-Investigation

Unit Question:

What 21st century work skills do I need to contribute to a better world?

Problem:

The world is slowly flattening (metaphorically) and this leads to change and increased competition among people all throughout the world. To rise up to this challenge and meet with success, it is essential to be educated about the 'flat world' and know and have skills that allow one to be active in and make positive contributions to the 21st century. If someone lacks this knowledge and these skills, they will fall behind in the future that is being created today. This is the problem that we have been presented with.

Solution:

Our project will be to create something that solves the above-stated problem, i.e. something to help educate both others and ourselves about the flat world and to help us develop 21st century skills that will assist us in the future. The end product that is to be created will be a video about an assigned flattening trend. The topic that I have been assigned is Globalization and Outsourcing, and the video category I am in is Group Stories. The tools I will be using is a video camera to film, Windows Movie Maker to edit, and all the knowledge and experience I have. During the making of the project and the investigation, I hope to gain new knowledge and experience in different subject areas, in the overall use of the equipment and also about the topic I will be researching. I also hope to develop my 21st century skills through the use of outsourcing and communicating with others around the world.

Design Brief:

I will gain the knowledge I need to make my video through the research I do for my specific investigation. The knowledge needed to operate the tools that will be used I already have, and my knowledge will be enhanced and grow as I do the project. I have until the 4th of March to complete this project. The most important aspect of my final product is that it must educate people about globalization and outsourcing and help them understand more about it than they did before.

My final product must have:

- information about globalization and outsourcing

- a part that is filmed somewhere else, but directed by me (i.e. outsourced)

- a part that is filmed here in Qatar by me

- a length of between 2 to 5 minutes

- group stories

I would like my final product to have:

- an interesting approach towards the topic

- information that has been gathered from many sources

- different locations for different scenes

I will know how successful my video is when I complete it by using the requirements I have set for myself above as a checklist and testing the video against them; seeing which requirements it matches. I will also see how educational and helpful it is by creating a questionnaire about globalization and having people fill it out, watch the video, and then fill it out again in a different colour to see how much new knowledge they have gained. This will help me measure the success of my product and evaluate it appropriately.

Flat Classroom Slideshow

Today we have been set 2 tasks to do. The first is to make a 10-slide slideshow about the wall-flatteners that Thomas L. Friedman in his book 'The World is Flat'. The second is to make a 30-second introductory video about ourselves to introduce ourselves to our colleagues from different classrooms who we will be working with. I am working on the slideshow today and have decided to make the video at home.

I have now completed the slideshow and uploaded it onto SlideShare.com. It can be viewed on http://www.slideshare.net/xx.neha.xx/wall-flatteners. I am also uploading it below:

Wall Flatteners

View more presentations from xx.neha.xx.

Investigation - Flat Classroom Project

The Flat Classroom Project was created in 2006 through the combined efforts of Vicki Davis, who teaches at Westwood Schools in the USA, and Julie Lindsay, who now teaches at Beijing International School in China. I know Mrs. Lindsay because she used to teach here at my school Qatar Academy and she taught me IT for two terms. Today, schools from USA, China, India, Germany, Spain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar all participate in this global project. The project is based upon the book "The World is Flat", written by Thomas L. Friedman and first published in 2005. Chapter 13 in the latest edition of this book refers to Flat Classroom Project 2006.

The concept of a 'flat classroom' is that the world today is one where the walls of a classroom are flattened and students from different classrooms in different countries all over the world can interact with each other and learn in one big global classroom. The project involves these students being assigned different topics that they research and make a video about. Both the research and video they make will be displayed on the flatclassroom wikispace. They also use outsourcing; meaning they ask someone from another class to make part of their video, telling them exactly how they want it to be, before fitting it all together. In turn, they also help with part of another's project by filming part of their video for them. Outsourcing is one of the many activities which go beyond the classroom walls and are called 'world-flatteners'. There are 10 world-flatteners in total, and these will be described more in-depth in a powerpoint I will upload in my next post.

This term, my fellow students in my class and I will participate in the first Flat Classroom Project of 2010. The exact dates for the project have not been set yet, but it is to be completed within one or two weeks of the end of this term, sometime in March. All my progress I will record on this blog, making it part of a process journal. So, welcome to my blog :)

Sources:
http://www.flatclassroomproject.org/About