New Global Projects are Born! Here are four. Do you want to join?

I'm spending the afternoon listening to our Flat Classroom certified teacher course.

Embed the presentation here.


When Missoula was young
A third grade project invented by Cindy Shultz
Project Link: http://whenmissoulawasyoung.weebly.com/

I love how she used the connection planning tool to map the pathways she's using. This presentation is a textbook example of how to plan a project.  I particularly like the cross peer mentoring guidelines she's developed for helping older students mentor younger students.

They are creating 9 Photostories and creating Google place tours on Google earth for each person they find, and will be geocaching landmarks and they are going to the cemetery and doing research as they work with the libraries and historical societies to do research on the early history of their area. This is a model for “place based teaching and learning” best practice for her area. This is a replacement of their Missoula history unit that they used to do.

As Cynthia Sandler said, “this project could be replicated anywhere.” It is an excellent unit. It could be done anywhere. Cindy's idea is that after local schools do it in their area to compare with other teachers' classes who have done a living history project.

Building Relationships 
Kathy Scarpato

Let's find out – what do you see outside your window. She had us type on our whiteboard. Then she had us type the types of places. She works for a virtual charter school in the state of Pennsylvania. They are already a flat community.

This is a K-2 project to help them see that there is more in their community than just what they see. They will use Glogs, Vokis, etc. Students will take one picture a month. They will post the photos to glogster and have messages on there. They are a 1:1 laptop. They will video themselves or take photos using their laptop. Write 1-2 sentences about what they are taking a picture of and why taking a picture.

You could take this

Korea-USA Sociology Collaboration
Kevin Duncan, Korea  @duncanka
Project website: http://kduncan.phoenix.wikispaces.net/Korea-USA+Spring+2012+Sociology+Collaboration

He has 11th grade students students coming up Big picture and specific questions. So the big picture question would be: “How patient are people in other cultures?” Specific question would be “How patient are people in an elevator when waiting to go to a new floor?” So, this is an original research project to help students create a general question and then a specific research question.

Students use a Google doc together with a table of contents, shared between students and teachers. The wiki will be where they share their research.For example, one set of students wondered if headphones were a symbol of social isolation. Interestingly, if a student when into a store in Normal, Illinois, they were asked to take off their headphones. In Korea, store owners did not ask students to take off their headphones. This is fascinating project.

He says that they spend a lot of time on helping develop the questions. It takes quite a bit of time to get those questions. This is a powerful example of original research by students.

Perspective Detectives
Cynthia Sandler

I blogged about Perspective detectives back in February when Cynthia invented the project. This is for history students to compare and contrast historical events. Why or why not? What does that say about their country and what is important? The need for cultural identity.

She has five phases. Handshake, reflection on a historical event, compare and contrast, synthesize learning and then celebration. They are going to make wikis, videos, and collaborative website entries with the synthesis. She called it a “world untextbook” in her presentation today.

Part of the goal of our Flat Classroom certified teacher course is to birth new projects. We want to help teachers connect. We believe if we passionately share and help people connect that we will leave a legacy within education. Our projects will thrive, we're thrilled with those who join us, but I don't think anyone is going to “own” this movement. The movement to connect globally is grassroots and happening from the teacher level up. We want to reach individual teachers and help them connect and create powerful projects that fit within their local standards and requirements. If you want to know more abut the pedagogies mentioned, our book is Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds.