Category: Crowdsourcing

#EduMaker Hack Sessions

CrowdsourcingPublished onUpdated on17 Comments on #EduMaker Hack Sessions

The pain…
There are so many educators connected using tools like Twitter and Facebook nowadays. But there is simply not enough emphasis on action – on making and creating resources, not simply sharing and consuming them. There is so much experience, expertise and ideas amongst us we need to push our networks into action and into creating great resources to support teaching and learning.

The idea…
Fortnightly or weekly EduMaker sessions that gather people online who are willing to contribute to make something useful/powerful/unique/practical. Something that other teachers, colleagues and students might pick up and use in their classrooms.

Each session might have a simple focus such as “story starter images” and a simple technology focus too, such as Flickr CC images collated using Dropbox.

As a group we may learn from the tools used but the emphasis is primarily on creating something new and useful.

Each session would be led by someone who has thought through the maker session and considered how best to collaborate; which tools are most suitable etc.

Each session would begin at the same time every week/fortnight, as links posted on a site or doc become live, with a short period of participation – but the maker session would run and run after that, with people adding things as and when they can.

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Feel free to share your thoughts on how we could kick things off and ideas to take it further. Please add yourself to the Google+ community I have set up for EduMaker

The “Interesting Ways” Series: A Milestone in Sharing

Crowdsourcing, Interesting WaysPublished on3 Comments on The “Interesting Ways” Series: A Milestone in Sharing

On Saturday I joined the TEDx community of presenters and gave a talk about knowledge sharing at TEDxNottingham, so it is fitting that the Interesting Ways has passed a milestone of sorts – a milestone in sharing.

Thanks to some great recent contributions the iPad resource passed 100 shared ideas!

To you this may mean very little, as we see a great many lists of this sort “100 Ways to Eat Fruit…”, “100 Different Keyboard Shortcuts…”, “100 Reasons Not to Use Compiled Lists”. But the key characteristic of these is that they have almost certainly been built quickly, sometimes by a few people, but more likely by an individual compiler.

142455033 49ce50a89bYou only have to look at a copy of Wired or other such magazine to see how much we are transfixed with the presentation of numbered sets of information or advice.

The Interesting Ways series is different. Firstly the list always starts at zero and although I have a hunch people will chip in and share, it is not guaranteed. Secondly they are built with classroom practice in mind, the ideas are shared by mostly practicing teachers. Thirdly the resources have many, many editors – you only have to scan through the Twitter names left as signatures on each slide to see that. And finally they are built over time – there is no rush to get a perfect multiple of 10 before they are published, they evolve at different speeds, sometimes quickly, sometimes more slowly as the community learns.

I think the final point refers to the lovely imperfections of them – which is in direct contrast to the sterile multiple-of-10-perfection posts which drive traffic. These are evolving all of the time – the first resource for the IWB has been a publicly editable document for 5 years!

They’re a bit scrappy and some have had things moved around and deleted but that is to be expected for resources that are in the open and publicly editable for so long. I am always grateful to hear from so many of you who have noticed something is amiss, spotted any problems and either fixed it up or let me know – people care for these resources.

It would be interesting to know how you see it all, but I think there are a few reasons why they have proven popular/useful – (1) They are always changing (2) You can easily present them to staff and embed them in a webpage (3) One slide, one idea, one image seems to work (4) They are easy to contribute to, they have a low barrier to entry (5) they are owned by the community that have built them (6) We learn about our community through the ideas we share.

I always thought the idea might catch on, this milestone, of sorts, just reminds me of how far we have come and I am so pleased to help everyone build such great pots of ideas.

I genuinely think we can do more though and hope that we can all continue to share more of our ideas and expertise. 

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Image: ‘Sharing‘

74 Interesting Ways to Use Google Forms in the Classroom

Crowdsourcing, Google Docs, Interesting WaysPublished on22 Comments on 74 Interesting Ways to Use Google Forms in the Classroom

The Interesting Ways series of resources continue to grow as the community add ideas from the classroom. Below is one of the most popular with over 70 ideas shared by teachers for using Google Forms in a range of different ways.

Make sure that you explore nearly 40 other crowdsourced resource like the one above – you can see the full series of resources on the Interesting Ways page

What are the biggest challenges to formative assessment?

Curriculum, Assessment, Crowdsourcing, Google DocsPublished onUpdated on6 Comments on What are the biggest challenges to formative assessment?

In the hope of widening my understanding of the perception of formative assessment, or assessment for learning as some like to call it, and also the broad nature of the challenges we face in the classroom, I have started this collaborative document.

People from all over the world have outlined what they believe are the biggest challenges to implementing and sustaining systems or habits of formative assessment. I will be looking for trends within the issues raised and hope to write a post soon about some of the common themes identified within it.

Please consider adding your own contribution to the document by editing it here and leave a comment of anything you are beginning to notice once you have read through the ideas so far.

Interesting Ways to Use Google+ to Support Learning

Crowdsourcing, Google, Interesting Ways, NetworksPublished on6 Comments on Interesting Ways to Use Google+ to Support Learning

Many early users of the latest platform for social networking have begun sharing their ideas about the potential for supporting learning. There is much to be anticipated – I always believed that the community element was missing from the use of Google Apps for Education.

Perhaps Google+ could provide the platform for schools to help positively teach social networking and tie in the use of the different apps more seamlessly together.

Take a look at what educators think so far and feel free to share your own ideas with the Google doc, or leave them in the comments here.