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
Great post
A iPad stand you can make from a cardboard box. Fun, but dangerous;-)
http://wpemobile.wordpress.com/2013/02/06/tablet-stand-buy-it-at-dollar-tree/
+1 and done! https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/104957385931397866529
I’ve been giving this more thought…
Perhaps a Google+ community page would work well for this. It would provide a hub that brings together a discussion space, google docs and video collaboration allowing for flexibility in the development of ideas.
As a community it would be easy to manage, and offer flexibility in terms of time as well. Some ideas may only take a single session to develop/create but others may require more time. This approach would allow for that, and people could drop in and out.
Yeah that seems a good tag to have
I agree that fortnightly would be better and allow people time to use the resources in their classrooms before the next idea is shared.
I think meeting less frequently, but with an expectation to bring something to share is a good idea. However, a weekly meeting is easier to remember, and if the number of people participating is large enough, then it doesn’t matter as much if people drop in and out.
I think it is a brilliant idea, Tom. I am looking forward to see it in action.
Will the hash-tag be #EduMaker?
Great idea Tom, but I wonder if weekly might be a bit much and people will end up dropping in and out. With fortnightly I feel you would have more chance of people really committing. That would also give time for people to go away to trial, redesign and trial again, contributing feedback to each other. Really creating a collaborative design process
I’m not sure that’s the case. Whenever, I develop new tools or activities I get my classes involved in testing them. Their feedback is invaluable and can be easily managed using Google Form.
If you’re going to develop tools/resources for use with students then their voice is an important one in the process.
“critical”: I worry that too many cooks ….
Yes, I also like that idea. The place of school within the community is something that i am very interested. Is this an opportunity to engage a diverse group of interested parties – parents (grandparents), governors, educators, learners?
I really like that idea Tom, and would be up for joining in.
As regards children joining, James, this is the type of activity which some of my digital leaders would love (one of them has created a wiki of online resources for our nursery). The talent and willingness is certainly there from across the school community.
Also, I wonder if this has a way of connecting with parents/grand-parents of our school communities. ‘Parent’ helpers wouldn’t have to be just in school (although they could work on a project in a meeting space within school to create).
Great idea Tom!
Perhaps the educator who is leading the session, bring in one of their classes as a critical voice?
Yeah you are right – we could launch it and encourage teachers to get students involved in the following days.
This sounds like a great idea Tom. Often with such things I feel that the piece of the puzzle that is often missed is the learner themselves. Could we invite and bring students into the process, get them contributing and building with us? There are obvious issues over practicality and scale but I think the learners voice is an important one. Perhaps, it could be a case of build something and present it to a class over Skype, gather feedback, and then iterate to improve/adapt? WDYT?