Are we confusing collaboration with sharing and conversation?
What does collaboration mean to you? This is a question that I have spent a few weeks contemplating. The reason for this started with a statement that a colleague made several weeks ago and has continued with reading some very interesting blog postings on similar topics. The statement started this though was by far the most profound. It occurred at the conclusion of a long day of working with a project team developing new resources for the assistance of other educators and was:
“I wish some teachers within my school could have witnessed the work we did today to understand the difference between collaboration and sharing. We truly collaborated…”
As you can imagine this sparked a great conversation between us as we walked to the station to get our trains home.
The above event occurred about 5 weeks ago and since then I have continually found myself reflecting upon our experience as well as of how I have worked in teams or as a colleague or mentor to others in the past. One of the statistics I have read a few times since is that under the guise of working on collaborative projects only about 5% actually collaborate. The other 95% divide the work (sharing), converse about it, distribute content or just wish to trade tips and tricks to complete things quickly.
Where does this take us though? I propose that with the future developments of the National Curriculum and the inclusion of the General Capabilities and Teaching Standards we should all work on our skills to collaborate. The future of education may bring great things to those that are willing to truly collaborate and not just trade.
Language as a window into human nature: RSAnimate
Here is another great clip from RSAnimate. This one explores the relationship between languauge and behaviour/human nature.
21st century students video
C4LPT: Top 100 Tools for Learning 2011
It is always refreshing to see how things are rating for use as educational technologies. Here is a list I found this morning.
Online Resource: Plagiarisma.net
This online plagiarism checker rates well by users. I am yet to check this one.
Online Resource: The Plagiarism Checker
Here is another online resource for checking the originality and validity of written work. With a simple test it returned positive results
PaperRater: Online Plagiarism, spelling and grammar detector
Here is a useful online tool for validating the originality of your student’s work. I gave it a basic test and it returned positive results. See below:
RSA Animate – Changing Education Paradigms
Here is an interesting talk by Sir Ken Robinson.
Drawing Tool in Prezi: Youtube Clip
Head Room: Mental Health information for youth
Information on Mental Health by young people for young people.
