Flat Classroom Conference

Bejing, China

February 25 – 27, 2011

This is an information sheet about the Flat Classroom Conference Trip to Bejing, China

Description:

The Flat Classroom™ Conference is a unique limited-seating conference including students and educators to envision the future of education as they use leading technology tools such as wikis, blogs, social networking and multi-media storytelling. The conference is diverse in participation while allowing smaller groups with leading world-class presenters in a "flattened" environment where virtual participants join in the conversation from remote corners of the world.

Educators will leave the conference understanding how to collaborate globally and with contacts in hand to start projects. Students will leave the conference with leadership skills, technology skills, presentation skills, and a better understanding of diverse cultures and collaboration.

http://www.flatclassroomproject.net/conference.html

The UNI Instructional Technology students will participate in the conference as instructional design and development consultants. The educators and students attending the conference will be divided into groups. The UNI students will be dispersed among the groups and support the lesson development.

The global experience of this conference will extend beyond meeting educators and students from around the world. The lesson development will be global as well. Participants will partner with schools from around the world. The lesson development teams in Bejing will work on their lessons by day and then “pass it off” to schools on the other side of the world to continue with the development. Students will experience the 24/7 creation opportunities that are available in an interconnected world.

UNI student participation at the Flat Classroom Conference will be limited to Instructional Technology masters students as well as undergraduate Educational Technology minors. These students must have successfully completed program courses involving instructional design and development. They must also complete an application process involving writing an essay about what they hope to learn at the Flat Classroom Conference.

http://flatclassroomproject.net

http://bit.ly/bySRGg

 Flat Classroom Conference

Bejing, China

Application Process

Date:  Saturday, Feb. 19 – Monday, Feb. 28

Location: Bejing, China

Travelers:

• Faculty:  Leigh Zeitz and Kathy Klink-Zeitz
• Students:          8 Graduate Masters students

                        4 Undergraduate Ed Tech Minor students

Requirements:

1. Participant students must have successfully (GPA 3.0) completed at least one semester in their respective program. Your IT graduate GPA must be at least 3.0.
2. Graduate students must have successfully (GPA 3.0) completed 240:240 Instructional Development by the end of the Fall, 2010 semester.
3. Undergraduate students must have successfully (GPA 3.0) completed 240:139g Media Planning and Production by the end of the Fall, 2010 semester.
4. Participant students will be expected to answer the following questions through an essay (500 word max) or some form of social media. This social media might be a blog, video, podcast, wiki, Google site or some other form of social media. Either medium will be evaluated for content, understanding of the Flat Classroom Project, deepness of thought and quality of presention (written or social media.)

1. How I envision the Flat Classroom Project and its effect on global education.
2. Why I want to go to the Flat Classroom Conference in Bejing.
3. What I expect to learn from participating in the Flat Classroom Project and how it will affect my professional life.
4. What I plan to do to share what I learn when I return to the United States.

5. Transcripts must be provided.  These may be print-outs of your program audit on myUNIverse.

Timeline:

• Applications will be made available by October 20, 2010
• Applications will be due November 4, 2010
• Applicants will be notified of the results by November 10, 2010
• 4 – 5 Meetings (online) will be held Nov – Feb.
• Trip to the Flat Classroom Conference will be Feb. 19 – 28.

Preparation Responsibilities

Selected students will be required to actively participate in creating training materials for the conference.  This process will begin in early December and continue until about February 15. Due to the online nature of the masters cohort, participants will probably live throughout Iowa.  Therefore, material development will occur online.  

Please contact Dr. Leigh Zeitz (zeitz@uni.edu or 319-273-2349) if you have any questions.