Last June I attended the NECC conference in Atlanta, Georgia. You can see my lecture notes on my other blog. I was determined to make the most of the situation, I arrived in Atlanta a day early, which allowed me to attend the Edubloggercon. I can’t say that I knew exactly what I was attending, other than many of the people whose blogs I follow were in attendance and excited about the event. I am hoping to follow it up with the Manitoba Edubloggercon.
(I am on the right side, wearing green) 
The first session that I attended was facilitated by Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis – Connections and Flat Classrooms with Web 2.0 Tools. That was a lot to take in, kind of an out of body experience. They introduced their Flat Classroom Project saying Curiosity + Passion is greater than IQ. Vicki Davis hung her iRiver recorder, taped up to hold in the batteries, around her neck and taped the session for podcast later. They had their students read sections of Thomas Friedman’s book – The World is Flat. They set up wikis, blogs, emails, Skype to collaborate between a Georgia classroom and Bangledesh International School to discuss the flatteners from the book. Assessment was based on the collaborative work with groups partnered from both classrooms. Each group made a movie together using a wiki to plan and communicate.
Teach knowledge not test writing.
Julie and Vicki talked about their new project. The Horizon Project discusses the changing world. An example, a webdesign company could have partners all over the world, creative type work done in North America, construction and programming anywhere in the world.
What defines an effective international project?
Should we call it that or is it just expected in the 2.0 world? Should include communication, holistic, multicultural? Exposing your students to something different! Diversify your students interests and learning. Project-based learning, constructivism
An Effective Global Project:
Actively engaged in project
Actively collaborate
Work on a project and the culminate with a joint activity
Wiki – discussion form
Mebo
Blogging
Elluminate classroom
Twitter
Flat classroom had separate rubrics
Horizon project had the same rubrics
Communication – consistent
Must have good control of classroom to participate
Over plan, have rubrics, state the outcomes
Where parents involved, Vicki – my standard is that I want to be the best! Trust her to keep the children safe, deal with problems privately, immediately, train the kids and the problem goes away.
Vicki described herself as a teacherpreneur.
Julie Lindsay (Left) Vicki Davis (right)
Is this interesting? The next session was with Steve Haragon – Classroom 2.0, a discussion on tagging. I will post about that.
I hope that Clarence talks about his Thin-Walled Project on Thursday.
That sounded like a very exciting and educational trip. The description about the first session was very interesting, please post the next session that you went to with Steve Haragon.
What a wonderful opportunity. I’ve glad you’ve shared some of what your experience was like. It just makes me more excited about Thursday!