Three Days of Focus on Curricular Alignment, the Reusability Paradox, and Offline OER

I really appreciate your comment with regards to Learning to share, and wanted to propose the following:

In my experience in South America, teachers “naturally” have a tendency to share with peers, especially younger peers. The mediated sharing that Information and Communication Technologies make possible, however, is something they find much harder to do. Though it might be about the technology, my informal observation is that the formality of proposing materials for others’ consideration creates a significant mental barrier. “My materials are not good enough” is the leitmotiv. The reference is the textbooks that have big (although unknown) names on their covers, the gloss of having editors pouring over, and a pinch of impostor syndrome work against the desire to share.

It was interesting for me to hear Hans De Four, creator of KlasCement, echo this observation in some measure: in Belgium, his platform is dedicated to teachers sharing classroom resources and it took a few years of learning to develop strategies to incentivize teachers to share with other teachers resources they had created that “might be useful”.

In summary, i think educational systems have to consciously think of and implement strategies to foster teacher-to-teacher sharing (including making sure teachers know of CC licenses, for instance). Of course, this might demand relinquishing some of the control and the top-down approach to resources sharing and adopting more of an experimental mindset… How many educational institutions do we know that would fit that description?

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