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!!
Related articles
- Sharing Resources using Twitter (ukwebfocusdaily.wordpress.com)
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…
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.
To Share or Not To Share? Is it really a question?
- Image by 姒儿喵喵 via Flickr
I have been teaching for 6 years plus my 7 years of study (yes I know I took my time!) and during this time I have created many resources. During my second year of uni as I stayed up late one evening trying to find a better way to teach an economic concept as every uni student does I turned to Mr Google. I was struggling and I figured that many teachers before me had taught this concept I should be able to find something. Did I find it? You guessed it I found nothing.
Why as teachers do we constantly reinvent the wheel? Why when we all teach from similar syllabi’s and courses do we not share our resources? How much time would we save?
Ever since my evening with Mr Google I have openly shared my resources figuring that what goes round must come round and the resources will eventually be shared back with me. It has taken 10 years for something to return. When I first started teaching in the classroom other teachers didn’t understand why I was sharing my hard work. Why was I making them look better by doing all the work? My response was quite simply we are all teaching the same skills and content why are we wasting precious time creating the same resources? Slowly my colleagues have come around.
Over the last few years with the take off of PLNs through platforms like Facebook and Twitter the sharing has become prolific. You find something useful you share it. So why are some educators still too scared to share?
In the age of social networking and content creation (Web 2.0) there is no question. Everything we create as educators should be shared no matter how small or insignificant we think it is.
The answer is To Share.
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