E-Learning Journeys

Across My Desk (weekly)

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sun, 27 May 2012 03:30:53 PDT

Classroom in the Cloud: 10 Professional Development Books for Teachers

tags: flatclassroombook acrossmydesk
iPoPP - International Project or Partner Place

iPoPP is a place for educators and youth worldwide to find global learning projects and partners.

iPoPP combines the best offerings of GlobalSchoolNet and eLanguages, to improve academic achievement, encourage workforce readiness, and give youth skills to become responsible global citizens.

tags: globalproject globalcollaboration acrossmydesk
Schools Go Into the 'Cloud' to Embrace the Popularity of Social Media - NYTimes.com

Good article about the evolution of LMS's from Blackboard, Moodle and now newer more social platforms such as Edmodo, Schoolology and Teamie. Yes, learning is social and we need the best tools and appropriate tools for each age level to support this.

tags: socialmedia education acrossmydesk
PodOmatic | Podcast - Eracism project

Wonderful podcasts from Marilina's school in Italy as they discuss the Eracism Project and interview teachers and students from Florida, USA.

tags: eracism acrossmydesk podcast
P2PU | Global Dialog: International & Comparative Perspectives on Education | Full Description

This seminar welcomes teachers, learners and parents to share and discuss ideas and questions around international and comparative ed.

The course is divided into 4 modules each containing 1 or 2 online short videos, an optional reading, online asynchronous discussions and an optional synchronous discussion (via Skype) around the following topics:

Global definitions of learning and education (June 4-10) Cross-country education borrowing and lending (June 11-17) Educating the whole person (June 18-24) Creating sustainable education systems (June 25-July 1)

tags: education online free acrossmydesk

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Across My Desk (weekly)

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sun, 20 May 2012 03:31:02 PDT

QR Codes Explained - YouTube

tags: qrcodes acrossmydesk
iPads for Learning Getting Started

Excellent resource produced by Dept Education and Early Childhood development, Victoria, Australia

tags: acrossmydesk ipads education mobilelearning
TEDGlobal2012: Program Guide

tags: TED acrossmydesk
24 Educational iPad Apps for Kids in Reading & Writing « Imagination Soup | Fun Learning and Play Activities for Kids

tags: ipad acrossmydesk education reading
So...You Wanna Be A Blogger

Winston Salem, NC, United States, ASCD EDge Blog post - A Professional Networking Community for Educators
Great resources for getting started with blogging and pedagogical resources to justify why this is an important professional objective for educators.

tags: blogging brandofme acrossmydesk
Vocre

a Free Voice Translation app that Breaks the Language Barrier

tags: translation voice acrossmydesk
BYOT? Bring it on | An international forum for all schools seeking to make the best use of BYOT.

tags: byot acrossmydesk

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Across My Desk (weekly)

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sun, 13 May 2012 03:30:52 PDT

Digital Citizenship - ISTE online course

A self-paced course offered by ISTE on digital citizenship.

tags: acrossmydesk digitalcitizenship onlinelearning
Connected Learning

Connected learning is when you’re pursuing knowledge and expertise around something you care deeply about, and you’re supported by friends and institutions who share and recognize this common passion or purpose. Click here to learn more about the connected learning model and the research that supports it.

tags: connected_learning education viralvideo acrossmydesk
Learning to Change-Changing to Learn - YouTube

tags: viralvideo 21stcenturylearning education acrossmydesk
Rethinking Learning: The 21st Century Learner | MacArthur Foundation - YouTube

From cell phone and video games to Facebook and YouTube, digital media are changing the way young people play and socialize in the 21st century. Learn more at http://www.macfound.org/programs/learning.

The MacArthur Foundation's grantmaking aims to determine how digital media are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. Answers are critical to education and other social institutions that must meet the needs of this and future generations.

tags: viralvideo education acrossmydesk
Above And Beyond - YouTube

in pursuit of good viral videos to play for staff PD sessions. This one by Partnership for 21st Century Skills is a story about what is possible when communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity take center stage in schools and transform learning opportunities for all kids. Visit www.p21.org/4Cs

tags: viralvideo learning acrossmydesk education
BYOD - Criteria for Implementation Success

Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org

tags: byod acrossmydesk
Microsoft Next 2012 on MSN Video

Sherri Erickson, Uri Goren, and Ellen Kampel
People's choice winners - Digital Citizenship.

tags: digitalcitizenship acrossmydesk

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Across My Desk (weekly)

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sun, 06 May 2012 03:30:48 PDT

Third Culture Kid | A Third Culture Kid’s Guide to College | Denizen

tags: thirdculturekids acrossmydesk
Living with Laptops: Digital Citizenship for Parents

Excellent slide presentation by Kim Cofino at Yokohama International School revealing essential ideas and objectives for living with technology.

tags: acrossmydesk digitalcitizenship
Eco-Libris | How Green is the iPad

tags: ipad acrossmydesk green
Free Download: Digital Citizenship Poster | Edmodo – Safe Social Networking for Schools

tags: acrossmydesk digitalcitizenship edmodo
Digital handshakes » Anne Fox

"The digital handshake is a critical point in any online interaction. Handled well, it will lead to successful and rich communication. Handled badly, it will take a long time to recover and get group process on track. I am thankful to Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay for this evocative name for a vital part of online collaboration."

tags: acrossmydesk jul flatclassroombook
TED-Ed | Tour

I have not had time to really explore this yet.....but it looks exciting.

tags: TED acrossmydesk
Flattening classrooms in Kindergarten | KC

Great work done by Tasha at YIS, Japan!

tags: flatclassroom acrossmydesk
Education and the income gap: Darling-Hammond - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Interesting article revealing lack of support in health and early education and support facilities such as stable housing do have an affect on education levels in the US cf other countries.

"We cannot pretend that multiple layers of growing inequality — in home, community, and school resources — don’t matter for student learning, or that solutions to our education problems can be enforced without strategic investments in a level playing field. Our challenge is to confront the reality of growing up in America today and to design in- and out-of-school supports that will allow children a fair shot at the American Dream. "

tags: acrossmydesk education
80 High School Math Sites - Symbaloo

tags: acrossmydesk mathematics online
WeVideo - Collaborative Online Video Editor in the Cloud

tags: acrossmydesk video creation co-creation flatclassroom
Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis on Flattening Classrooms

Steve Hargadon: Live Monday, April 23rd - The Future Of Education interview series. Recording and MP3 file available for playback.

tags: flatclassroom flatclassroombook acrossmydesk futureofeducation
IRA Institute 16: Copyright Clarity

tags: copyright creativecommons acrossmydesk

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Across My Desk (weekly)

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 03:31:00 PDT

UK - Inside Government - Innovation in Education

This one-day event on April 26 will provide opportunity for delegates to analyse the future of innovation in education in the UK. Interesting......
Some preamble on the website:

The Next Gen Report, published in February 2011, highlighted the lack of emphasis the UK’s current education system places on ICT. The report called for an urgent revision of this to ensure that the UK remains globally competitive in an age when innovation, technology and entrepreneurship are vital to economic growth. In response to this report the government stated that the current teaching of ICT was "insufficiently rigorous and in need of reform". Technology should be used within the classroom to inspire and engage students, improving education and raising attainment.

In January 2012 Michael Gove announced plans to scrap the existing ICT curriculum. In its place, new courses of study in Computer Science will be introduced. The move, which is being supported by industry experts including Ian Livingstone, e-skills and naace, will give schools the freedom to create their own ICT and Computer Science curricula equipping pupils with the skills need to succeed in the digital age.

tags: conference acrossmydesk
Flat Classroom Projects--Transform Learning through Global Collaboration - ISTE 2012 Conference Ning

"Global Gallery Presentations - Sunday, 6/24/2012, 7:00pm–8:30pm
Julie Lindsay, Beijing (BISS) International School with Susan Davis and Vicki Davis
Join students and teachers of all grade levels from all over the world in authentic, real-world projects using emerging technologies. Recommended by ISTE's SIGIS, SIGIntS"

tags: iste2012 globalcollaboration flatclassroom acrossmydesk
Flat Classroom and Global Collaboration

Join the conversation - ISTE 2012 Conference Ning
Plan to join us in person at ISTE 2012 in San Diego
Monday, 6/25/2012, 5:30pm–6:45pm

tags: iste2012 acrossmydesk flatclassroom bof
2012 Recordings - Classroom 2.0 Social Learning Summit

Links to all of the recordings of presentations from the Social Learning Summit April 23, 2012. Many hands on topics, use of social media, pedagogy, and ideas to connect and collaborate.

tags: acrossmydesk socialmedia classroom2.0
EdTechSandyK: Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds With @CoolCatTeacher & @JulieLindsay

Great summary of our interview on the Future of Education with @stevehargadon today

tags: acrossmydesk flatclassroombook
Cisco British Innovation Gateway (BIG) Awards - Home

"Welcome to the British Innovation Gateway (BIG) Awards

With over $200,000 in prizes, the BIG Awards is an annual open innovation competition to discover
and reward the finest examples of the UK's most innovative start-ups. Powered by Cisco I-PRIZE.

There are less than 10 days left to submit your ideas. Don't miss the opportunity to win prizes and shape the future technology agenda! Submit your idea by 1 May, 2012."

tags: acrossmydesk innovation awards
blended-classrooms - The Flipped Classroom

"The flipped classroom is an exciting new instructional approach. As it is relatively new, much of the information about it only is available in the popular press. Little research can be found. On this page, I am pulling together what I can find relevant to flipped classrooms. Enjoy!"

tags: flipclassroom acrossmydesk

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Across My Desk (weekly)

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 03:30:57 PDT

@julielindsay :: Twitter Birthday - twbirthday.com

Ok, this is so gimicky, but fun. :-)
Thanks to jo Mcleay for being my 'godfather'

tags: Twitter acrossmydesk
Beyond laptops

The portal for the annual conference 'Beyond Laptops' hosted by Yokohama International School, Japan.

tags: acrossmydesk 1:1 laptop education conference
iPads in the Classroom are Changing the Face of Education | Mac|Life

tags: acrossmydesk ipads education
Dumbing Down : Stager-to-Go

"Although I’m only 48, I have been working in educational computing for thirty years. When I started, we taught children to program. We also taught tens of thousands of teachers to teach computer science to learners of all ages. In many cases, this experience represented the most complex thinking about thinking that teachers ever experienced and their students gained benefit from observing teachers learning to think symbolically, solve problems and debug. There was once a time in the not so distant path when educators were on the frontiers of scientific reasoning and technological progress. Curriculum was transformed by computing. School computers were used less often to “do school” and more often to do the impossible."

tags: acrossmydesk garystager computing education
The Global Read Aloud

tags: globalproject globalcollaboration acrossmydesk
Online converter - convert video, images, audio and documents for free

tags: converter online free acrossmydesk

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Across My Desk (weekly)

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 03:30:44 PDT

Load Up Your iPad with a Massive Library of Over 38,000 Free eBooks

"The iPad is a great device to read on, and if your digital library is feeling a little bare then you’ve come to the right place. We’ve found some of the best places to get free ebooks, ready to be downloaded and opened with iBooks on your shiny new iPad (or iPhone, iPod, Kindle, Nook, or Android, for that matter)."

tags: ebooks acrossmydesk ipad free
Gaming: Leveling Up Global Competence - Global Learning - Education Week

A great article by Honor Moorman, one of our Flat Classroom teachers and Asia Society consultant.

tags: globalcompetence gaming acrossmydesk
Finding Solutions to Hunger | iEARN USA

iEARN K-2 global project - interesting outline.

tags: iearn acrossmydesk
You Are Your Words - AHD

"The American Heritage® Dictionary invites you to create a self-portrait using your words.
The words that tell the world who you are. That make you, you. It's easy to do, whether you decide to link to places like Facebook for words you've already written or write something new specifically for your portrait. Either way, you'll create a unique image that can be shared and saved and will remind everyone that You Are Your Words. "

tags: acrossmydesk web2.0
Keynotes | PGL2012

I am very excited to be keynoting the Asia Society, Partnership for Global Learning Conference in NYC June this year, straight after ISTE.

tags: jul acrossmydesk keynote education
The Social Learning Summit - April 21st, 2012 - Classroom 2.0

From Steve Hargadon and Classroom20.com

The conference theme is the use of social media and Web 2.0 in teaching and learning, and the conference URL is http://www.SocialLearningSummit.com. To be kept informed of the latest conference news and updates, please make sure you are a member here at Classroom 2.0. This will also allow you to correspond with the presenters and other members, and to comment on sessions and discussions.

tags: acrossmydesk socialmedia web2.0 summit
ISTE | Passion-Based Learning Contest

When it comes to inspiring students in the classroom, no question, you are an A-list star! Give the great work you do the red carpet treatment by entering it into our Passion-Based Learning Contest. As an educator, how do you help your students pursue the ideas or projects that ignite their passions and spark their imaginations? Share your strategies with fellow ISTE members and the rest of the educational community!

Winners will be featured during the ISTE 2012 keynote sessions, and the grand prize winner will receive an all-expense paid trip to ISTE 2013 in San Antonio! We will also publish a selection of our favorite entries in an e-book collection and feature them on ISTE’s website.

tags: iste2012 ISTE acrossmydesk
Digital Citizenship- Parents and Schools Working Together

tags: acrossmydesk digitalcitizenship
Edmodo Movie on Vimeo

Video created by Tina Schmidt and her students to show others how to use Edmodo. Created for the A Week in the Life, Flat Classroom project for upper elementary students.

tags: awl12-1 edmodo video tutorial acrossmydesk
HP Catalyst Project Showcase

Organization: Longwood University
Consortium: New Learner
Project URL: http://www.ittipgist.org/

HP Project Catalyst Project Showcase: Globally Collaborative Digital Learning Landscape

"Teachers in in Virginia, Ghana, and India have participated in professional development on integrating Scratch and Alice in teaching STEM content; teachers in Virginia and Ghana are integrating inquiry based learning using HP science kits. Students in each building collaboratively discussed a global problem and identified potential solutions. Teachers will create wikis for students across the school divisions to interact and collaborate with each other on global problems in the 2012-13 school year. The innovation initiative focused on motivating girls into computing and design; “design through inquiry” was piloted with a small group of girls by using the LilyPad Arduino. Implementation challenges resulted in creating design kits for girls and for teachers. We are in the process of developing video tutorials for LilyPad Arduino projects as well as step-by-step instructions. Video tutorials and step-by-step instructions on using Scratch and Kodu have been created. Teachers in Dinwiddie and Hopewell suggested the need for professional development and learning modules with assignments and timelines; teachers in Virginia also need portable devices such as an HP slate for student access. Our scale-up efforts will include: Learning modules for Scratch; Learning modules for Kodu; Learning modules for inquiry based learning; and Learning modules for integrating design and computing with LilyPad Arduino. "

tags: acrossmydesk education globalcollaboration
China Breaks Ground on Wenzhou-Kean University Campus

Such and exciting development for education in China!

tags: China education acrossmydesk

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Across My Desk (weekly)

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 03:30:38 PDT

21 Things That Will Be Obsolete by 2020 | MindShift

Related specifically to education....I think I agree with most of this.

tags: acrossmydesk education future
Frankfurt International School: European 1-1 Learning Institute

"Frankfurt International School is proud to announce the details of the 2012 European 1 - 1 Learning Institute. In addition to the two-day conference, FIS will be hosting a special presentation on the evening of 27 September. Keynote speakers Ian Jukes, Scott Klososky and Jeff Utecht will each present a 20-30 minute session."

tags: acrossmydesk conference 1:1
5 Misconceptions of Blended & Online Learning | TeachHUB

Misconception #1: It’s (Physically) “Distant” Learning
Misconception #2: It’s (Emotionally) “Distant” Learning
Misconception #3: It’s Busy Work, Canned Curriculum
Misconception #4: It’s Delayed
Misconception #5: It’s Easy for Kids

tags: blendedlearning onlinelearning acrossmydesk elearning
Tech For a Global Early Childhood Education | Globalizing Early Learning with Technology

Excellent resource by Margaret Powers. If you teach younger students and want to collaborate or hop into a global project this website provides many updated resources and connections.

tags: acrossmydesk globalproject education collaboration
Projects and Ideas for Positive Change :: Worldwide Visionaries :: Projects and Ideas for Positive Change!

tags: acrossmydesk global project
The Largest Global E-Learning Conference - ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN 2012

18th International Conference on Technology Supported Learning & Training
The Largest Global E-Learning Conference for the Corporate, Education and Public Service Sectors
Nov 28-30, 2012

tags: acrossmydesk conference

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Across My Desk (weekly)

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 03:30:48 PDT

Digital Citizenship: The Forgotten Fundamental

Presentation by Kim Cofino @mscofino for EARCOS teachers conference. Kim has an excellent presentation style with vibrant images and a well organised approach.

tags: digitalcitizenship acrossmydesk
ISTE Ambassador Program - Asia - ISTE Community

Come and join me on the ISTE Community Ning. This is the ISTE Ambassador - Asia group. I welcome educators globally, and in particular fro Asia to come and interact and share.

tags: ISTE ambassador acrossmydesk
Save Our Inboxes! Adopt the Email Charter!

tags: email acrossmydesk

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

The Wonderful World of ISTE - Did you know?

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 17:39:06 PDT

Are you an ISTE Member? Do you know what ISTE is?

The International Society for Technology in Education is one of the leading organisations in the world for educators at all levels to learn about how to use technology for education. It is also a lot more than that!

As an ISTE Board member (International Representative), and as an ISTE Ambassador (Asian Region), my relationship with ISTE gives me a unique advantage to promote and encourage others from all over the world to come and see what ISTE can do to support educational needs. These needs may be in the classroom, in educational leadership, in administration, at the state or national level, or in fact at a more ubiquitous level across countries and educational systems. Whatever you need, ISTE provides essential resources, communities and opportunities to learn with and from the best.

Here are some recent examples now of how ISTE also provides resources and opportunities for learning and participation.

ISTE Membership - Many options and opportunities, including global online membership - great value!
Leadership Conference - Indiana, USA, Oct 12-13, 2012 - focus on developing strategic planning using NETS.A
NETS - National Educational Technology Standards - these are globally relevant and applicable and 1,000s of schools use them to inform a standard approach across all levels and areas of the school.
NETS - Global Outreach - Translations are available of NETS in Spanish, Arabic, French and Korean right now.
Singapore 2012: International Conference on teaching and Learning with Technology - Coming up very soon, this event is supported by ISTE and will live up to it's theme: "Do IT! Transform Learning, Shape the Future."
ISTE Community Ning - come and join over 7000 members, join a discussion, find a special interest group
Computational Thinking - Video and downloadable resources
ISTE Conference 2012 - This annual event attracts an international audience of 1,000's! This year San Diego is the venue. View the short promo video below. Join the online community.

Want to learn more about ISTE? I invite you to browse the ISTE website, join the communities I listed above, and in addition come and join the conversation starting around my ISTE Ambassador areas on the ISTE Community Ning.

Across My Desk (weekly)

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 03:30:45 PDT

Popplet | Collect, curate and share your ideas, inspirations, and projects!

tags: acrossmydesk mindmapping mindmap collaboration web2.0
Stonehill @ Flat Classroom, Mumbai 2012

Joan Huntley, the supervising teacher from Stonehill International School, put together this video based on the Flat Classroom Workshop @ASB Unplugged in Mumbai February 2012. I believe it captures the essence of India and the spirit of our workshop. It clearly shows the friendships that were made during the workshop and bonding that took place as students met the demands of deadlines while sharing creative ideas.

tags: acrossmydesk asbunplugged flatclassroomworkshop
Zopler - Collaborative Story Telling

"Zopler is a social network where writers, authors and students can easily collaborate on writing stories together as a group. "

tags: acrossmydesk digitalstorytelling collaboration
Five Things US Schools Can Learn From the Rest of the World | Asia Society

Vivien Stewart's new book, A World-Class Education: Lessons from International Models of Excellence and Innovation, tells the stories of five very different systems: Australia, Canada, China (Shanghai), Finland and Singapore. Despite differences in policy details and practices, as well as in the cultural contexts and political systems in these countries, there are clearly some common drivers of success.

tags: acrossmydesk globalcitizen education
Five Things That Push Conference Attendees Away Events

As we plan live events next year, this came across my desk...an interesting list. I agree we should be tailoring love events to the needs of the user, making it relevant.

tags: acrossmydesk
Draw a Stickman

What fun!

tags: acrossmydesk web2.0 cartoon
Draw a Stickman

This is such fun....replacing the usual desk (as in physical desk) toys in an office?

tags: acrossmydesk web2.0 cartoon
The 8 industries that can best utilize Apple's new iPad | TabTimes

3. Education
There are two opportunities for schools and universities, and the first doesn’t really directly concern the latest iPad. Instead, it is the impact that the new iPad will have on the iPad 2, as the expected price reduction will make this tablet much more accessible for finance-restricted education establishments.

Of course, there is also an opportunity with the new iPad for those with bigger budgets. The additional apps for movie making could make Apple’s latest tablet a great tool for subjects like media studies, or in higher education, broadcast journalism training.

tags: ipad acrossmydesk education trends mobile_apps

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Across My Desk (weekly)

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 03:31:20 PDT

Online converter

convert video, images, audio and documents for free
Similar to me favorite over the years, zamzar.com

tags: converter online free acrossmydesk
Every1Speaks

Collaborative Learning Platform for the 21st Century

tags: collaboration collabworkspaces acrossmydesk
Blooms Digital Taxonomy Wheel and Knowledge Dimension

I think this looks useful. Love the clickable format. Great resources and pics included. Could be used as a workshop starter, or embedded into the workshop as a planning tool.

tags: bloomstaxonomy acrossmydesk
ePortfolios for Learning: Supporting Reflection with Mobile Devices

Reviewing the updates by Dr Helen Barrett to the 'Supporting reflection with mobile devices' chart.

tags: mobilelearning eportfolio acrossmydesk
Born This Way Foundation

"Want to learn more about how to combat youth bullying, meanness, and cruelty? Our friends and partners, danah boyd and John Palfrey, have done research to provide a list of 20 elements that you must know in order to make a difference.

Be informed so you can be brave when you seek to create cultural change. danah and John’s Kinder & Braver World Project: Research Series will provide you with research-based recommendations to help you on the way to making a braver, kinder society."

tags: acrossmydesk cyberbullying learning_habits
Jigsaw Planet - Online Jigsaw Puzzle Games

What a fun tool! and you can embed it eg http://k2-pilot.flatclassroomproject.org/Group+5

tags: web2.0 acrossmydesk
2G Flat Classroom Project on Vimeo

A class from Singapore share their handshake across the world

tags: k2 buildingbridges acrossmydesk
Group 1 Handshake from BRES - Google Docs

An example of a student handshake from PA, USA from the K-2 Building Bridges to Tomorrow Flat Classroom Project.

tags: flatclasskids k2 buildingbridges acrossmydesk
Flat Classroom Webinar and Book Club - Join Now

We are running a Webinar this week based on the '7 Steps to Flatten your Classroom' material on our book. Also our Book Club starts on Sunday/Monday, March 11/12. It's all free, come and join us and learn more about flattening your classroom.

tags: flatclassroombook Pearson acrossmydesk
ISA Global Leadership Class Handshake 2012 - Flat Classroom Project

"The Global Leadership class at ISA in San Antonio Texas is proud and excited to be a part of NETGENED 2012."
This is an excellent example of a school 'handshake' when starting a global project. I am enthralled by this school and the students and teachers. Their discussions are frank and open, and even funny at times! Well done ISA in San Antonio! and Well done Cassie Allen, teacher of this class!

tags: netgened flatclassroom acrossmydesk

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Opening Up Education - Student's Rise to the Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 00:55:00 PST

Before they all gathered in Mumbai for the Flat Classroom Workshop @ASB Unplugged 2012, these 40 students had not met face-to-face except for those in their immediate school. The content of this workshop challenged them to imagine how to 'open up education' to make it accessible, equal, more engaging, technology-focused, interdisciplinary and collaborative.
Students worked in mixed-classroom Teams, on a 3-day Program following a process that involved brainstorming, pitching initial ideas for feedback. Virtual team members also interacted via the backchannel and had a window into the workshop via the uStream channel.

Each student team was challenged by the Action Project that asked them to brainstorm, envision, and propose (“pitch”) a flat-classroom style project to promote awareness and improvement of the workshop theme, ‘Opening Up Education’. Each team pitched on a rotation basis to tables of educators for feedback, they then refined their proposal and created a final 'animatic' presentation. Finally the top 4 teams were chose to spend the last day further developing their ideas into a 3 min. video that clearly shared their proposal as an advertisement or as a scenario in the future where it was already happening. The students who did not make a final team video joined together and produced the 30-min closing ceremony.
A big thank you to Kim Cofino for co-leading the workshop this year, and to David Deeds and Rebekah Madrid for helping with facilitation. It is always good to get new ideas and have a team that is dedicated to making this the best experience ever for everyone involved.

After a 2-week international vote, Team 4 with 'Jack our the Books' has been recognized as having the idea most likely to succeed.

Team 4 - Jack out the Books

Comment on their video on the Flat Classroom Conference Ning.

Find more videos like this on Flat Classroom Conference

See also Team 3 'Mathzilla', Team 5 'Team VIS', and Team 7 'The Educators' videos. In addition other media created by the closing ceremony team includes ASB 2012, Flat Classroom in One Word, and Last Video!

More pictures at key stages during the workshop follow. (My favourite pics!)

David, Julie, Kim and Rebekah

U-Streaming the Workshop

Team Work!

Students 'pitching' their ideas for feedback

Violet facilitating the uStream - iPhone and water bottles!

Closing Ceremony - Students presenting

All of us!

Do you want to join a Flat Classroom Workshop, or come to a Flat Classroom Conference in the future? We will be announcing our locations for 2013-14 very soon. Come and join us on the Flat Classroom Conference Ning and get updates.

A big thank you to the American School of Bombay for hosting the conference, and also a big thank you to Think Global School for their support and to Pearson in India for providing copies of our book to participants in the Digiteacher Workshop.

Invitation to Webinar and Book Club!

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 08:00:45 PST

Two events coming up to celebrate the release of our book, 'Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration One Step at a Time'.

In about 6 hours (reminds me I better get some sleep!) Vicki Davis and I will join Pearson for our first webinar, 7 Steps to Flatten Your Classroom. Register here.

Then, starting Sunday/Monday this coming weekend our international Book Club will be launched. We are excited at the number (over 200!) who have signed up already to join this online, weekly meeting (for 10 weeks) where we will discuss chapters in the book along with contributors, and hosted by Ben Curran and Neil Wetherbee of @engaginged.

Hope you can join us for both events!

Across My Desk (weekly)

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 02:31:25 PST

Jury is still out, but iPads may put the pen to the sword

"PEN and paper are not yet in the dustbin of history but the radical transformation being wrought in the learning experiences of year 6 students at Neutral Bay Public School in Sydney's lower north shore suggests time may be running out for traditional methods.

The school has just issued all 145 year 6 students with an iPad as part of a $100,000 year-long trial. Almost all classroom work will now be done on the hand-held device.

''It's better than writing in books,'' says Charlotte Prichard, 11, as she lovingly caresses her new tablet."

tags: ipads techintegration 21stcenturylearning mobilecomputing acrossmydesk

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Building Bridges to Tomorrow - A New K-2 Global Project Takes Flight!

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 04:53:14 PST

At 7pm in Beijing, 3am in west-coast Nth America, and after midnight in New Zealand, a group of over 30 excited educators gathered in the virtual meeting space, Blackboard Collaborate. They came with the fierce determination to connect and make better sense of the world through providing opportunities for their students that go beyond the four walls of the classroom. They cam to build understanding of life beyond the immediate environment and also build community through regular connection and collaboration and by sharing between classrooms. Nearly half of the teachers gathered had not participated in a global project before, but they had signed up for this first ever Flat Classroom K-2 level adventure, the pilot of 'Building Bridges to Tomorrow', our very new and very adventurous global project for lower elementary students.

This project has been a long time coming. Vicki Davis and I have talked about it often, knowing that there was a piece missing in our set of projects that started for Grade 3 and went up right through High School. What about the very young students? Can they experience connection and collaboration in a meaningful way? Can they communicate and learn more about the world and, more importantly co-create products? What will this look like? What does global collaboration look like at this level? Can we really hope to achieve a Global Collaborative 3.0 project? (3.0 is where teachers and students are connected throughout the project in an ongoing, regular and meaningful way thereby 'flattening' the classroom walls on an almost daily basis).

Lower elementary level is certainly not my expertise! I admire teachers who can manage and thrive in this environment. I did once teach Grade 2, when I was in Kuwait many years ago. That year I taught Grade 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 Computers, and for good measure, because they said I was 'under allotted' I was given Grade 2 music! To my horror the students would come rushing into class (all girls) and grab my legs and put sticky fingers on the piano.......I dreaded every lesson! Anyway, let's not get sidetracked........

Building Bridges to Tomorrow has attracted over 40 classrooms to join the pilot. In fact, after one week after opening the applications we had to quickly close! So many amazing educators from all parts of the world have signed up, shown up and started to connect after our meeting this week. Wonderful teachers from Turkey, Russia, Thailand, Singapore, China, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and USA are excitedly joining our places and spaces and grouping together to work through this project. We are delighted to have working with us as expert advisors, and bringing their own classrooms in are Maria Knee, Kathy Cassidy and Amanda Marrinan, all ISTE Award winning teachers at the Pk-2 level. We are extremely honored to be working with such dedicated and inspiring practitioners who also want to push the boundaries of collaborative learning. Also working with us on the 'steering team' for this pilot are Flat Classroom Certified teachers Betsye Sargent, Elvina Tong, and Anne Mirtschin.

Right now teachers are connecting via the K-2 group on our Flat Classrooms Ning, and the project wiki has just been setup. Classrooms are being grouped into 3's or 4's as sub-groups of the project and given one of these themes to work with:

How We Play,
Celebrating Together,
Going to School,
Part of a Family,
Making a Meal,
Sharing Stories,
The View from the Window - All do this one

We are discussing outcomes such as:

Co-created product from mixed classrooms
E-Book creation - to be shared via a variety of devices
Multimedia product eg Voicethread, Glogster
Parent/school presentation - school assembly? Parent conference session? Open classroom?

Meanwhile the challenge this week is to create a handshake activity that will introduce the teachers and students to each other in the smaller group. Our teacher meeting next week will bring these handshake ideas together for sharing.

Opening the 'Bridges to Tomorrow' teacher kick-off meeting with many teachers from around the world

Across My Desk (weekly)

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 02:30:54 PST

Reengaging a Lost Generation

"Students today are bored. To inspire them, we must think beyond textbooks and wastebasket work "
The Impact of One - Capella University - The Atlantic

tags: vickidavis acrossmydesk education
IB Jobs

Portal for job vacancies globally in IB schools

tags: jobs employment acrossmydesk
Global teaching and administration jobs

tags: employment jobs acrossmydesk

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Across My Desk (weekly)

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 02:31:08 PST

An evening to honor Ed Gragert « iEARN-USA

Ed Gragert has been a consistent shining beacon in the world of educational global collaboration and one of the very first people I connected with years ago via iEARN.

tags: iearn globalcollaboration acrossmydesk
Technology in Elementary School

Interesting concepts about 21st C learning at the elementary school level by @langwitches

tags: techintegration elementary acrossmydesk

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Across My Desk (weekly)

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 02:31:02 PST

NMC Horizon Report > 2012 Higher Ed Edition

The New Media Consortium recently released the top 6 emerging technologies in Higher Ed, including trends and issues - a MUST read!
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less
> Mobile Apps 10
> Tablet Computing 14
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years
> Game-Based Learning 18
> Learning Analytics 22
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years
> Gesture-Based Computing 26
> Internet of Things

tags: netgened horizonHE2012 acrossmydesk
Amazon.com: Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration One Step at a Time eBook: Vicki Davis Julie Lindsay: Kindle Store

The kindle version of our book, now available.

tags: flatclassroombook kindle acrossmydesk
ASB Tech Integration Book 2012

Such an exciting time when the American School of Bombay can publish this eBook for us all to enjoy and learn from their tech integration experiences.

tags: techintegration ebook asb acrossmydesk globalcollaboration 21centurylearning
ISTE Ambassador Program - Asia - ISTE Community

Come and join the ISTE Ambassador Program - Asia Ning group as part of the ISTE community.

tags: iste ambassador acrossmydesk
Eliza Chat bot

The point of this is......?

tags: chat acrossmydesk
Web research on the iPad using Evernote and Skitch (how-to) | ZDNet

tags: ipad acrossmydesk
Revolution in the Classroom - Four Corners

Four Corners looks at the impediments to better teaching. Imagine running a business where you can't choose your own staff. Where you don't have control of your own budget to invest in innovative programs to improve the product you create. That's the situation many state school principles must deal with.

"If you want the school to have the best staff, you have to choose them and they have to be able to match the needs of the school." - School Principal

This week Four Corners visits three very different schools and talks to the people who are trying to change the system from within. As they tell the us, it's hard work but it is possible to dramatically turn a school around and change children's lives.

tags: education australia acrossmydesk
Educational-Blogging

Excellent blogging wiki to get started in the classroom with blogs. Featured on Wikispaces best wikis in education

tags: blogging acrossmydesk wikispaces

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Flat Classroom K-2 project ‘Building Bridges to Tomorrow’

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:38:14 PST

Press release, February 7, 2012

Announcing, the Flat Classroom K-2 'Building Bridges to Tomorrow' Project! Co-founders of Flat Classroom, Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis, are excited to be able to offer this global collaborative project to classrooms around the world. This project will run as a pilot for the coming semester, February-May 2012 and be open to Prep/Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2 classrooms (4-7 year old students).

Can very young students effectively connect, communicate, and collaborate in a global project? What does this look like? What products can students in mixed classroom teams co-create? What activities and structure can we design and implement to scaffold this collaboration? There are many wonderful opportunities out there already for students to connect using technology tools. However the aim in this project is also to encourage students in different places to collaborate, not just communicate, and to enhance understanding of cultures and life styles beyond the immediate environment.

We invite teachers who believe global collaboration has a place in their classroom. We invite those who want to improve digital citizenship and cultural understanding, leading to global competency amongst students and teachers. We invite teachers who have some digital fluency and access to digital tools who want to use them in meaningful ways to connect with others and learn together.

The ‘Building Bridges to Tomorrow’ call for applications is open now! Classrooms will be selected for the pilot and announced before the end of February. Following a teacher kick-off meeting, classrooms will work collaboratively through March and April with final products and celebrations taking place late April and into May.

We are looking for teachers who are creative and able to work collaboratively to help us build a meaningful experience for the classrooms and the wider school communities. Apply now!

‘Building Bridges to Tomorrow’ is part of the series of Flat Classroom Projects created by Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis. Find out more from the Flat Classroom website, and from our recently released book, “Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration One Step at a Time”.

Application Form for Building Bridges to Tomorrow: http://tinyurl.com/flatclassK-2
Flat Classroom Projects: http://flatclassroomproject.net
Flat Classrooms Teacher Network: http://flatclassrooms.ning.com
Contact us: fcp@flatclassroom.org
Directors, Vick Davis and Julie Lindsay
For more about the pedagogy and benefits of adding global collaboration to your curriculum, buy Julie and Vicki's book Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds from Pearson Publishing. www.flatclassroombook.com

Eracism Project 2012 Forming Now!

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:00:13 PST

Press Release February 1, 2012.

Announcing, the Eracism Project 2012 - a global student debate that joins diverse cultures and includes authentic debate for global competence and international mindedness.

Fact based debate is a very essential skill with students who often equate the term "debate" with argument. The Eracism project: A Flat Classroom ProjectTM was envisioned by the winning student team from the 2009 Flat Classroom Conference held in Doha, Qatar and their concept was to hold debates using Web 2.0 tools to improve cultural understanding.

Schools selected for the Eracism Project 2012 will be asked to enter a 4 person debate team, with the remaining students in the class being researchers around the topic,

"Government regulation requiring immigrants to adopt the beliefs, habits, and language of the dominant culture does more harm than good."

The initial debates will be held asynchronously but in what organizers are calling a "simulated synchronous" environment with the final winning teams debating live in a virtual world. This project was carried out in 2009 and is being run again starting in March 2012. A limited number of applications will be taken.

We welcome applications NOW from teachers and their classrooms around the world. We also need judges and volunteers to help with debate coaching. To apply for this project as a class or judge or volunteer or request to be involved in the teacher information meeting, please complete this form.

Classrooms in Upper Primary, Middle and High School are encouraged to apply (students of age 11 and above). Organisers will create two strands in this project based on demand.

Application deadline is February 29, with announcement of project classrooms by Friday March 2, 2012.

The first teacher online meeting will take place near March 5, 2012. Actual date and time to be advised.

Tentative Timeline

This project has a planned start date of March 5, 2012 with debates beginning March 25 and concluding with the final debate held in a virtual world (and to be streamed live) in May 2012. Schools applying must specify their school holiday dates so that they can be best placed in the project on the debate grid.

Phase 1 - Research & Coaching
This will happen at the school level as classrooms research the topic and practice debate at their local level.

Phase 2 - Asynchronous Debate Round
Students will use VoiceThread to debate with each round taking approximately one week.

Phase 3 - Synchronous Debate
The top two teams will debate live in a virtual world with the debate streamed live on the web for students and educators around the world to watch.

Phase 4 - Reflection
Students and teachers will reflect on ways to improve the methods for global debates.

Process
Due to the asynchronous components used, Eracism will use a hybrid debating style that is based on Conflict or Initiative Debating.

The teams prepare their cases; they present their arguments and evidence; and, they rebut the other team's arguments and evidence. The debate cycle will generally align with the Middle School Public Debate Program found at http://www.middleschooldebate.com

Each debate will be adjudicated by 3 judges and the winning team advances to the next round.

Most of the debates will be carried out on VoiceThread with the final debate being streamed live in a virtual world.

Thank you to the sponsors of this project: Voicethread, Wikispaces, Blackboard Collaborate. (Virtual world platform to be announced soon.)

Co-founders of Flat ClassroomTM Projects, Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis, have been planning for two years to once again run this ground breaking and inspirational global collaborative project. The project opens eyes and hearts as students debate on an issue that will bring together diverse ideas, develop transferable skills and create lasting friendships.

More information about Eracism: http://www.eracismproject.org
Application Form for Eracism 2012: http://tinyurl.com/eracism2012
Flat Classroom Projects: http://flatclassroomprojec.net
Contact us: fcp@flatclassroom.org
Directors, Vick Davis and Julie Lindsay
For more about the pedagogy and benefits of adding global collaboration to your curriculum, buy Julie and Vicki's book Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds from Pearson Publishing. www.flatclassroombook.com

The Book Finally Arrived in Beijing!

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:16:45 PST

At last, after 2 false alarms in the past 2 days, 'the book' finally was delivered by UPS to my school in Beijing. There was excitement as I got the message from reception during morning break, and my daughter, Violet, and I rushed down. I opened the box there and then, just to be sure, and then grabbed it and rushed up the stairs to my husband's office. He grabbed the camera, then Violet took some pictures, and here is the evidence below.

Finally I have in my hand 5 years of effort in the making, and 3 years in production, 'Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration One Step at a Time', THE BOOK, the THING that has caused much stress, tears, lack of sleep, soul searching and everything in between. THE BOOK that is not just a textbook, it is a journey of exploration into learning and teaching, it is a life journey across 6 countries as an international teacher, it is a journey taken first of all by my friend Vicki Davis and me in the creating and the writing, and now a journey that you can all take as we share it with you.

Enjoy...........

Across My Desk (weekly)

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 02:30:52 PST

New Technologies for Educational Practice | TechChange | The Institute for Technology and Social Change

I like the way Nick Martin from tech Change http://techchange.org/ has set this course out and broadened the scope to include educators and other professionals.

tags: acrossmydesk techintegration professionaldevelopment
Educational Technology Bill of Rights for Students| The Committed Sardine

Excited by this fresh approach to an acceptable use policy, or acceptable guidelines. Yes! If we want to put the learning in the hands of the students we need to also give them the responsibility to be reliable and responsible digital citizens, and I mean really give it to them, not tokenism.

tags: educationaltechnology 1.9_policies acrossmydesk
Education Week: U.S. Schools Forge Foreign Connections Via Web

Flat Classroom and Suzie Nestico, Project Manager for FCP11-3, mentioned in this article about students in the US connecting with others around the world

tags: flatclassroom flatclassroomproject acrossmydesk
Classroom Instruction That Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement, 2nd edition (9781416613626): Ceri B. Dean, Elizabeth Ross Hubbell, Howard Pitler, and Bj Stone: Books

Received this book in the mail today from Elizabeth Hubbell, one of the co-authors. Excited to see Flat Classroom included in the 'Cooperative Learning' chapter. ASCD and McREL publication.

tags: jul acrossmydesk
University of Kentucky | Department of Educational Leadership Studies

New Ph.D i Educational Sciences with a focus on School technology Leadership.

tags: phd acrossmydesk
Eracism Project 2012 Forming Now! - Eracism Project

tags: eracism2012 flatclassroom acrossmydesk
Millennial Branding Gen-Y & Facebook Study | Millennial Branding - Personal Branding & Gen-Y Workplace Consulting

tags: personalbranding acrossmydesk
The Mobile Native: BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) Toolbox

BTOD Responsible Use Policy
BYOD FAQ
BYOD Links and Resources

tags: byod techintegration 1.9_policies mobile acrossmydesk
Technology in the classroom -- Shanghai Daily | 上海日报 -- English Window to China New

Storied about successful technology integration and global collaboration, also featuring Toni Olivieri-Barton, one of our amazing Flat Classroom Teachers and her journey into Flat Classroom projects and global collaboration. A journey that in fact took her from the USA to teach in China!

tags: flatclassroom acrossmydesk globalcollaboration techintegration
75 Interesting Ways to use an iPad in the Classroom

tags: acrossmydesk ipad

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Across My Desk (weekly)

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 02:31:08 PST

Amazon.com: Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration One Step at a Time eBook: Vicki Davis Julie Lindsay: Kindle Store

Our book on Kindle! Wow!

tags: acrossmydesk flatclassroombook
Glee "Imagine" by The Kids Republic (cover) - YouTube

tags: acrossmydesk
A Global Journey - ISTE201

International educator and ISTE Board member, Julie Lindsay, shares her global journey via this short presentation delivered at the ISTE 2011 Opening Ceremony, Philadelphia, USA

tags: youtube jul ISTE2011 acrossmydesk
Convert Web Page to PDF - #1 Web to PDF Converter

Having great success with this tool

tags: pdf conversion acrossmydesk
Google Opens Google+ to Teens | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

tags: google acrossmydesk socialnetworking
Google Policies & Principles

Effective March 1, 2012. New, all in one, Google Privacy Policy

tags: acrossmydesk google 1.9_policies
NetGen Education Project

Award winning global collaborators Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis (co founders of the Flat Classroom Project) are excited to announce the 2012 NetGenEd Project, another global collaboration to envision the future of education and social action by inspiring today's students to study leading technology trends and create their vision for the future.

In this project, students will study and "mash up" the results of the 2012 Horizon Report from the New Media Consortium and Educause and Tapscott's book Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World. Students will study the current research and create wiki-reports with their student partners around the world analyzing current trends and projecting future happenings based upon this collaborative analysis. This project is managed by the students who assume roles such as project manager, assistant project manager, and editors of the various wikis.

After compiling their wiki reports based upon current research, and encouraged by "expert advisors" (subject matter experts in the industry), students will then create a video based upon their research in current global technological trends.

Applications open now: http://www.netgened.org/apply.html February 1 deadline extended for interested ITGS classes. Contact julie@flatclassroom.org

tags: netgened globalcollaboration acrossmydesk ITGS 4.0_G_collaboration
Elkton Middle School » Blog Archive » Digiteen Project

Article sharing one classrooms involvement in the Digiteen 11-3 project. Great video that includes excellent results from a school-wide survey.

tags: digiteen acrossmydesk
MYP: The next chapter

Reading about the IB Middle Years Programme changes to come.

tags: myp IBO acrossmydesk
You're Invited to Bitcasa

Another cloud service for backing up data. Thinking of joining, but I am happy with Dropbox already.

tags: cloudcomputing filesharing backup acrossmydesk

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

You’re invited to the Flat Classroom Book Club!

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Lindsay) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:44:55 PST

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, author, "The World Is Flat.''

Insightful, innovative, and practical, this book is a must read for any educator interested in preparing competent global citizens.

- Yong Zhao, Ph. D, Presidential Chair and Associate Dean, College of Education, University of Oregon

Open the door and find a new world! In this significant contribution to global education, Julie and Vicki have produced a resource for teachers that contains much needed information, challenges education thinking and provides resources on each and every page. This is a book a teacher can read and immediately open a global door for their students. For me. it is so exciting (and a relief!) to see that the voice of change in education thinking is the voice of our students.

- Tony Brandenburg, Fellow, Australian Council for Computers in Education

It is our vision that if we can have enough educators linking together and learning about this at the same time, that a natural byproduct will be the creation of many new, exciting global collaborations. It is time to get past the cute stories of global collaboration into the nuts and bolts of the pedagogy that makes it happen. (Although there are a lot of powerful stories to tell.)

To help facilitate this conversation, we felt like that it would be best if we, the authors (Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis), step aside, and invite our friends Ben Curran and Neil Wetherbee of @engaginged to facilitate the conversation. They’ve done book clubs before and this is another pedagogy that we want to work out: that of having a book club that is truly global. We’d like to do this to promote conversations that transcend borders. The easiest way to get this out of the box is to get out of the classroom and connect with other educators.

Every week for 10 weeks we will meet at an alternating time - 12 hours apart. (For the East Coast USA it is Sundays at 6 pm Eastern or Monday mornings at 6 am eastern - Visit our Book club calendar to convert these times to your Time Zone. Subscribe to this calendar via Google calendar to keep up with events.This is Sunday evenings at 22:00GMT alternating with Monday mornings at 10:00GMT in our Blackboard Collaborate room https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2007066&password=M.065891D192F8072208BF5756999CE0 . It is free and everyone is welcome.

#flatclass Book Club Meeting Times

Week and Date	Time	Topic of Conversation
Week 1: Sunday March 11	22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT)	Chapter 1 - Flattening Classrooms through Global Collaboration (p 1-17) Chapter 2 - Impact on Learning: Research in the Global Collaborative Classroom (p18-30)
Week 2: Monday, March 19	10:00 GMT (6 am EDT)	Chapter 3 - Step 1: Connection (p 31-61)
Week 3: Sunday, March 25	22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT)	Chapter 4 - Step 2: Communication (p 62-96)
Week 4: Monday, April 2	10:00 GMT (6 am EDT)	Chapter 5 - Step 3: Citizenship (p 97-125)
Take a break.
Week 5: Sunday, April 15	22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT)	Chapter 6 - Step 4: Contribution and Collaboration (p 126-157)
Week 6: Monday, April 23	10:00 GMT (6 am EDT)	Chapter 7 - Step 5: Choice (p 158-196)
Week 7: Sunday, April 29	22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT)	Chapter 8 - Step 6: Creation (p197-214)
Week 8: Monday, May 7	10:00 GMT (6 am EDT)	Chapter 9 - Step 7: Celebration (p 215-234)
Week 9: Sunday, May 13	22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT)	Chapter 10 - Designing and Managing a Global Collaborative Project (p 235-267)
Week 10: Monday, May 21	10:00 GMT (6 am EDT)	Chapter 11 - Challenge-Based Professional Development (p 268-293) Chapter 12: Rock the World (p 293 - 304)

We’re also inviting the educators featured in each chapter to be with us for the conversations about “their” chapter. You’ll meet people from all over the world just like you who are doing wonderful, amazing things. This is a global story that transcends just one project, although we’re mighty proud of ours.

While you are welcome to just “drop in” you can register with the Book club mailing list and we’ll remind you each week about the session, let you know who is coming, and we’ll mention any special events that we’ll be having as part of the launch. If you run your own book club, you’re welcome to come by the club anytime for ideas and discussion points.

The hashtag for our conversations is #flatclass and the book club is, of course, free. Anyone can join us. There’s no homework - just conversation and learning. We’ll all be there to discuss the future of education with each other. We hope global collaborators from around the world will join us and share their stories too. Conversations will hinge around our new book, Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds. The book will be available in ebook format, although we’re not sure yet which ebook formats.

So, to get ready:

Order the book

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Pearson Publishing
ebook format

Mark your calendar with the dates and times

Thank you to everyone who has made this possible, now over to Ben and Neil with insights on this.

Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher
Julie Lindsay @julielindsay
Co-founders Flat Classroom Projects @flatclassroom

How will this global book club work? Will it really transform my teaching?

Have you ever read a book about teaching and thoroughly enjoyed it, only to get done and ask yourself "Now what?" Or maybe you've read something that was motivating, inspirational and chock-full of ideas, only to find after sharing it with colleagues that they "just aren't that into it?" If so, this book club is for you. We hope it will be a gathering of inspired, motivated, similarly driven friends from around the globe.

Here's how it will work...each week we will focus on approximately one chapter. Each meeting will be divided roughly into three parts. The first part will focus on implementation--how all of us have or can implement the main theme of the week. We'll also dive into and discuss the activities (Vicki and Julie refer to them as "challenges") that are embedded in the book. The second part will be more of an open forum for everyone to discuss other topics in the chapter or other issues pertaining to the subject. This will be a great time for making connections with other teachers for possible collaborations and getting answers to questions that you have. Finally, and perhaps what we are most excited about is that each week we hope to be joined by the friends mentioned in each chapter. They will be able to share their firsthand insight on the weekly topic as well as stories from their own experiences.

On top of all this, Engaging Educators will be providing short, free “boot camp” style webinars along the way to help you master some of the topics that might be new to you.

What we hope to facilitate is a perfect companion to Julie and Vicki's book, an experience that goes beyond "just reading" and demonstrates what a network of connected educators can learn and accomplish.

Welcome to the club!

Ben Curran & Neil Wetherbee @engaginged
4th & 5th Grade teachers and Co-founders of Engaging Educators LLC

E-Learning Journeys

Across My Desk (weekly)

Across My Desk (weekly)

Across My Desk (weekly)

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The Wonderful World of ISTE - Did you know?

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Across My Desk (weekly)

Opening Up Education - Student's Rise to the Challenge

Invitation to Webinar and Book Club!

Across My Desk (weekly)

Building Bridges to Tomorrow - A New K-2 Global Project Takes Flight!

Across My Desk (weekly)

Across My Desk (weekly)

Across My Desk (weekly)

Flat Classroom K-2 project ‘Building Bridges to Tomorrow’

Eracism Project 2012 Forming Now!

Tentative Timeline

Phase 1 - Research & Coaching This will happen at the school level as classrooms research the topic and practice debate at their local level.

Phase 2 - Asynchronous Debate RoundStudents will use VoiceThread to debate with each round taking approximately one week.

Phase 3 - Synchronous DebateThe top two teams will debate live in a virtual world with the debate streamed live on the web for students and educators around the world to watch.

Phase 4 - ReflectionStudents and teachers will reflect on ways to improve the methods for global debates.

The Book Finally Arrived in Beijing!

Across My Desk (weekly)

Across My Desk (weekly)

You’re invited to the Flat Classroom Book Club!

#flatclass Book Club Meeting Times

How will this global book club work? Will it really transform my teaching?

Phase 1 - Research & Coaching
This will happen at the school level as classrooms research the topic and practice debate at their local level.

Phase 2 - Asynchronous Debate Round
Students will use VoiceThread to debate with each round taking approximately one week.

Phase 3 - Synchronous Debate
The top two teams will debate live in a virtual world with the debate streamed live on the web for students and educators around the world to watch.

Phase 4 - Reflection
Students and teachers will reflect on ways to improve the methods for global debates.