Don’t reinvent the wheel

I’m a firm believer in not reinventing the wheel. I’ve been in plenty of staffrooms where people covet their lesson plans and refuse to share. I’ve never done that. In the days of hard copy, I’d photocopy a worksheet and lay it on the desks of teachers who taught the same subject. I just can’t see the point of not sharing and making the load easier for others. I know I always appreciate it when other teachers share their ideas, but it’s a sad fact of life that it doesn’t always happen.

Andrew Churches has a wonderful wiki called Educational Origami where he shares many of the resources he has created. Today I was reading his blog and discovered posts he had written about starter sheets he has created about a variety of Web 2.0 apps.  They are available to download as a PDF and I’m assuming he is fine to have people use them in their schools. I couldn’t find a creative commons licence on them so I’m a bit unclear about this. (Hopefully he’ll read this post and provide some clarification in a comment).

Starter Sheets are available for Delicious, Voicethread, Google Maps, Wikispaces and Google Advanced Search. The advanced search has an extension sheet explaining Boolean Searches. They are attractively presented and link to the Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy that he created. If you haven’t seen that yet you must. It’s invaluable for curriculum planning with the integration of technology in mind.

So, don’t go reinventing the wheel. Access this fabulous wiki and download the PDFs. I can see them looking just great laminated and used as resources for staff and students alike. Thanks Andrew.

* Update.   Andrew Churches responded in a comment;

Teaching is about sharing and collaboration, it’s not a competition. Please feel free to use the resources and materials on the wiki. Everything published on the wiki is under the creative commons licence.

If you have any suggestions, recommendations or perhaps more importantly corrections let me know I appreciate the feedback.

I love this line. “Teaching is about sharing and collaboration, it’s not a competition.”

It sure is.