curriculum focus is Interdisciplinary, how we live, how we communicate, cultural understanding and awareness.

Entry to a each project is via application and subscription. In order to help meet the subscription price, teachers can apply for a limited number of sweat equity positions as ‘lead teachers’.

All details for each of these outstanding projects can be found linked from the Flat Classroom® website. We welcome inquiries to fcp@flatclassroom.org


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Flat Classroom Certified Teacher
read the Full details at http://tinyurl.com/flatclassteachercert

Aims of the course 
The Flat Classroom® Certified Teacher course aims to train educators to be able to manage a global collaborative project built upon best practices of student collaboration and co-creation as modeled in the Flat Classroom projects including: Flat Classroom, Eracism, NetGenEd, Digiteen™, and ‘ A Week in the Life...’ projects. It also aims to provide an opportunity for those interested in managing a Flat Classroom Project in the future as part of the lead teacher program beginning in March 2011 to develop skills and experience with all facets of the project.
 
Certified Flat Classroom® teachers will become leaders in global collaboration within their schools and internationally and will be sought as partners by those planning global collaboration because of their proven competencies in the technology, technopersonal skills, and best practices of effective global collaborative projects. Those who earn this designation will have proven their competency through this rigorous course.

Structure
The course will run for approximately three months. Participants will be involved with one or more of the Flat Classroom projects and also complete the “Flat Classroom Fifteen” challenges as will be in the upcoming book (January 2012 launch, Pearson Education) on global collaboration from Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis, ‘Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds’. Participants will have exclusive access to private content from the authors and co-creators of the project as part of this program.

FC Certified Teacher 11-2, the following timeline is applicable:
  • Application Deadline: September 15
  • Online Teacher Information meeting before September 15
  • There are Twelve Weeks to this course, September 19-December 9
  • There are NINE Modules to complete
  • Each module has Flat Classroom® Challenges and Personal Journal work to complete
  • There will be an online meeting for each module held in Elluminate
  • Participants will get time beyond the 12 weeks to complete all process journal and unit work
  • Graduation: January 2012
In addition:
  • FCCT 11-3 November 2011 - March 2012
  • FCCT 12-1 March - June 2012
Application Process
Educators and education leaders are invited to apply for a course according to the deadlines and starting dates as listed above.

Application Form: http://tinyurl.com/flatclassteachercertapply

Inquiries: fcp@flatclassroom.org
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