Collaboration 2 November 26, 2008
Posted by mrsuds in collaboration.trackback
This post is at edtechpost really resonated with me. I have really been uncomfortable with the idea of “forming a community” where our staff collaborate and share. To me it needs to be an organic thing. We may create spaces on the Moodle site for sharing and we may organise VC meetings for the learning area, but that doesn’t mean teachers will actually use them. You can’t create communities from the top down. Many teachers have built their own support networks already and they won’t be too intertested in someone dictating one to them.
I am in the process of calendaring in meetings for next year, but I have the attitude that they are there if you want to come along, rather than something that is expected of them. The edtechpost post(!?) has given me some ideas about sharing. Rather than create spaces on the Moodle, which will probably largely remain empty, we look at enabling teachers sharing through a wide range of tools. This might include the use of listservs, contact lists, wikis, or various online repositories. There are some excellent, easy to use repositories out there. Just check out these at smashingapps.
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Thanks for this Darren. This whole sharing/collaborating thing is hugely difficult, none the more so for the fact that we are often creating artificial sharing environments which teachers do not see as authentic. However, while this is true, the schools have agreed to cluster, so it is not just your responsibility to make collaboration happen. It is also the responsibility of the senior leadership team in each school. The SLT signed up to the cluster, they were not forced to, and you certainly did not force them. So the question I think you need to ask of the SLT in each school is what are they doing to support collaboration and sharing within the cluster
Very good point Conor, although the problem is the teachers didn’t sign up to it. I’m still going to be pushing it next year, but I’m going to try a range of approaches. The reality is it’s going to take much longer than two years!