Sharing is Caring

                This week’s assignment was all about sharing your work. The more technologically based the world gets, the more it becomes an obligation to share rather than a choice. Everyone should be sharing something in order to both assist themselves and others in the ever-lasting journey of teaching that we’ve all embarked upon. 

This week’s topic video was Sharing:The Moral Imperative by Dean Shareski. In Shareski’s video, he discusses how important people sharing what happens in the classroom can be for other educators. A lot of the teachers in his video made blogs. I believe blogs are the most effective way to share with a large range of people. The teacher who made the graphing lesson that more than 6000 people used was inspiring to me, because something that seemed so little in the beginning ended up meaning so much.

            There is a fine line between what and what not to share. In Amy Burvall’s video, #daretoshare, she says the entire process should be shared. I’m not sure I necessarily agree with that. The entire process can be important, this can be detrimental to children. If their failures to learn something are broadcasted to the world, that can be really discouraging. I think documenting the students as a class can be effective during the process, and if they want, sharing their individual successes at the end is a good way to get everyone involved. Regardless of one’s obligation as a teacher to share, the students being comfortable and feeling safe in their world and schooling is the most important thing.

            Sharing both face to face and online, I believe, are important. Sometimes you need to be in front of someone to feel comfortable with what you’re learning, and other times, all you need is  YouTube video or a blog post to get a feel for something. When I’m a teacher, I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to create a classroom website/blog to catalog what we’re doing. It could be a resource for both parents and other educators to keep a tab on what’s going on in my classroom, and how it’s working for the students. I would have a feedback form available so if someone had suggestions or concerns, they could be addressed.

            Public writing being formal and error-free is something that is an issue. Writing something up real quick is prone to errors. A friend of mine read my first blog post then let me know I used a wrong word, something I hadn’t noticed just quickly glossing over after I finished typing it up. Being formal and using academic language is important, but it isn’t the end of the world if you have a typo. When it comes to sharing, it’s more important, at least in my eyes, to share with a word misspelled than to not share at all.

            I believe transparency in the classroom should be a given. There should be a way to share what you’re doing with whoever wants to know, whether it be parents or a teacher on the other side of the world that is teaching the same things you are. Making yourself, students, and their parents comfortable can be an issue, but it can be done.