Friday, October 7, 2011

The World isn't Round? How am I Going to Explain This One?

When I think about the immensity of the Flat Classroom Project and all that it had to entail to create it and make it function I become......awed! The time and effort that went into this project really shows the dedication that it's founders have for education, and their efforts to prove that the world is indeed FLAT. Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay deserve a medal, or a shiny plaque to put in their office--from every person involved in the project!

The idea that the world is flat will really disrupt my history classroom, it disproves so many factual things!!!!!! Just kidding, it will disrupt my classroom in a great way. The Flat Classroom Project is allowing our students to break down barriers that NO one else has thought to do before, how awesome would it be to be a student that is apart of this project. The students are changing the structure of a classroom, the availability of using the wiki allows students to work on the project whenever. School hours need not apply, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE....how many teachers wouldn't want their students working on homework at home and being excited about it. Everyone in my group is really excited to participate.

The networking opportunities are just amazing. Students are not only working on a project about outsourcing together, but they could be working on this project with someone from India. How neat would it be to be discussing the American side of outsourcing and then seeing how the Indians are viewing outsourcing. The networking can go on outside of the project as well. I gave a lesson today on the Islamic faith and culture, I have never met a Muslim person before so my content knowledge was limited. Questions arose and I wasn't completely sure on the answer, how neat would it be to jump on the discussion board and message a fellow Flat Classroomer and ask them about their daily life as a Muslim student in Saudi Arabia?

I thought that Christensen's section on preparing students to meet the demands that society has now was really relevant to the Flat Classroom Project. So many people are traveling abroad, either coming to the United States or our citizens are traveling abroad to work. It would be silly to prepare our students to be ethnocentric snotty Americans. We need to be preparing them to work with people who are not like them. We are teaching our students to be ready to work in fields that are not even CREATED yet, how do we do that? Easy, teach them to adapt, teach them to understand and utilize technology, and teach them to grow in this changing world....not so easy right? What are some broad ideas to do some of these things?

3 comments:

  1. In our voice thread assignment for Module 4 the video pointed out that students today will need the skills for problem solving and adaptability, much like your comments here. It would be difficult to approach from a teaching standpoint. I would think that continued projects that required research and a tiered system of adding a little more responsibility to each so that by the end of a semester students have the research tools necessary to find a solution on their own. I think with each project the teacher takes on less of a role until the end they are merely a liaison in trouble occurs. Project based assessment, I'm a fan.

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  2. I agree, and it would be tough to adapt when most of my students don't have a clue what is out there. As a high school student, I remember going from small town Keota, and taking a few trips to Chicago. I was speechless then, and I still am a little bit now when I go back. I always thought it would be great to move to a place like Chicago simply because of all the new experiences and people to come in contact with. We live in a particularly diverseless area and students suffer because of it. This really does not even scratch the surface, either. There are so many things happening around the world that blow my mind, I can only imagine what my students would think.

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  3. Destery, we spoke about this in one of my courses tonight. We expect students to know how to not plagiarize, yet what we need to do is teach them what plagiarizing is and what we expect out of them throughout the year. This can transfer over to many things, and I especially like your comment about slowly taking ourselves out.

    Clay, I can only imagine what is going through our students minds, but not regarding technology;).....No, in all seriousness, we don't even know what is out there, we are so behind in the Midwest it's scary!

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