Posts made in March, 2011

Sharing is Caring….

Sharing is Caring

Image by Jens Rydén via Flickr

I am a firm believer of sharing resources.  And as a result I have shared all of the resources which I have ever made or used in my teaching career.  Lets face it as teachers we are time poor.  And if there are thousands of teachers around the world who are creating fantastic lessons why should we all reinvent the wheel?  This week I have struggled…  I have struggled to understand why the Teacher Association I belong to is having to discuss the end of its resource sharing magazine.  And we are having to discuss this because we cannot get our members to share their resources.  It saddens me to see that teachers won’t share their resources.  Let’s face it by sharing resources, the resources can only get better as we use the collective teaching experience to make them better.  At the end of the day its our students who would benefit.  Most of us are in teaching to better the kids we teach?

The other reason we are struggling is the whole copyright issue.  Teachers, especially teachers of economics, use copyrighted materials all the time.  And even though for education this isn’t an issue because we are able to use the materials for educational purposes the Teacher Association is not an educational institution.  As a result we cannot publish the materials.

So I guess my question is how do we get more people to share the resources they have created?  I know there are lots of fantastic teachers out there creating fantastic resources.  If all the teachers just shared five resources imagine the lessons we could produce as a result.  And heaven forbid the learning which might occur!!

 

 

Enhanced by Zemanta
Read More

Who the *Tweet* Cares?

Who the *Tweet* Cares?

Over the course of the last year I have offered many PD sessions on the basics of social networking.  My usual focus is on Twitter as this is the social network which I am most inspired by in my teaching practice.  These PD sessions run from one-to-one sessions to small groups (3 or 4) to class sized groups and beyond.  I know I am no expert when it comes to social networking.  And I always start my sessions with…

Hi…

My Name is @mrsangell and I’m a PLN Junkie…

Who the *Tweet* cares what I have to say?

1019 people on Twitter

690 friends on Facebook

and numerous more on Nings, LinkedIn and Yahoo Groups

Twitter Bird

Image by Fanie! via Flickr

This hooks the really large groups and really small groups…  I find it interesting that the take up rate with twitter from people who have never used it before is 100% in the one-to-one sessions then diminishes for the small group and class sized groups and in then increases to around 80% in the really large groups.  After an explanation of the WHAT, WHO, WHEN, WHY and HOW of PLN’s we usually set up a twitter account (I’ve found most staffhave the other accounts already) and run through the basics, recommendations anddiscuss how to manage the PLN, and uses in the Classroom and for Professional Learning.  I realise that this is a lot to take in when first looking at PLN’s but I feel it is necessary to get people started.

I would love to know how you teach people about Social Networks and what they can do for your teaching.

 

Enhanced by Zemanta
Read More
Get Adobe Flash player