It may be that I collaborate by nature because I am one of four children. If things were going to go smoothly at home (and by that I mean with mom) then we needed to work together find some fun - outside, preferably. The kids next door had a really cool bat and could always find their baseballs in their garage. We had a big flat backyard with trees strategically placed at first, second and third bases. It wasn't fancy - we could not compete with the major leagues - but it suited our purpose and met our (and mom's) needs.
Teaching in public education requires a lot of the same collaboration and remixing of materials. I often find myself asking teachers their opinion on my next topic or unit and I definitely repurpose unifix cubes and use them as Bingo markers. In most of the places I've worked, teachers freely give copies of their own homemade materials to their colleagues. Georgia created a first day of school PowerPoint? She shares it with her team in case they'd like to use it. Maureen developed a new teambuilder for her class? She leaves a copy of it on the faculty room table. Sometimes egos are involved and people want credit; other times not so much, because it is for the common good.
When we are working toward educating our students - ALL students - I believe it is clear that the more unrestricted we and they are, the more meaningful learning and teaching will be. Remixing happens every day both in small scale proportions and larger, theoretical arenas. As Kirby Ferguson said in his TED Talk, everything is a remix culture. We are constantly building on the works of others. We can draw parallels to O'Brien's 2001 work, "At Risk Adolescents," where he states that all students are "capable and innovative with an unrestricted definition of literacy." If we remix our teaching approach so that it includes multiple literacies - text, video, images, sound clips, etc. we are remixing in valuable, meaningful ways.
David O'Brien 2001
Teaching in public education requires a lot of the same collaboration and remixing of materials. I often find myself asking teachers their opinion on my next topic or unit and I definitely repurpose unifix cubes and use them as Bingo markers. In most of the places I've worked, teachers freely give copies of their own homemade materials to their colleagues. Georgia created a first day of school PowerPoint? She shares it with her team in case they'd like to use it. Maureen developed a new teambuilder for her class? She leaves a copy of it on the faculty room table. Sometimes egos are involved and people want credit; other times not so much, because it is for the common good.
When we are working toward educating our students - ALL students - I believe it is clear that the more unrestricted we and they are, the more meaningful learning and teaching will be. Remixing happens every day both in small scale proportions and larger, theoretical arenas. As Kirby Ferguson said in his TED Talk, everything is a remix culture. We are constantly building on the works of others. We can draw parallels to O'Brien's 2001 work, "At Risk Adolescents," where he states that all students are "capable and innovative with an unrestricted definition of literacy." If we remix our teaching approach so that it includes multiple literacies - text, video, images, sound clips, etc. we are remixing in valuable, meaningful ways.
David O'Brien 2001