Welcome!

I'm so glad you stopped in here. Membership is open to anyone and you can also drop in to just see some of the ideas that are being bounced around.

I personally have limited experience with long-distance collaboration and my few opportunities have had mixed results. I'd love to hear both good and bad experience stories so maybe we can learn from both, as well as good ways to "outsource" our own learning environments!

Please consider propping up your feet for a bit and stay for a few good conversations!

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by James Dykstra on May 23, 2007 at 11:52am

I'm guessing you're all elementary teachers? Integration is much tougher at the secondary end. The kids have far more teachers, and since nearly everyone is a subject matter specialist, it's harder to work together because it's sometimes tough to see how someone else's project can fit into your curriculum, or how your curriculum can fit into theirs. I've sometimes tried to get a few of us working together, but it's never worked as well as I hoped.

Permalink Reply by Ginger Lewman on May 23, 2007 at 8:54pm

I actually am trained as a secondary level and that's where my mind set is. However this year, I've been charged with starting a new charter school that serves grades 5-8. While I've had to re-adjust my comfort levels, I've been able to set precedence as to how the services to kids are structured. I do agree that doing this integration with other teachers at the secondary level is so much harder. It seems that the traditional mindset of "go into my room and close the door; you do your thing and I'll do mine" is a huge wall to true collaboration.

But I do feel that one teacher can integrate a LOT into his/her own curriculum levels, especially if they're working in the social sciences, which covers so many topics! Making those connections with other pieces of knowlege really does make a difference in kids' engagement and retention.