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I hope you'll forgive the posts about upcoming projects in the Flat Classroom family but so many things are getting ready to start and some of you may not have heard about some of these projects. The Eracism project was invented by students at the first Flat Classroom conference in Doha Qatar and was voted up by the world of educators and students as being most needed. They were so right! Last semester we ran 4 brackets (2 middle school and 2 high school). The debates begin by debating on Voicethread and the finals are synchronous in Blackboard Collaborate. We're excited to be working with ObaWorld as a result of meeting Yong Zhao at ISTE this summer. We'll be beta testing this platform for use with future projects.  So, I copied an email that Julie Lindsay just sent out to our mailing list and am inviting any of you who would like to do this. It doesn't take a lot of time, but you do need to help students prepare to field a team. My classroom actually won the first c...

I get tweets and emails asking "what is this Flat Classroom thing?" When you flatten your classroom, you remove the walls. You connect your students to others around the world in a level playing field where they collaborate, work together and learn from each other. The first project was based on Thomas Friedman's book The World is Flat when Julie Lindsay was a teacher in Bangladesh and I connected my classroom in Camilla Georgia to co-create and co-author a wiki on the trends in the book and make videos that have contributors from the other side of the world.  After the first project won ISTE's Online Learning Award, and Friedman included us in the update to his book, teachers from around the world started joining in. It has grown into projects from Kindergarten through 12th grade and now we're working with preservice teachers as we look to see what that will look like. Teachers discuss how to connect globally on our Flat Classrooms Ning, open to any educator.  ...

elevator (Photo credit: Jose R. Borras ) I listened to him talk for 10 or 20 minutes at least. Then, he asked me what I did and I was sharing a bit about Flat Classroom projects and the incredible things that kids are doing. He interrupts me 1 minute in smiling and says, "So this is your elevator pitch?" I said, "No, that implies I'm selling you something. I'm not. Either you get that students need to understand how to collaborate or you don't." and then quietly went to reading over my notes for my speech again. "I'm so sorry, did I interrupt you?" He says. "No problem, it isn't for everyone, but it is transformational in the classroom." We both went on reading and doing our own thing. But later, I pondered how often this happens. I was talking to a teacher who is doing FANTASTIC things in STEM while I was waiting for the plane in Tallahassee last Wednesday. (Hopefully he'll guest post here and...

Flat Classroom(r) Skype (Photo credit: superkimbo ) Flat Classroom(r) Skype (Photo credit: superkimbo ) Often, we envy those who had the ability to "discover" things and yet many seem to gravitate to discussing answers that have already been found. Many think everything that has been discovered is all there is. They lack imagination and wisdom. I choose to live my life on the new frontier, the frontier where we are discovering what it is like to connect classrooms and students in ways never before imagined. These things we do strike fear in the hearts of warmongers and the media who would rather kids believe their propaganda and hateful words that someone is evil just because they are different. I fear that when ambassadors and bureaucrats realize we are operating under their radar, without their facilitation or official "endorsement" that they will cringe and become angry. The fact is that the world is flattening and teachers don't need someone w...

We are in great need of some judges to help review student multimedia for TWO projects.  Flat Classroom Project 12-1 -  http://flatclassroomproject. ning.com/group/ fcp2011judgesexpertadvisors NetGenEd 2012 -  http://flatclassroomproject. ning.com/group/netgen-2012- expert-advisors-judges Both of these projects have many students madly finishing off multimedia work, with a timeline for judging to start by mid-May. We will be holding a Judges Orientation meeting around May 1 to go over expectations. However all information is on the respective wiki. If you have a couple of hours spare in mid-May we welcome you warmly to sign up on the Ning link(s) above and follow instructions on the associated wiki to put your name next to the preferred topic of interest. If you have any other teachers in your schools who would like to learn more about our projects through judging the final product, we welcome them to sign up as well. Many thanks everyone. Julie Lind...

I looked up Cynthia Sandler 's email in my gmail this morning and found that on February 14, 2011 she was emailing to see if she could join the Digiteen project. I feel like I've known her for much longer. She was already incredible in her technology prowess and I'd hesitate to stake claim to any of Cynthia's excellence - she did all that on her own. But her knowledge of how to integrate global collaboration into the classroom here - just 365 days later blows me away. Perspective Detectives Yesterday, she pitched her global project idea to the Flat Classroom Certified Teacher Group . It was at 10 am Eastern so I was working frantically at our junior class Valentine's booth about that time, but have been taking time to review the final project designs of the teachers who have successfully made it through the course. Cynthia's video is Perspective Detectives:   Cynthia (and many of the others) nailed it. Catchy name. Clear story of why we need this pr...

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 , a...