You're invited to the Flat Classroom Student Summit

Here are the currently scheduled dates and times for the student presentations in elluminate. These times are in Eastern Standard time, however if you have an airset account, go to the public calendar to view new summit times (that may not be mentioned here) and have it convert to your time zone.

This week we have Austria and my classrooms presenting. Next week Julie in Qatar is presenting. We hope to see the other teachers present as well in our room.

To join the presentation, click on our elluminate room about 10 minutes prior to the event. (See the hardware and software requirements.)

tag: flatclassroom, flatclassroomproject, flat classroom project 2007, Thomas Friedman, learning, elluminate

Flat Classroom Student Summit Schedule


Listen to John's Recorded Presentation
John Turner has already hosted a summit with some of his students and has set a pattern that we will follow. (You may watch the recording.) His Australian Classroom was getting out for summer break last week and so this was done just before they scooted out the door and to the beach!

My Roadmap for Summit Sessions

Here are the steps I've used to prepare my students for this session.
1) Model -

I let the student listen to John's summit. (This gives them an idea of what to expect.)

2) Sandbox -
I took them into elluminate and let them go into sandbox mode. This means we "play." Yes, play. Put in a picture, draw a mustache on it. Then, I log in as the administrator on the smartboard and let them see what I see. I point out that I can see who is drawing.

I teach them to private message and then point out that I can see everyone's private messages to one another. (This will save them embarrassment in college.)

I show them how to insert a graphic. All the other things. Raising hands, laughing, confusion, applause, thumbs down. We talk about how in a non f2f environment that these give the speaker valuable feedback that they cannot get. It is like "body language" when your body isn't present!

Then we test our mikes. It is quite tricky to use elluminate when everyone is in one room. You have to make sure all of the speakers are off and none of the mikes are turned up too high.

3) Creation of graphics-
EAch student gets one jpg and one whiteboard. I make them ahead of time, put each students name on them and then let them go into the screen. They prepare the whiteboard.

Then, I save it and can come in tomorrow and load it!!! It will be ready bright and early at 8:15 when some ofyou show up to hear them present!

They are beginners
Remember, they are quite new at presenting virtually (but then again, I am too!)

Give us an audience!
Please give all of these sessions and audience! We would appreciate it! If you're going to bring in a whole class, just let me know ahead of time so I can relay that to the class.

I'll be there as well and Julie was planning to sit in on the presentations also! So, you can ask questions but in this summit the students are the star.

The Teacher Reflection Session
The students have been madly posting their reflections on the ning. (Such a great thing the Ning has been!) Although I do have some students who've posted their reflections on our private class ning because they did not wish to offend anyone on the project.

The Teachers will be hosting our reflection session in elluminate next Thursday (see calendar above for details.)

We have room for 100 in elluminate and would love to have you as a guest.