Living the Connections

Flattening the Grade 1 Classroom.

What does ‘flattening the classroom mean? Simply put, it means making connections and removing barriers to communication and collaboration. Just because someone is in another city or country does not mean that meaningful and authentic connections cannot be made.

@kinderpals with our Valentines

My grade 1 class (@grade1class on Twitter) has been making connections with other grade 1 and kindergarten classes from other parts of the world for the past year. We tweet almost every day to our @kinderpals friends in British Columbia, Canada and our Kindergarten friends at Yokohama International School in Japan. We have just finished our project K-2 Building Bridges project that entailed creating a small project.  .We often used technology such as VoiceThread, Skype, Twitter and snail mail to connect. We found that the children enjoyed something tangible such as pictures and drawings or books the learners sent each other by mail. Earlier in the year, we also made connections with other classes in Dubai and Japan through Inquiry Teapots.

Recently, we exchanged Valentines with our friends in Canada and shared a story created on Puppetpals on the iPad with our friends in Japan. So why should we connect with other children around the world? It’s pretty simple. We are exemplifying the Learner Profile as global learners.  We are even connecting our learning directly to our school’s  Mission Statement by participating responsibly in the global community.

Here is a photo of our  ‘handshake’ (introduction) with @kinderpals, using QR Codes to bridge the gap between virtual and physical world. It’s about removing the barriers.