Teachers Jody Passanisi and Shara Peters asked the education community an interesting question in their recent Smart Blogs post, “Consumer, creator… what’s next?” Unpacking the titular question, they explained,
To share knowledge online, an educator doesn’t need anything more than ideas and a desire to share. The voices of the people in the classrooms are being heard as much as the voices of the administration—this results in some significant, if subtle, changes in educational discourse.
These changes are as challenging as they are exciting:
How does an educator then discern what to bring back to the classroom or to bring to the attention of their administration? …Now, with all of the voices, it can be easier to lose your voice as a teacher.
So, they ask their PLN,
How do you sort through the abundance of resources online? Who are your trusted sources of information? What modes have you found that will allow you to make the most out of the endless opportunities we find ourselves presented with today?
As we build and enhance the TeachBoost Library, our personalized professional development resource platform, we ask ourselves these same questions. With several former educators on our staff, and thousands of educators using TeachBoost every day, we have begun to come up with some answers.
We think there are three stages a resource must go through to end up being used in the classroom:
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Discovery: This is where Twitter, Edcamps, and other facets of a robust PLN come into play. As their article explains, discovery is the easy part.
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Curation: Organizing resources into Evernote notebooks or other collection mechanisms help to organize the chaos that is resource-sharing online and at conferences. At this stage, educators determine that a resource is worth keeping, and that it might be used some day. Good organization systems ensure that the educator can access a collection of validated resources as needed.
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Contextualization: Finally, a situation has to emerge in which a resource is especially helpful. Whether a teacher needs an activity for tomorrow’s lesson or the resource inspires a new lesson altogether, there has to be some change in practice that creates an opportunity to use a new resource.
PLNs can feel overwhelming when we skip steps two and three. If we don’t organize resources in a way that’s conducive to future use, we’ll never use them. If we don’t identify places they really fit into the classroom, we’ll have a never-ending pile of unused links and ideas.
Aware of these problems, we’ve built steps two and three into TeachBoost. Once educators identify a helpful resource, they can add it to the Library and align it to the relevant section of their district’s teacher evaluation framework. In this way, the resource is curated for all the teachers in their school for future reference. Then, as educators participate in their TeachBoost-powered PLC and are observed by peers, coaches, and administrators, their colleagues can help to identify opportunities for growth in their practice, also aligned to the framework. All relevant resources are immediately accessible in the library, curated according to the framework, and contextualized meaningfully.
We are always simplifying and enhancing educators’ ability to curate and contextualize helpful resources in the Library. If you have some ideas, we’d love to hear them! If your school already has TeachBoost, just email us or reach out on Twitter; if your school doesn’t have TeachBoost yet, feel free to request a demo. We want to expand our PLN, discover great ideas, organize them, and put them into action just like you do!
