…will they come? Been thinking about that more and more as I try to get teachers to start using Manila’s collaborative space and CMS capabilities. My Tech Committee and English Department sites are pretty much non-starters in terms of teacher participation.
Case in point: I try for the second time to get a conversation started on standardization of curriculum at our school by posting to the English site. In response, I get an e-mail back from one of our teachers. I suggest she post her thoughts to the Web log. She says no “cause it’s harder and takes more time!!!!!!!!!!”
I say nope and nope, that if she posts to the Web log, the conversation continues among all of us. She says “it’s much harder for me to log onto the Internet and wait for things to happen than to just reply to an e-mail (and I think the lack of use of the weblog up to this point bears that out…)”
I tell her she’s missing the point, that the whole point is to create a space for sharing ideas and information as a group, that from a collaborative standpoint, individual e-mails are not nearly as valuable. She writes “I hear you – unfortunately, people who are teaching three [out of four blocks per day] probably don’t have time to do it and that could be why we’re not hearing from a lot of dept. members…”
Obviously, I need to do a better job of a) selling the concept, and b) teaching the process. Time is an issue, but it’s not MUCH more of a time commitment to post. I guess I keep hoping (assuming) that colleagues will see the value inherent here and dive in by themselves. ASS-U-ME.
I’m going to do some training at the tech committee meeting this week…
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