Sharing: What’s the problem?

Educators have been creating amazing teaching tools and models for years and years and teachers have always been encouraged to share those materials and ideas with other educators.  Many school divisions now have online resources where they encourage teachers to share their ideas for instruction and assessment by posting them, an example being North East School Division’s Curriculum Corner. 

So why is it that some educators are so reluctant to participate in the active sharing of their ideas?  Is it because they don’t want to have their work critiqued by someone else? Are they afraid that what they have done isn’t good enough or interesting enough?  Because I would encourage those people to read this great blog post called What’s Obvious to You, is Amazing to Someone Else by Richard Byrne.  And if you don’t have time to read that article just yet, just take a couple of minutes and watch this YouTube video that is included in his post:

Or is the reluctance to share great ideas because teachers want to hold onto their OWN lessons so that they can look amazing, all on their own?  Is it a bit of selfishness?  Because for those people, I would wonder if all of their “own” fabulous lessons and plans were not borrowed or at least built upon an existing idea already.

A couple of weeks ago Dean Shareski gave a presentation on Sharing and the idea that it is our ethical duty to share and contribute to a larger community of educators.  This was his Slideshare presentation:

Who’s your teacher? why sharing matters

View more presentations from Dean Shareski

As a relative newbie to Twitter, I am constantly amazed and humbled by the sheer amount of brilliant sharing that goes on with resources, ideas, links and conversation. I am proud to be part of a community of learners who believe that collaboration is so incredibly important and I hope that more educators are encouraged to become connected and part of the global sharing that takes place.  As a substitute teacher I am fortunate that I am exposed to many, many different schools and I get to talk to many educators and administrators.  It actually surprises me how few of the educators in our area seem to be connected via Twitter.  I hope that as we continue talking to our colleagues and providing information, education and support, that we see more people get on-board.

Personal Learning Networks

Or “Passionate Learning Networks” if you are quoting Shelly Terrell, who we were fortunate to hear in our ECMP355 class this week.  Shelly gave an online presentation to our group using Elluminate and the hour or so that she spoke went by quickly and was filled with interesting information.

Developing a PLN is an important thing for me.  I love the idea of learning and sharing and being responsible for my own learning.  I love the process of seeking out professionals to read information and opinions and I find myself evaluating my beliefs and my basic philosophies around teaching, which I think is an awesome thing.

I look forward to using tools such as Twitter and blogs and websites to expand my PLN and also hope to motivate local educators to get on board, as well.  I crave professional dialogue and as a substitute teacher, I am not getting quite as much as I would like.

I want to be a leader in digital learning and empower others to incorporate it into their professional development and classroom activities.  Our “classroom” extends so far past the four actual walls of the room now.  Our opportunities and ability to learn and connect are limitless.

Bring.  It.  On.