Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Making the Case for Crowd Sourcing, Part II

Part 2

Why Crowd Source?

1) Your voice matters. Whatever comfort level you have with the new stuff, your perspective on problem solving is essential. Additionally, your teaching style is unique. We need to hear from you! In fact, especially since you’re solving problems that all of us are facing each day in the classroom, we need to hear about the process. Share your story!

2) If we don’t share our collective findings, the journey is not only lonelier but also scarier. We are all charting new territory with the new stuff and the new approaches to learning that it will offer us. We are all thinking through ways to interact most effectively with students, colleagues and the community.

3) Things are changing at the speed of light, if we don’t crowd source, it is literally impossible to keep up. Harness the power of eyes and ears in different corners of the internet and also in our real-life. Somebody has that brother-in-law who rebuilds computers or an old college friend who teaches in that tech school.

How do you crowd source?

1) Build excitement face-to-face. Share your solutions with colleagues who are willing to problem-solve or ask a question of your own. Drop a hint in the lounge, “How do you make sure to always take afternoon attendance in Infinite Campus?”

2) Join an online conversation or start one. Ask a colleague to show you how to log into a social networking site like Edmodo or Diigo and start reading others’ questions and posting your own.

3) Start using Google Reader to subscribe to blogs or other resources that share ideas and solutions to tech integration issues.

Who knows, maybe we’ll see you in an upcoming flash mob! Anybody up for a holiday sing-along the Wednesday before break? There’s one planned at Roosevelt!! Flash mob alert!