Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

 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 ...

What happens when we reach our Educational Egypt? Students see that they have a voice and are starting to speak out. Look at the news to see how Facebook and Twitter are mobilizing the masses and believe me, as evidenced by the overwhelming victory of "Movement 9," students are ready to take action. Movement 9 (the number is named because of their team number) proposed to research and find companies who are using child laborers and to publicize it through a Facebook app to pressure companies to stop using child labor. Watch their video to see what they want to do! Coming soon to a school near you: students who being exposing poor educational practices. If you think you're immune, so did a former Middle Eastern despot. Governments have been hit. Companies and Education, you're next. This generation is starting to collaborate and communicate. Update 3/16/2011 3:44 pm EDT - This just in from Twitter " stevehargadon : Social hackathon today: prom...

The Flat Classroom Conference 2011 held in Beijing, China at Beijing BISS International School was a powerful and moving experience. A special thank you to Julie Lindsay , organizer and Steve Madsen (see the 2008 post I wrote on him), administrator. They did a tremendous job! If you couldn't be there, now is your chance.  The conference chose the top six student projects and worked with Frank Guttler and Bernajean Porter on telling their story and inspiring others to take action (with only 4-5 hours to storyboard, shoot, and produce!) This would be a great project for students as it helps see what is possible. (Too see the student names, go to the video links below, but I left off the countries to prevent any bias.) Step 1: View Student Videos This strand was about making a difference and casting a vision from students from different schools to the world as to what they think educational global collaboration should be. See any common trends? Culture Connect Team 1: C...

We are looking for students and educators who are interested in joining us virtually for the Flat Classroom Conference 2011 , to be held in less than 3 weeks time. All details on the wiki at http://conference2011. flatclassroomproject.org/ Virtual+Participants There will be TWO online meetings in the next 2 weeks to discuss this further.  Come and join us!  If you have students who are interested please let us know and encourage them to sign up. The first information/ training meeting is tomorrow morning at 7am Eastern with Julie Lindsay.

Just got this email from Julie Lindsay with a list of schools coming to the Flat Classroom Conference in Beijing the end of February. This is very exciting! Changchun American International School Guangzhou Nanhu International School RDFZ Xishan School International Academy of Beijing Hua Shi Yi Fu Zhong High School Tsinghua High International School Yokohama International School, Japan International School Beijing Gyeonggi Suwon International School, Korea Western Academy Beijing Beijing City International School Beijing Normal University University of Nothern Iowa, USA Livingston American School, China Al-Azhar Islamic Senior High School, Indonesia Dalian Maple Leaf Foreign Nationals School American International School of Guangzhou Dulwich College Beijing Kaohsiung American School, Taiwan Shanghai American School British School of Beijing -Shunyi Campus International School of Tianjin International School Yangon, Myanmar Cebu Inter...

Want to keep you all posted about the Flat Classroom Conference in Beijing. It is going to be incredible! So many amazing speakers!  Andrew Churches Kim Cofino Vicki Davis Frank Guttler Julie Lindsay Bernajean Porter Leigh Zeitz  It is life changing and practice changing as educators leave this READY to collaborate, with the projects planned, and the contacts to do it. Taking students takes back enthusiasm to your school to make it happen and also lets others know that you're "on top" of your game. Latest News! Registration is now open for the Leadership Workshop and we are taking applications for the Student Summit Read the latest on our Flat Classroom Conference Blog The next Flat Classroom Conference is to be held in Beijing at the Beijing (BISS) International School , China, February 25-27, 2011. Come to Beijing in 2011 and flatten your learning by becoming immersed in the flat classroom experience. The conference will have two strands: Leadership Work...

In eleven days I, Mrs. Betty (my dear friend the curriculum director) and seven students will head to Mumbai India for ASB Unplugged and the Flat Classroom mini-conference . And we're taking a whole heap of 2nd through 8th graders with us. Meet the India Immersion project.  Inspired by Silvia Tolisano 's Travel Through Space and Time Presentation in the K12 Online 2007 , the students are "traveling" with us to and through India in what we hope will be a powerful vicarious learning experience.  In vicarious learning, you learn by watching another. Each of us has a classroom that we will email and skype with while we are there. We have a private wiki (sorry, with the young children there, it MUST be private) where we are sharing the voicethreads (grades 2-5) and links to classblogmeister (grades 6-8) where students will be sharing. My tenth grade computer science class are the self-named "Indie-techs" (a double meaning there - they are independent and ...

Last year, we had our first Flat Classroom conference in Doha, Qatar during which the students invented global collaborative projects that they believed would improve a social issue.  Out of that conference, the students invented and voted the Eracism Project as their winner, a project to hold weekly debates around creating an understanding of race and culture.  The first week into Eracism, I'll say the student vision was amazing and as teachers we are so excited about what we see with the potential for "simulated sychronous" environments to bridge gaps. Now, Julie Lindsay and I are working diligently on the next Flat Classroom Conference , which we are calling a "mini-conference" because it is being held as part of ASB Unplugged in Mumbai India this upcoming February.  We are bringing the same project based learning environment along with incorporating adult educators - not as "teachers" but as co-participants and equals in the process of not ...