Flat Classrooms are about removing the boundaries of geography and time, and enabling students to work with other students wherever they might be in the world. In this episode we talk with Janet Barnstable from Oak Park, Illinois and Sharon Peters from Montreal, Quebec. Both Janet and Sharon are leading proponents of collaborative online learning projects, getting their students to work on projects with kids in other countries by leveraging the power of the Internet. The term Flat Classrooms derives from Thomas Friedman’s book “The World is Flat”.

Some links relevant to this episode…

• Percy Julian Middle School
• Lower Canada College
• Sharon’s Blog
• Thomas Friedman - The World is Flat
• Thomas Friedman talking at MIT (Video)
• Time Magazine - How to Bring our Schools out of the 20th Century
• Global Virtual Classroom
• Thinkquest
• Global Dreamers
• Cyberteen E-zine
• Cyber Dictionary Project
• CUSeeMe Video Conferencing
• Skype IP Telephony
• Oz Teachers Travel Buddy Project

As always, your feedback is more than welcome! If you have any tips or additional links that might be useful for collaborative projects please share them by dropping a link in the comments below.

 Episode 8: Flat Classrooms: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this episode we explore the issues that arise when a school starts thinking about moving to a one-to-one computing model using laptop computers, an area in which Australia has been somewhat of a pioneer. We talk with Paul McMahon, an Australian educator living in Hong Kong, about the sorts of planning and background issues involved in transitioning a school from a fairly traditional learning environment to one in which students are given laptops as learning tools.

• All Saints’ College Perth
• Learning Solutions, Hong Kong
• Computelec
• The One Laptop Per Child Project

Have a safe and happy Christmas and New Year!

 Episode 7: Getting One to One: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Luc Zwartjes is a geography teacher from Belgium who has developed a deep interest in the use of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and GPS (Global Positioning Systems) with his students. Luc’s work with his students using GIS is a fabulous example of a passionate teacher working with students on real-world problems using sophisticated technology to create engaging tasks.

As well as an excellent overview of the potential of GIS in the classroom, Luc offers some subtle yet profound insights into the role of technology, the teacher, and the student in a 21st century classroom… providing a bird’s eye view of both education and the planet.

Links relevant to this episiode:

• ESRI - GISsoftware
• The Eduspace project
• Eduspace Article written by Luc for the IGU conference in Brisbane (1.5Mb PDF)
• Google Earth
• GE Pro qualifications for schools to apply for 2 free Google Earth Pro licenses (PDF)

Some useful books for learning more about GIS

• Exploring the Dynamic Earth (with worked-out projects for use with ArcView 3.2x)
• Mapping Global cities
• Mapping our world
• GIS for everyone

As always, comments are welcome. Please pass this podcast on to any geography teachers you might know. If they won’t listen to a podcast, burn them a CD… but they ought to hear this episode!

 Episode 6: A Bird's Eye View: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download