I gave a presentation on blended learning last year where I showed this video. It’s a TedX talk by Katie Martin, “Teachers Create What They Experience.”
In the latter part of this talk, Katie tells teachers to Go Open. She quotes George Couros –
Isolation is now a choice educators make.
Google showed me that this was a blog post by George where he makes the case for teachers becoming bloggers. I’ve written about why I ask my students to blog. They don’t really have a choice as I’ve made it a class requirement. But what about teachers? I continue to urge colleagues to share their teaching experiences online but I’ve had little success.
Go Open. Whenever I say that I maintain a Slideshare account, I am often asked if I am not afraid that my work will be plagiarized. I tell them about Creative Commons copyright, but most generally remain unconvinced. On several occasions, they asked what I do when students take pictures of slides. I tell them that doesn’t happen anymore because I let the students know that the slide deck will be on Slideshare afterwards. Several colleagues have complained how their slide decks end up being shared on Facebook or Scribd without their permission. With Slideshare, I decide how to share my work – in pdf and protected by a Creative Commons license which is share alike, non-commercial, attribution required.
Go Open. Since I won the first UP System Gawad Pangulo Award for Progressive Teaching & Learning, I’ve told people about the power of virtual personal learning networks and how mentors I met on Twitter helped me get this teaching award. Truly these mentors, by going open have helped make me a better teacher.
Go Open. One of the first things I did as Director of the UP Manila Interactive Learning Center was to open a new blog. I write From The Director’s Desk. I’m encouraging other faculty to write posts with me so we can share our struggles and successes with new ways of teaching.Those I asked said yes but so far I’ve only one submission. I remain unfazed.
I like trying new things. One thing I’d like to try this year is to create a TedEd lesson. I’m going to ask other faculty to do this with me and hopefully we can all blog about our experiences. Then we can Go Open together. Wish me luck!