It's a Small World After All

This morning, I had the opportunity to join an Elluminate session hosted by Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay where student producers presented their Flat Classroom projects to the world.

My class at my school in Houston, Texas participated in the project as the Sounding Board which allowed our students to review, critique, and evaluate the wikis and the videos from all the teams. You can view our evaluations at our school wiki site. At first, my kids looked at me like I was crazy... "Mr. Mak, we have to grade other kids' work?" This peer-evaluation concept, while not totally new, is not that familiar to our kids so they were a little timid about the whole thing. I don't think they've been taught that their opinions are valid. Grading and assessment come from the top-down. However, as the process went on and they realized that they could constructively contribute, they settled in and through class discussions and the process itself, the notion of peer-evaluation became more comfortable.

The Human Element
While I think the peer-evaluation process was extremely valuable in terms of giving our students license to voice their constructive opinions, the most startling impact that I saw was the look on the kids' faces when they witnessed the synchronous conversations happening on Elluminate. To them, the voices from beyond struck a strong chord and the notion of the Flat Classroom really resonated. In Leila's case (she was interviewed as part of the Elluminate session), she turned from skeptic to true believer in the blink of an eye.

Why is that?

I believe it is because the spontaneous and unpredictable human factor came into play. When the students were looking at the projects, they were seeing the end result of a lot of hard work. They did not see, however, the real-time interactions that were taking place during the planning and creating of the projects. Their job was to come in after the fact and give their opinions about the quality of the videos and the wiki pages. So, in a sense, they were disconnected from the process and the interactions that took place between project team members. Granted, they worked in teams to do evaluations but they didn't have the opportunity to appreciate the worldly collaboration aspects of the project.

Enter Elluminate this morning. I caught Vicki's twitter message about the session and thought it would be good for me to jump in to see what was going on. Through some well-timed circumstances, several of my students who are involved with peer-evaluations were in my lab with another class. So we had an impromptu gathering, not intending to actively participate, but to just listen in. Word of warning... Vicki will pull you in the conversation so when you see her, be ready to talk the talk and walk the walk. She has a very good ability to empower others in that way. So, when I chat that we are here listening with some of the Sounding Board kids, Vicki/Julie immediately want some feedback from me about the project. I in turn hand Leila the microphone and ask her to join in. She did, although she was uncharacteristically nervous. She talked about the project, answered questions and then listened to the student from Qatar who just listened to Leila giving feedback. It was amazing... the eyes were wide open and the light bulb of the full-circle started shining brightly. The kids who were watching and listening immediately felt a real human connection to these kids. They heard their voices and interacted with them and they began to understand the value of the flat world and thinning classroom walls.

I'm feeling really giddy right now about the impact this project is having on my students. I'm not sure why but it make me think of an old Coca-Cola commercial that has that worldly-love theme to it.

Tags: flatclassroomproject2007, vicki davis, julie lindsay, john maklary, edtech, education