Well, to be honest, I haven't been giving class my full attention these past few weeks (hence the tardiness of this post). No excuses though! I loved creating the Ning for my science department (thanks Terry for the idea...) In general, I'm all about being organized - my students swear I have OCD and having things up and running before using them on the job is my usual procedure. But, with the creation of the wiki for my students in forensic science and other (new) topics I'm covering in my classroom, it really feels liberating to say to my students that we'll be tackling some of the material together and that it's new for me too. That's not to say that I can jump into a classroom unprepared, but I no longer feel guilty (not sure if that's the best word) when something doesn't go as I planned or something unforseen pops up. I have been confronted by the students that are out there to push buttons and will ask questions until they trip up the teacher to "prove" how little we know, but I've always been able to handle them with some finesse. It's just that when I've planned a lesson, activity or lab and I haven't anticipated all of the angles, my usual internal response is frustration that I didn't have it perfect. With really focusing on collaboration these past weeks, I've learned to let a little bit of that go and have been able to bring in some activities without hours of preparation and pre-planning attempting to find all of the stumbling blocks ahead of time.
So this week, I've been just working through the immediate task at hand and I've set up my sci dept wiki, invited the other teachers to it, but have yet to see any collaboration. I've run into the same issue with setting up a blog for my staff development team here at school. I started small with both endeavors - for staff development I only invited 3 members and my sci department consists of just 4 others. Everyone is so busy that they really don't want to take the time to learn something new, even if it will benefit them immensely in the near future. (Although I just realized that we have a sci dept meeting today and I may have a captive audience...)
Week 5 - 540
14 years ago
I completely understand your colleagues not wanting to take the time learning something new. It's that whole sales pitch that needs to be just right. I haven't figured it out yet. My Plan B is to just go with it and hopefully students and parents can do the sales. If only the the set up time wasn't as time-consuming...
ReplyDeleteI am in the same boat with participation on my wiki. I had high hopes as I am working with online teachers who have heard of wikis and I assumed had the experience in using them. I have found though that they have reported to me that they think it is a great idea but are unfamiliar with the technology and are busy. I continue to effort however our next department meeting will consist of all of us collaborating simultaneously on the wiki. Good luck on your collaboration!
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