In the comments to this morning’s post, Mel calls me out:
All of the activities we create are for the teacher to use at the front of the class – and we are conscious never to make the resource the teacher
Let me have another go at explaining what I meant. I think this might have been the problem sentence:
The problem is that the author has tried to create something that replaced the teacher
Let me go back and develop that idea further, cause from Mel’s comment I don’t think I really explained what I meant.
The resources I create for me to use in my room always look different to the ones I make to share around the dept (and with the wider world). The difference? Me. Without me there I have to substitute what I would have said with words on the screen and the moment I do that I shift the dynamic from something flexible that I can develop with my students to something that’s static on the board.
The same thing applies to any resource which is designed for sharing with other teachers, including text books, but for some reason the way in which slideshows control the narrative remove some of the flexibility for skipping around that you can do with a textbook.
But the alternative is also no use. I’ve got resources created by other people that I’m sure in their hands make a great support to a lesson, but I have no idea what they are. Without that knowledge and context they are just a series of disjointed images and quotes.
What I’m trying to get my head round is how can we keep the flexibility, adaptability and spontaneity of the resources we create for ourselves, but make them usefully shareable [1. Usefully shareable? Ok, bad grammar I know but it’s late and it sums up what I’m after!] All I know right now is that the stuff I’m sharing and the stuff I’m downloading isn’t there yet.No blame. No packdrill. Just trying to move the situation along somehow.
I think your use of the word ‘creativity’ is the modus operandi here. We all have ideas and writing them down is just NEVER the same as we would deliver them.
The key for all of this is blending the learning Dave. You are totally right in suggesting that you are the key in all of this – and by default your students too. The best resources I’ve found are those that allow students to personalise their learning and replace existing old-fashioned activities. I do a regular 10 tools in 10 mins presentation for colleagues at work and always stress that they are only as effective if the planning has been done beforehand and there is a reason to use them. One thing that many of the new tools do very well is promotion of higher order thinking in a much quicker and more pupil friendly way – this should be the focus and aim of our use of these tools.