As teachers, we’re always searching for or creating resources to use in our classrooms. Teachers are usually quite collaborative animals, but sometimes with all the things we need to do and all the stuff that’s out there in our brave new wired (wireless?) world, it becomes tricky to engage in ‘just in time’ sharing and so we end up re-inventing the wheel or traipsing down well-trodden paths.
So while teaching at Bonnyrigg Heights P.S., I thought about ways to pool resources and susbequently become more time and energy efficient. With my new move into special education, I was creating and finding a lot of new resources, and colleagues and I would share but it was never the right time or you’d forget links or file away that really great document for later (never to be seen again). Sure, we had the school server, but access from home was limited, and let’s face it – wouldn’t it be better to share our work with people beyond our workplace too?
I started to look into what the best way would be to manage the resources so that it would be accessible to even the most tech-phobic person, as well as making it relatively easy to manage, and allow for collaboration. In the end, I settled on a wiki, largely for its collaborative benefits and also because I knew some teachers had experience with them.
As a result The Sharespace was born. It’s still very much a work in progress and although the main purpose is still to act as a repository for resources, it’s also a place that might be a little bit clunky from time to time as teachers are encouraged to test our their tech skills there and not be afraid to break it.
Since I’ve moved schools, the Original Sharespace Mob™ has been kind enough to agree to open up The Sharespace to a wider audience, so if you’re interested in contributing to it, just send a join request on the site.