May 2, 2008
Yesterday I sent the following email to all teaching staff ….
…….we could be advertising some of the great things that are going on in our virtual classrooms and workspaces. So I need your help to promote your sites, if that’s what you would like to do.
All you need to do is to provide access to parents and College Staff (as read only) and let me know that you are happy for your site to be “selected” as a site of the week.
I’m sure our parents will appreciate being allowed to see how you are using technology to facilitate learning. There are many interesting sites that we could show, but I need your permission and agreement to open them to our community.
I received one reply, very quickly …..
In theory this seems a good idea. However, one thing that needs to be considered: if we open virtual classrooms to parents, what is to stop those of them who are teachers copying materials that we have developed and using them as their own?
Does anyone else have a similar problem? Can anyone suggest how I can help the teaching staff over this conceptual difficulty?
I mean, what is the problem here?
May 7th, 2008 at 4:38 am
I, for one, am glad to see your colleague’s response. It means that the teachers at my school (and within my department specifically) aren’t the only ones who are overly proprietary about the materials that they have ‘created’. (I put it in quotes because I doubt they have done anything original: they’ve only borrowed somebody else’s idea without attribution.)
In a 1:1 laptop school such as yours, I wonder if your colleagues embrace a constructivist, collaborative view of teaching and learning? Can you highlight the dichotomy in their feelings?
Another option would be to educate your fellow teachers about Creative Commons and license the work contained within your wikis under one of their many licenses.
p.s. - you may want to check your RSS feed link. I don’t think it’s working.
May 7th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Sorry about the RSS - I’ll fix it asap
“I wonder if your colleagues embrace a constructivist, collaborative view of teaching and learning”?
Hmmm ….. interesting question! Some have, most haven’t. Most still work behind closed doors, carefully protecting their right to individuality and not wanting the spotlight shone on what they see as the private relationships between teacher and students.
It’s an out-dated view and one that is slowly changing. There is not a lot of real collaboration going on, but again I am seeing some advances made.
“educate your fellow teachers about Creative Commons and license”.
The licensing issue is a tricky one with this school (like many) taking the view that materials created by teachers are owned by the school not the individual - unless prior agreements have been made. I’m not going to open this can of worms just yet because nobody has clarified what happens if teachers use creative commons only to discover the school declares copyright. As you correctly state, their is little, if any, original work anyway.
However, I am sensing a change of attitude now that the issue has been aired. Often the negative ststements are just an opening defence mechanisim until thinking is applied. We are now about to open up most of our materials (except for certain juicy bits!!!)so the discussion was worthwhile.