Flat Classroom Project: Outsourcing

I looked at the global outsourcing project part of the Flatworld Classroom Project.

From reviewing the instructions and videos created in this project, I think one of the main objectives of the project was to learn the concepts from Daniel Pinks book, specifically: Design and Innovation, Story and Emphathy and the Fun Factor. By producting a video that portrayed one of these concepts, the students utilized the digital storytelling technologies for their individual projects and the wiki technology for their collaborative writing and planning effort. The learning that took place on this project may have been the use of the a new web 2.0 tool, as well as the review and tie in of the Daniel Pink concepts. From looking over the videos, I did not get the feeling that students had spent that much time researching or analyzing their topics. It felt like more time may have been spent working on the actual video production. Most of the stories had little depth, beyond stating global observations and opinion. I do think that there may have been some learning in contrasting all the different stories on a single topic. It was quite interesting to have students from a variety of countries talking on similar topics, particularly about the effect of outsourcing. This topic is generally one that people see from their own perspective. I particularly thought it was interesting to see the girl attending and American school in China and how outsourcing had affected her personally, as well as the the other countries that were involved in providing the products of her everyday life. It was a very interesting contrast to the American girl, who might see much of their outsourcing coming from China. The juxtaposition of the two written opinion pieces from two American girls, one living in China and one in America was intersting. More in depth pieces and reactions from the team members would have been really interesting.