Final Thoughts....

I will admit I wasn't very excited about doing this project. The first time we did this in class it just wasn't very organized. This wasn't Dr. Z's fault last year, the project was new. I think it was kind of overwhelming to bring an entire class into this project. I also don't think it aligned too well with our school year at UNI, this year that worked out much better.

I was pleasantly surprised about the expert advising this year. The students seemed to know what was going on, they seemed like they wanted to be involved and they were eager to get to work. I was a little surprised, and had to think about having a better attitude about the whole project. Trying to push away some of my negative thoughts about the project I tried to be as excited as possible when giving advice. The students seemed eager to participate and that made it easier for me.

Although it was a little unorganized at times I thought this years project was much better than last year. Again, I wonder if the reason behind that is because Flat Classroom Project is so new. I would love to be apart of this on the point of view of the teacher. I can't imagine how overwhelming that would be though. I felt very removed from the Project not being able just go up to a student and talk to them about the project. It would be hard for me to teach my students one thing and then have another teacher across the globe teach in a different way. This was one of my main frustrations. While studying abroad this summer I realized that Romania have been taught learned a completely different way. Okay, not exactly a newsflash....but the way the structure their PowerPoints drove me batty! Word for word on every slide, thousands of annoying effects, the list goes on and on......So taking that into consideration I was a little hesitant on how much to correct people because I wasn't sure what their teacher was telling them. That's one thing that is frustrating as a student, one authority figure telling you one thing and then the next authority figure saying the opposite.

All in all, I thought that the students produced excellent pages. I was impressed by their work, and learned a lot myself.

Flat Classroom Project Journal 3

After getting along in the project I became a little frustrated. I'm a person who needs a lot of guidance, and/or set deadlines. If there are no deadlines/no instruction I get lost and confused and start to loose track of what I am doing. I kind of wonder how much of this is in our control though. I emailed Julie Lindsay with a question and it went unanswered. I realize she is busy, but that is the person the project told me to contact. I found this unprofessional considering how many people the project is asking to volunteer to be judges/expert advisers. Maybe I am expecting too much, I am not sure.

Through the end too the students did not seem to add very much beneficial information. They hounded each other, I got an email about every 20 minutes about an updated post on the discussion board, but I did not see a ton of change. I was also asked to have the students nominate someone for editor, and that post went unnoticed. I wonder how the teachers are acting in this process. Are they playing too much of a role? Are we necessary if they are going to be a major part of it?

Journal #2

After logging on a few times throughout the process I commented on a few of the students work. Mostly, I just encouraged them to edit their material and cite their sources. I really struggled during this step with not being able to see the students face-to-face. It would have been so much easier to just point to Michele to tell her how to cite the source. Unfortunately, that wasn't available to me, so I had to buckle down and try my best.

My comments seemed to to unnoticed though. I found this hard to deal with and was a little disappointed that the students basically ignored me. Now, this doesn't mean they didn't work on their project. I was impressed by how fast the students moved along in the process, it wasn't like pulling teeth. Each group had a bit of a ring leader who got after everyone telling them when the section was due.

My main concern at this point was my opinion going unnoticed. Also, I worry about each teacher in the prospective school having an opinion and not noticing the relationship between the groups. Many of the students started their conversation "after talking with my teacher". I wonder how much input the teacher is supposed to have? This will undoubtedly be something that will improve each year. Do teachers have to be certified in FCP to host the project? Something I need to look into for my future class!

Surprising Start

Well, I won't lie. I wasn't very excited to start to Flat Classroom Project. We worked on the project during Classroom Computer Applications, and incorporating it into our class wasn't the problem--the students were. For some reason the students did not participate. I was disappointed and discouraged, so that is kind of how I went into this session.

Ask me now? I have to retract and just jump up and down with teacher joy! Those kids were ACTIVE participants in the FCP at the beginning. I was so happy to see them working on the project from the beginning, adding me to their Ning, etc. They all introduced themselves, and I was surprised to see many were from the US. It might also be that the people I looked at happen to be from the US, and I scanned over people who were not--it is probably evenly distributed.

Overall, my first interactions with the students were really pleasant! My main concern about FCP at first was really more of a functionality issue. I could not figure out how to reply to a specific question on the discussion. I wanted to message each student back after their response, and could not figure it out! The students were active though, and I looked forward to seeing what they posted later.