Beyond Textbooks

In today’s class, we watched a video about a project called Beyond Textbooks. Teachers from the Vail School District in southern Arizona found a way to share material with other teachers from outside the district and the state. They created a collaborative wiki for teachers to share lesson plans and resources online. The advantages of using this digital tool are that it is helpful for class prep, it helps teachers to discover different ways to teach different concepts and students have a sense of connectedness because other students are working on the same projects.

I think that this project is really great. Using a wiki to share resources is much more efficient than burning CDs or making tons of photocopies. The other advantage is that when teachers do not know how to introduce a topic, they can rely on their colleagues’ ideas and use their activities. The only negative aspect that I can think of is that people can use other teachers’ projects and decide not to post anything. 

In the article Evaluation of activities with a wiki system in teaching English as a second language, Andreja Kovacic, Goran Bubas and Miran Zlatovic mention that wikis can facilitate students' critical thinking. (Kovacic, Bubas & Zlatovic, 2007) I think that this is also true for teachers. It is not because another teacher posted an activity on the wiki that it is perfect. Moreover, if this teacher comes from another country, chances are that his activity will not develop the three competencies. It means that teachers have to use their critical thinking skills and adapt the material found online to their specific needs. Finally, I was looking for a way to share LESs with my classmates and I will definitely create a wiki to do so.

To watch the video, click on this link: http://www.edutopia.org/stw-differentiated-instruction-budget-resource-collaboration-video