I’m back from the Flat Classroom Workshop that was in Hong Kong last week. Now it’s time to return to the endless cycle of homeworks, projects, and tests (sigh). 
But before that, let me tell you about Flat Classroom.
We attended helpful lectures about how to utilize web 2.0 tools–Chatzy, Ning, Wikispaces, Skype, Ustream, Creative Commons, TinyURL, etc– and how to prepare powerful presentations using multimedia.
Students and teachers were divided into teams to work on a project on the Digital Divide theme. Each team had to define the Digital Divide, create a solution to bridge the divide, and prepare a presentation. My team focused on the Digital Divide between the Analog Generation and the Digital Generation. We were truly in a “flat” classroom, since we worked with virtual participants from around the world.
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.” 
6 Comments
Congratulations on an exciting experience. I tried to UStream in on some of the presentations but our bandwidth was not cooperating in Hanoi!
I hope to persuade teachers and students to participate in the next Flat Classroom Project in Mumbai in February. Would you mind if I shared your experience with some of our students?
Thanks!
Clint H:
Of course you can! I hope you find my blogpost helpful.
There are videos of the presentations on the Ning if you need them.
I also hope to see you and your students in Mumbai.
Beatrice, I love the painting! Thanks for sharing your experiences.
Mr. Bray:
I’m glad you like it!
Hello, Mr. Bray! A lot of people already wrote wonderful blog entries, so I decided to do something different for mine.
Great writing and image! Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the workshop and spreading the excitement. Hope to see you all in Mumbai!
Julie Lindsay:
Thank you! I really enjoyed the workshop. I hope I could go to Mumbai.
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