We are delighted to invite you to an online 'Meet the Flat Classroom®' meeting early next week. This is an opportunity to learn more about Flat Classroom® Projects LLC and our non-profit organisation, Flat Classroom® Conference and Live Events Inc.
At this gathering we will -

• Explain and review all current projects
• Share Flat Classroom® Certified Teacher course details
• Detail our upcoming live events and workshops
• Talk about how to get involved with Flat Classroom® as a classroom teacher, as a leader as a pre-service teacher and as an expert advisor
• Share excitement and details about our book, "Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration One Step at a Time", due for release January 2012
• and more.....!

Come and join us in BlackBoard Collaborate and hear how you can connect with other educators and students globally and embed collaborative learning into your curriculum.

Time and Date: Monday August 29 8:30pm EDT, Tuesday August 30, 8:30am China
Check your time at Meet the Flat Classroom on timeanddate.com

For those who have already applied to projects for 2011-12, this is not the project launch meeting, but an opportunity to learn more about Flat Classroom®. We hope you can join us!
The online meeting room URL:
http://tinyurl.com/flatbusiness1112

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 [email protected]

Watch this space for more announcements of new projects coming, including the repeat of the popular ‘Eracism’ Project, as well as an opportunity for educators to join our next Flat Classroom® Certified Teacher course, also starting in September 2011.

Also, our book, ‘Flattening Classroom, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration one Step at a Time’ is due for release January 2012. Find out more at www.flatclassroombook.com

 Using the tools learned from the completion of the Flat Classroom® Certified Teacher Pilot Program in March of 2011, Theresa Allen gained the confidence and knowledge to create and put into practice a project of her own, Virtual Vacation.  Students from Sweden and her 8th grade students collaborated in small groups using Skype to talk live to one another and Google Docs to eventually create a presentation on the vacation of their choice.  The Flat Classroom® Certified Teacher program prepared her to create a project where students from almost any part of the world can participate.  The goal of the Flat Classroom® Certified Teacher Program is "for teachers to become leaders in global collaboration within their schools and internationally" (Julie Lindsay, Vicki Davis).  Theresa also managed the Digiteen 11-2 project with students from 3 countries.

Ethnocentrism is a problem because it can perpetuate prejudice and stereotypes against
certain students in a classroom or become a form of discrimination directed against certain students on the basis of their ethnic group and background. Therefore, my research examined the working relationships of students, and whether the use of digital technologies (i.e., Web 2.0 technologies) by digital natives can help reduce the level of ethnocentrism in cross-cultural classrooms during the Net Generation Education 2009 and 2010 and Horizon 2008 projects.   The research used a qualitative method of inquiry, case study approach (Timeframe:
March 1, 2008 to June 2, 2010), and analytic induction method as the data analysis strategy. The data sources were interviews from the coordinators of classrooms with students located in Canada, Korea, Pakistan, Qatar, and United States, responses to predetermined questions created by the project coordinators/creators from students located in multiple countries, and a review of the online wiki discussions from the participating students and teachers located in multiple countries.   The review of literature during the research process indicated that ethnocentrism is
biologically rooted within people of all cultures, which help to explain why there is such an extensive historical record of its occurrence. The findings of the data analysis indicate that there was a minimum level of ethnocentrism detected during the Net Generation Education and Horizon projects. The findings also indicated how the use of Web 2.0 technologies heavily influences the factors that impede ethnocentrism and how the impeding factors overwhelm the encouraging factors.   The patterns developed from analyzing the data illustrate how the working relationships of students related to ethnocentrism are positive when using Web 2.0 technologies, students are willing to work and socialize with students from other countries, and furthermore, the positive working relationships outweighed the negative working relationships during these types of global collaborations and ethnocentrism was deemed minimal in most cases.   With all this information in hand, I concluded that the use of Web 2.0 technologies during the Net Generation Education and Horizon projects was successful in the fight against ethnocentrism in this cross cultural learning environment mainly because ethnocentrism was reduced to and/or maintained at a minimal level after only a few weeks of project participation.

1. Google yourself - search for your name + your industry. So Susie Smith working at Citicorp as a collections specialist would search for Susie Smith + collections specialist. Find out what the employers are seeing. Maybe you have to explain to potential employers that your last name on myspace drinking a beer is really your nephew.

2. Monitor mentions - Subscribe to a search of your name and scan through it in your RSS reader. You’ll never miss when that big name blogger says your post was good or that student dragged your name through the mud.

3. Give back - Comment thoughtfully on the posts of others and comment everywhere. Repost, reblog, like, share, the more you give the more will be given unto you. That is a guideline inculcated into me as a young adolescent and it has remained true. Invest some time in finding an easy way to share and comment – I use @add this, the FireFox add-on and use the buttons for sharing that many posts already have.

4. Engage -  Converse with others, really, really think and converse. Just don’t be a talking head, but reflectively share and talk to people, not tools. Many use a digital tool to keep track of comments like Cocomment You may find that useful. Subscribe to the notifications at the bottom of many posts in order to keep yourself in the conversation. Engaging conversation goes beyond the cursory greetings.

5. Create - Write posts, take pictures, microblog thoughts, create videos, report on projects. You read the creations of others. Take the next step and create for others to read, see, watch, and do.
Photo by Riptide Furst
technorati tags: RiptideF Deventhal digitalreputation
Crossposted from Durff's Blog

post by Heather Davis
When I left my classroom for the final time in June at the end of the last school year I was in truth exhausted. It had been a busy and often turbulent year not only for me but for the colleagues around me. The goodbyes were said (one of the downsides to working in an international school), my classroom was reasonably packed up (if you count throwing everything that is left into a rubbermaid tub promising to figure it out when I got back) and best of all a list of all of the fun things I was going to do, learn and read about my IT passion. My list involved completing the incredible Flat Classroom Certified Teachers Course, reading and participating in a book club for the book The Passion Driven Classroom, watching webinars that I couldn’t access readily in China, investigating new technology and overall just having a great learning and relaxing summer. Unfortunately, now of that happened.

While I did have a wonderful time in San Francisco and then spending two weeks some of my closest friends who live in Dallas I was unable to do any of the list. Why? Well, it turns out that I needed serious downtime and whenever I began to do anything on my list I got physically nauseous. After about two weeks of fighting this reaction I decided that maybe my body and mind were trying to tell me something I had better listen. So I did. I still played around with my computer but didn’t really learn anything new. I read but nothing that had anything to do with school or IT. What I did do was spend time with friends, sleep, SHOP, eat incredible food, travel and even spend two days off of the grid when I went to visit my friend’s mother in Waco who did not have an internet connection.

My constant companion was my iPad2 and I did search a lot for wireless connections though there were not as many as I thought there would be. I actually have better luck in Beijing then around Dallas but I did survive.

So now it is six days before I return to those rubbermaid tubs, a bunch of new teachers, a new teaching member of our Year Four team and quite probably my last year in China (age restrictions and all). How do I feel????? Better, not perfect and not 100% but at least the nausea has stopped whenever I think of school and the future. I was at the school the other day picking up some banking forms and I felt fine but I didn’t go to the classroom – still on vacation….

I have been working this week though. I have updated my class website, got Edmodo ready for this coming year and updated our class blog on Weebly. Those things are ready to go….I have also learned a lot about my MacBook Pro as our school is moving to an Apple School this coming year and I am one of the lead teachers in this endeavour. I have learned how to use iPhoto, Keynote and iMovie. That means I just need to investigate Garage Band for now and I will have a handle on things for myself and the other teachers. All told not bad.

Oh yes, I have also been moving around in Second Life a bit as we are possibly incorporating that into Flat Classroom and learning about Tumblr. Nice to get to know Siobhan Oceanlane again.

So am I ready to go????? Not yet but getting there as I know once the kids arrive it will all work. I have been doing this since 1974. Exciting possibilities.

Announcing the opening of a new Flat Classroom® Project starting in September 2011. This global collaborative project joins together middle and high school students, typically 14-18 years old. Using ‘The World is Flat’ as inspiration and for content student in mixed teams work virtually together researching and sharing ideas and co-creating products.
“Students who complete the Flat Classroom® Project become more globally minded and engaged with their own learning. Teachers become empowered and embrace 21st century learning modes while helping to build bridges between learners that society of tomorrow can walk across,” says Julie Lindsay, E-Learning Coordinator and co-founder of the Flat Classroom® Project.
One of the main goals of the project is to 'flatten' or lower the classroom walls so that instead of each class working isolated and alone, 2 or more classes are joined virtually to become one large classroom. The 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. Projects are constructed with an international set of classrooms (as mixed as we can make it depending on applications). Students also have the chance to interact with expert advisers and other classroom teachers and sounding board classrooms in a true flattened learning mode.
This project will follow the project subscription model established last year for the Flat Classroom® Projects. An annual school subscription per project will provide for 15 students in the project.  For any students above this number or for additional projects, a per-student fee is applicable.  The project site will include the ability to embed video, blog, make groups, have discussions using forum posts, and it may be used for other activities for the class during the year.  
In order to help meet the subscription price, teachers can apply for a limited number of sweat equity positions.  These scholarships will be available to cover the cost of per student fees on an application basis.  The vision is to allow teachers to provide administrative support for the project such as RSS monitoring on the project portal, serving on project leadership committees, providing troubleshooting responses, and other activities in order to defray the administrative overhead costs of running the project. The application deadline is September 1, 2011.
For more information about the Flat Classroom® Project, including access to the online application, please see http://www.flatclassroomproject.net/
We invite you to send any inquiries to [email protected]
Watch this space for more announcements of new projects coming, including the repeat of the popular ‘Eracism’ Project, as well as an opportunity for educators to join our next Flat Classroom® Certified Teacher course, also starting in September 2011.

Also, our book, ‘Flattening Classroom, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration one Step at a Time’ is due for release January 2012. Find out more at www.flatclassroombook.com