Are you interested in attending a Flat Classroom Workshop or Flat Classroom Conference? Do you know what a 'flat classroom' looks like?We invite you to read comments from past participants at Flat Classroom events and to review video reflections and evidence of 'flat' learning.
Flat Classroom Conference Qatar, January 2009
Documentary featuring students and teachers
Eracism
This is the 'winning' team and their final piece of multimedia at the Flat Classroom Conference in Qatar. In their words: Our aim is to give teenagers all over the world an opportunity to express their opinions and ideas about issues in the current world. This has now been developed into a global project to be launched in October 2009.
Beatrice P, 'From a Flat Classroom to a Flat World' (student from Korea, participant in Flat Classroom Workshop HK, 2009)
To me, Flat Classroom meant more than a workshop to learn about technology. It was a life-changing experience to connect, communicate, and cooperate with people from various cultures. I interacted with people I’ve never met before, and even spoke in front of a large audience; if you know how shy I am, you will understand how meaningful it was to me.
I think that the ultimate goal of Flat Classroom wasn’t to learn about technology, or to bridge the digital divide (although those were very, VERY important objectives!)– It was to FLATTEN THE WORLD.
I believe that when we broke down the walls of the classroom, a small crack was made on the walls of the world. Starting from flattening the classroom through technology, we shall flatten the whole world step by step. I’m looking forward to the day I’ll be attending a “Flat World Conference."
Tse Yee Cheung, 'Reflection of the 21CHK - Flat Classroom' (student from Hong Kong, participant in Flat Classroom Workshop HK, 2009)
In the past two days, I've been joining the flat classroom conference. My schoolmates and I came from local schools in Hong Kong. So, for a period of time, we faces communication problems. By getting more to know each other, the problem is solved. From my perspective, I think that the use technology is becoming more and more important. In local school like mine, the use of technology is not as frequent as here. It is my first time that everyone carry their notebook and preset what they want in couple of hours. The topic Digital Divide is meaningful to me. previously, I went to third world countries such as Cambodia. They have no knowledge of Information technology as they are still very anxious about their next meal. These people have really no assess to the internet. There came the one notebook per child.
Steve R, 'My Experience and Reflection' (student from Houston, Texas, USA,Participant in Flat Classroom Conference Qatar 2009)
First of all, i have made friends from all over this beautiful world that we live on. From Australia to Oman to Ethiopia to this beautiful country of Qatar. And one thing i have to say is that no one, and i mean no one should ever judge someone on their stereotypes. Why is it that i get along with the people from this conference? WHy is it that i can make people laugh over here? It is because we are all humans. Yes i know that there are cultural differences but that doesnt mean that we are completely different. We share so many characteristics. I am extremely happy that i have made friends from all around the world and i hope to see them again sometime in the future.
Second of all, i have learned many qualities that i can use in the future since i a plan on going into the business world. I have learned how to present something more effectively. I have learned many different aspects of having a successful campaign and that is something i can hold to value for the rest of my life.
Toby H, 'Team 2 Reflection',(student from Hong Kong, participant in Flat Classroom Workshop HK, 2009)
Our team has bonded over the past few days and we're über tight. The tasks have been challenging yet rewarding. What we learned about our cultural differences will stay with us always. Hopefully we'll be visiting Seoul soon! XD The time limits tortured us yet brought out the best in us. It was the first time we learned the concept of digital divide and we learned much about this through the workshop. We also learned a lot of teamwork and collaboration skills, as well as the secrets to creating a creative, memorable presentation.
Sachin S, 'Flat Classroom Blog' (student from Hong Kong, participant in Flat Classroom Workshop HK, 2009)
The Flat Classroom Workshop was an eye-opener to how far technology has improved in the last few years and how that has impacted on our learning. It was amazing to work together in a team with people ("virtual team members") from other sides of the world. In fact, we even recorded our voice on an audio file, talking about our project, and sent it to our teammates in Morocco and Australia for some comments!
The Flat Classroom Workshop definitely showed me how to make use of today's technology to be more connected and to learn smarter.
Ho Jae Choi, 'It was a great experience......',(student from Hong Kong, participant in Flat Classroom Workshop HK, 2009)
It was a great experience working with people I didn't know before. Coming from different parts of the world, each person had their own experiences to contribute to our project. This "fusion" of cultures and experiences allowed our project to include many aspects. The biggest difficulty we had to overcome was cutting out ideas because all of them were great but we couldn't include them all. This "flat classroom" was a great experience for me. I learned many new multimedia tools that I was unfamiliar with before and was able to apply that new knowledge into a presentation. One thing I really enjoyed was the chat that included our virtual participants. It was exciting working with these people for they too had lots to contribute to our project.
From Educators -:
Saundra Hopkins, 'Faltering, Flattering, Fascinating' (Teacher from Korea, participant in Flat Classroom Workshop HK, 2009)
The flat classroom project is not about creating a flat sameness from the peaks of diversity. It is about recognizing diversity and weaving it into a shared vision of how a problem can be solved. It is learning what it means to be even in understanding and experience and use that to create something new and uneven. Flat isn't flat anymore.
Sarah Patterson, 'Why Flat Classroom?' (Teacher from Korea, participant in Flat Classroom Workshop HK, 2009)
As usual, I must start with the obvious: why NOT flat classroom? Why NOT open your students - and yourself - up to authentic learning? And what is this alleged "authentic learning" anyway? I don't know what the proper definition is, and if you've read any of my posts you know I don't care much for "proper" anyway, but I take it to mean REAL LIFE STUFF. The process that we engaged in over the last 48 hours at the 21st Century Learning Conference Hong Kong is what happens in reality. It's not a lecture, it's not passive (nor is it aggressive, thank goodness), it's a genuinely tangible manifestation of real life. It's a real problem, it's a real solution, and it's real time.
Heather Davis, 'Reflections of the Flat Classroom Experience' (Teacher from China, Participant in Flat Classroom Conference Qatar 2009)
How four days can change a person's viewpoint and comfort zone. I leave with a understanding that no stereotypes actual exist but are created by the media and by fear. I leave with an understanding that people all over the world are the same though the clothes and cultures may be different. A love of family, country, and friends exists in all nations. A desire for a better world, a desire to solve our global problems together, a desire for information and education and a desire to share openly and willingly exists. I leave with an appreciation of the elegance of the traditional dress. I leave with memories of laughter as we all shared common experiences. I leave with the memories of the beautiful friendly eyes of the Qatari woman who were veiled, of their help and their willingness to help.
El Khdar Abdelmoula, 'Even Virtually Counts',(Teacher from Morocco, virtual participant in Flat Classroom Workshop HK, 2009)
Well, I am indepted to all HK conference organisers, students and sponsors. I've learnt much new stuff, regardless of big time difference between Morocco and Hong Kong. I wish we could have a Flat Classroom Conference in Morocco, where the digital divide is really big and most language classrooms are lacking simple supplies, let alone computers and screens!!. Special thanks to Julie, Salim and Team 6. Moroccan Educator
Anne Mirtschin, 'All Eyes on the Flat Classroom',(Teacher from Australia, Participant in Flat Classroom Conference Qatar 2009)
One of the really interesting outcomes of this experience, was the involvement of parents. This was something unplanned and unforseen, but ended up playing a key role in our connectedness. As we were on school holidays the majority of planning and communication had to be made online,. The girls had set up membership to the flatconference ning and wiki prior to departure. Before they left, the girls became 'the experts', helping their parents to register for the ning , join our school group and showed them how to write messages, comments and blog posts. This meant that parents experienced the conference with us. Photos and videos were uploaded daily, with blog posts written when possible. Parents commented regularly on all our pages and activities. They were able to watch the sessions that were webcast and one parent stayed up until 1am to watch her daughter make her presentation. They even joined in on the chatzy back channel and could see the commentary going on behind the scenes. We received photos of the Australia Day breakfast, held in Hawkesdale as part of the Australia Day celebrations, an hour after it finished, as one set of parents had uploaded them to the ning. They became part of our learning network.............
Summary of some valuable skills learnt:- Many valuable skills are learnt – understanding and working with different cultures, netiquette, digital citizenship skills, communication skills in an online environment, the use of many different web2.0 tools, how to collaborate and work in a virtual team, risk taking, pushing outside personal comfort zones, real life pressure of time commitments/project management and how to create effective products for online use and a global audience.
