The class that never sleeps

The 21st century class needs to get out into the ‘real world’, roll down its glasses and defog them of media saturation if it is to have any real redeeming value. The fastest, cheapest, self-navigating route map to that, Vicki A Davis and Julie Lindsay found in 2006, was Web 2.0. Learning in the globalised space, had to be experiential, cross-cultural and collaborative.

What we now know as the Flat Classroom Project that we
encountered in Thomas Friedman’s v.03 of The World is Flat and Curtis Bonk’s The World is Open —  started small in 2006.

Davis, then, was teaching in Georgia, and Lindsay, at an international school in Dhaka. Both were also studying technology trends. The point of departure was a simple statement made by Davis’ student to her, “The news media is wrong”. “There was a fear of false evidence appearing real. These students needed first-hand experience to make up their minds about their world,” says Davis. So she wrote to Lindsay about a collaborative project on outsourcing, wherein their classes would interact via the Internet. “What outsourcing is to students in Bangladesh is very different from what it is for students in America. We wanted to put together views from both sides.”

Four years on, the project connects schools — public, private, grant aided — across Germany, Qatar, USA, Australia, China, Spain, Canada, India, Austria and Bangladesh using free networking platforms like Ning and Wikispaces where users can exchange information through  blogs, photos, discussion forums and videos. Of consequence then, is not just an understanding of what technology can achieve, but an actual experience of the flatteners.

This year, Lindsay and Davis, flew down to the American School of Bombay (ASB), the venue for the Flat Classroom Mini-Conference 2010 that hosted 50 members — students and teachers — from across the world. The theme ‘Opening up Education’ stood for opening up to other cultures and countries, as well as propelling the Open Source and Open Textbook movements. It  was about understanding the Indian education ecosystem specifically, and in general, sharing the nuances of bringing to fruition a Flat Classroom-style project in schools. Those who couldn’t be there in person, participated virtually by viewing live video from Mumbai and posting feedback on the wiki.

“We are teaching them to collaborate in different time zones with the knowledge that there is a teacher awake somewhere. And that’s a skill set to have,” says Davis. No doubt, honing these skills is what these conferences are about.

The process plays out something like this: Each team, comprising high school students, is forced to apply themselves intensively into pitching an idea, detailing it, and envisioning its limitations and future. What turns up is a remarkably well thought out way of creating a space for shy students who hesitate to ask questions in class. Why not students apply as tutors — ones recommended by their teachers — and set up an online classroom of their own where the faceless student would feel free to participate? Or a dating system of sorts where a student who falls back in calculus class, because she doesn’t get along with her teacher, can link up with a grade 11 calculus expert; the two can then have an online lesson. The pitches are then steered by prompts from teachers.

To become what the project aspires won’t actualise without delivering on imperatives of access and inclusion. Consequently, the idea ‘How can I include those who are not like me’ underlined most discussions at the conference. There, says Davis, Web2.0, far from being a cultural flattener, is “a culture enhancing tool. It lets students who don’t travel, travel virtually, and makes them see where cultural disconnects are happening.” For a first-hand experience of these gaps, participants visited Akanksha and Aseema schools that reach out to the underprivileged. One Australian participant came back and told her remote virtual classmates: “Today I stepped through the gaps between the rich and the poor, from Aseema to ASB.”

Language can be a problem, says Lindsay, who has encountered it in China where she currently teaches. “But then there is Google Translate. These kids want to communicate,” she says. Currently the best they offer is low bandwidth options for developing countries. Access, however, says Davis, “is something we will have to wait for and make happen for each other. A rising tide raises all ships.”