Digitally Speaking
William M. Ferriter
How Flat Is Your Classroom?
Few could argue with the idea that the world’s greatest challenges are borderless. Poverty in developing nations leads to
global instability as people emigrate to survive
and neighbors fight over limited resources. Ter-
rorism is on the rise as the disaffected lash out.
Deforestation and drought destroy entire eco-
systems, threatening global food sources. The
high level of carbon emissions from
richer countries raises eyebrows and
wreaks environmental havoc. None
of these challenges respect national
boundaries, and none will be easy
to solve.
Such challenges will require
innovative solutions from people
from many countries. As Thomas
Friedman (2007) has told us, this
is no small feat in a world in
which nationalism reigns. At a
time when nations seem intent on
building fences, is there hope
for opening doors?
In 2006, Vicki Davis, a high school teacher
in Georgia, and Julie Lindsay, who at the time
was teaching in Bangladesh, saw hope for multi-cultural cooperation in the students coming
through their classroom doors every day. They
knew that if they could use digital tools to foster
international collaboration, their students would
not just walk away with a better understanding
of tomorrow’s workplace—they’d walk away
with a better understanding of one another. So
they started the Flat Classroom Project (www
. flatclassroomproject.org/About), an effort to
break down the walls separating classes in different countries, starting with their own schools.
The first step was to pair students from each
of the two classes—one student from Bangladesh
and one student from Georgia. Lindsay and
Davis then asked each of these borderless teams
to study one of the 10 societal trends spotlighted in Friedman’s The World Is Flat. Using a
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combination of synchronous and asynchronous
tools—including online discussion boards, video
conferences, instant messages, and e-mails—to
communicate, each pair created a page in a
classroom wiki explaining their assigned trend
and sharing their views about it. Each pair also
created an accompanying video. As with traditional work, the teachers set deadlines for project
elements, created rubrics, and designed exemplars. Some groups struggled; some partners
failed to complete work on time or were absent
too often, and personalities sometimes clashed.
Make it your goal in
the next school year
to use digital tools
to build relationships
around the world.
Over time, however, something amazing
happened. The two classrooms—separated by
thousands of miles—became one. To start off,
each student created a digital video introducing
himself or herself, and partners exchanged these
media files to “meet” each other. This ensured
that students’ first impressions were built on
exposure to actual individuals rather than on
stereotypes. Partners commonly communicated
by sending each other their recorded reflections related to the ideas they were working
on. Students swapped electronic files to edit
each other’s content and tackle required tasks
together. They naturally tailored the technology
they were already using outside of school to
these collaborations, gaining an understanding
of—and appreciation for—international peers at
the same time.
