Choithram International students traveling to ASB as part of international project

At Choithram International, students are learning that technology is flattening the world, and making it easier for people to work together.
Two Students Jai Venaik and Puneet Bhambani along with Me are participating in the Flat Classroom Project, a collaborative effort on a global scale designed to “flatten” or lower walls so that students are able to interact and work with other students around the country and the world.
Each year, the project holds a conference in a different world location. This year, it will be held in Mumbai, India, at the American School of Bombay, and four of the students will be there.
In addition to India, this round of the project includes classrooms from Maryland, Alaska, Kansas, California, Texas, Spain, Germany,Qatar and Canada.
Choithram International is the first Indian school to be accepted to participate in the project.
“It is an amazing opportunity,doing this project opens up doors for the students and gives them a chance to experience life outside of a small town.”
The result of the project will be a Web site created by the participants, complete with videos, a blog and other student-created content.
Making a difference
Organizers awarded scholarships to the four students to travel to India to work, face-to-face, with some of their global counterparts.
Students will take part in an intense four-day workshop during which they will be divided into teams with students from other schools participating both in-person and virtually.
The theme for this Flat Classroom workshop and conference will be “Opening Up Education,” and it will serve as an opportunity for teams of real and virtual participants to explore social, economic, political, cultural and other issues relevant to education on a global scale.
It is also a chance to discuss the best ways to use Web 2.0 technologies to join communities with a common goal to identify and solve problems in education. Ideas generated at this workshop will lead to potential solutions that join classrooms around the world in projects that will ultimately make a difference to the world, as we know it today.
Breaking barriers
The Flat Classroom Project, cofounded by Julie Lindsay, Beijing, China and Vicki Davis, Camilla, Ga., speaks to the very heart of Pennsylvania’s Classrooms for the Future initiative and 21st Century learning.
It utilizes technologies such as a Ning and Wikispaces that allow students to collaborate with other students around the world to peer edit and design a variety of multimedia, despite location and cultural barriers, much like how the real world is starting to work.
Each student works with an international partner to create a multimedia presentation based on one of the 10 “Global Economic Flatteners,” as described by Thomas L. Friedman in his book “The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century.”
The students are anxious about the trip.
“It will be somewhat of a challenge because there will be different people and cultures that we will be working with from all over the world,” .
In a blog post, Michael Yuschock writes, “On the other hand, connecting with people from states, or even countries, gives us the opportunity to immerse ourselves in the future of the world. It shows us that anything is possible, as long as routes of communication are open.”
“We are excited It is a once-in-a lifetime opportunity that we all have. I am looking forward to meeting students from all over the world.”
For additional information on the Flat Classroom Project, visit www.flatclassroomproject.org/About.
For additional information about the conference, visit http://asbunplugged2010.flatclassroomproject.org/.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 8:13 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.