DIGITAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS: Tools and Technologies for Effect. 140 Learning. PLPNetbookTrial - home. 21st Century Skills. We live in times of unprecedented technological change.
The growth of the Internet, the proliferation computing devices (particularly low-cost machines like the XO computer pictured here), and the increasing availability of high-speed Internet access all point to the same reality: today’s students are citizens of a globally networked world. Tom Friedman’s The World is Flat identifies ten “flatteners” – forces converging for the first time to level the worldwide economic playing. Innovative educators like Julie Davis (Qatar, Doha) and Vicki Davis (Camilla, Georgia) applied Tom Friedman’s principles and created the Flat Classroom Project, an award-winning, internationally recognized global collaboration between Julie and Vicki’s students. These students, half a world apart, work together, seamlessly, virtually, synchronously and asynchronously to expand their knowledge of math, science, social studies, language arts, and more … not to mention each other and the world around them.