For the two or three readers here, who do not also read Will Richardson, check out this new project that started yesterday between Julie Lindsey’s classroom in Bangladesh and and Vicki Davis’ in Georgia. I’ve sorta been listening to this one, but been too busy to bounce it out. Will reminded me of the importance of what is happening here, so I thought I provide another echo.
Will says about the project…
Teachers must be willing to be connectors. …in the context of those connections, we can give our students real, meaningful, relevant opportunities to teach the rest of us what they know. The fact that the work of these students will be published in its many forms to the world as a whole is just so radically removed from the ways most educators still look at what happens in the classroom. If we are simply content to shuffle paper back and forth only for the sake of slapping an assessment on the work, we are doing our students a grave disservice.
Weblogg-ed » Flat Classroom Project Wiki
The basic synopsis, by Vicki reads…
Our students will be paired with each other to create wikis and multimedia resources discussing the educational and industrial implications of the “flatteners” as outlined in Thomas Friedman‘s book, the World is Flat.The project will be wiki-centric and is designed to require research,information literacy skills, and high level critical thinking.
I was especially interested in Vicki’s discussion of teacherpreneurs, which she defines as…
…teachers whosee opportunity to make profitable learning experiences for studentsthrough their partnership with other classrooms with common curriculargoals and expectations.
She goes on to say that…
They understand the best practices of teaching well enough to beentrusted to continue with high standards of achievement and learningwhile utilizing new conduits of information conversion into knowledge.
Very cool!
technorati tags:warlick, flatclass, vickidavis, julielindsey
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Thank you for your encouragement, David. You are the renegade who got me started. I appreciate your ongoing inspiration and ability to separate truth from hype.
David, as an echo to Vicki, thanks for your guidance which has led me to this project. I can’t stop thinking about your recent (and ongoing) comments about ‘technology integration’. The Flat Classroom Project is not about technology integration it is about life, comunication and collaboration. The technology is invisible.