How do teachers collaborate?

I am an education technologist in California. I want to understand how teachers collaborate in our public schools currently? For e.g. how does a 8th grade middle school teacher share their ideas and teaching pedagogy with other teachers? Are there any internet tools that would help teachers to collaborate?

What would you like to see as teachers so that you can share/collaborate effectively in curriculum and teaching pedagogy? I think learning from each other can result in more effective teaching.

Tags: collaboration, curriculum, social, teacher, web

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Permalink Reply by Alan Stange on December 4, 2009 at 7:15am

I'm afraid I might be on the leading edge here and it is a source of constant frustration to me. Our school division uses Outlook email extensively. It has become integral to communication throughout our widespread schools. Other Outlook features like shared calendars, and tasks seem to elude people's comprehension or push their comfort level. I find this difficult. Wikispaces are excellent planning tools for conferences and curriculum. We have not been using them.

I offered the suggestion to colleagues that bringing their laptops to staff meetings might be useful. A number started to do so. At our last meeting we were fragmented into groups to discuss issues related to student learning outcomes. Each group was to report with one recorder. I was tapping out comments to email to the principal at the end of the discussion and realized the exercise would have been a perfect moment for Google Wave. We had three groups with twenty voices. It all could have come together quickly.

Despite the Professional Learning Communities we have established in school and across grades, most collaboration remains pretty familiar: colleagues meeting for impromptu conferences at odd times sharing and problem solving.

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Permalink Reply by Akash Bansal on December 6, 2009 at 11:33pm

I can understand your frustration. Why do you think IT is beyond comfort level of most people? How do you think, online collaboration can become an integral part of teachers life?

Google wave and real-time collaboration technologies will bring in more engaging and enhanced communication and open up tremendous possibilities for educators. Wikispaces looks like a great way for curriculum sharing. Thanks for the pointer. Why is something like wikispaces as a curriculum sharing platform not used in most school districts?

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Permalink Reply by bjoernlasse on December 5, 2009 at 10:54pm

I wonder if a Supercool School would be a good collaborative tool for teachers to learn from one another check out www.SupercoolSchool.com

What do you think?

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Permalink Reply by Akash Bansal on December 6, 2009 at 11:46pm

Supercoolschool looks like a way to establish an online school. One can use it to bring together subject experts and start a school in a specialized area of expertise. I don't think it will be a good solution for already networked educators in a school district.

What supercoolschool tools would help in curriculum sharing at a school district level, i.e. curriculum and lesson plan sharing among teachers of the same grade?

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Permalink Reply by bjoernlasse on December 7, 2009 at 6:33pm

Supercool School is a tool for people to connect based on interest and knowledge. Also everybody can request and organize classes, meetings and brainstorming in virtual classroom environment. It is a good way for informal and practice based learning.