Sharing Your Work

It is very important that teacher and leaders get in the habit of sharing their work. I mean come on, the president even uses social media! We should all share in whatever format we are most comfortable using, and for those of us who are not very comfortable with social media (like myself) I can direct you to some advice by Dean Shareski. 

Social book marking is a good beginner way to start sharing and it feeds into the anonymous voyeurism people are most comfortable engaging with online.

Another great way to begin sharing is with a free BlogSpot blog is what I have recently created and what you are reading this on.

Start small and just lurk for a while, but eventually push yourself to engage by leaving a comment, or sharing a link.

Found on http://search.creativecommons.org/

Creating a new teaching method and sharing it online with everyone benefits the entire community and it also can make you feel like you made a difference, not only in the lives of your students, but the lives of other students whose teachers used your idea. Your district might not even know how much you enrich your school by sharing and incorporating strong communication.

"The moment we focus on protecting our work we become the antithesis of a teacher." DeanShareski

Well how does one decide what to share and what not to share?

I believe you share not only your best practices and what you are passionate about, but also the successes of your colleagues and students. We should always be open to input and growth.

A few things you could ask yourself if you're not sure if you want to share something or not is ask yourself:

• Is it helpful?
• Is it entertaining? 
• And is it something you could show your mother?

Sharing should be view as a way to put you best foot forward and start making a name for yourself even when you are young. Sure students will make mistakes, I'm still a student myself and I am making mistakes all the time. But what students should learn, in my opinion, is that how they want to be viewed is there choice. Sure people will always have criticism for you, but its how you respond to that criticism that will show your character and its your character that will help you put your best foot forward. 

Don't just share your work, but share your process.

Traditionally classroom teaching is face to face, which can be effective, but to really make a difference a teacher should push their students to engage with the topic material outside of the classroom. Not with homework, but with communication with peers, parents, family, and even the strangers who follow you. Share your stories and continue to tell them until they resonate with the people around you.

And by sharing what we are learning with the world around us it is important to make sure we present it in such a way that it is easily digestible. An article that is poorly formatted or full of errors will not engage the reader and make the author seem less creditable. 

Finally I leave you with this question to help me answer.

• How can we begin to create a culture that encourages transparency?