We're all pilgrims on the same journey-but some pilgrims have better road maps. Nelson DeMille
I need a better map. Marianne Wallace

Saturday, June 23, 2012

My Action Research Project has not gone very well this year.  In fact, it has not gone at all.  Even though I have tried repeatedly to encourage them, my co-workers have been very resistant to even trying to access the wiki, mainly because they did not want to get a g-mail account & have to create a new password.  I tried to duplicate the wiki on our BlackBoard site at school, but it just will not work as well as the google wiki, for several reasons:  it does not have the same format at all; we cannot access YouTube videos; I cannot add pages as easily; there are not near the same number of options to add items to the wiki or to personalize it; things placed on the Blackboard wiki do not all show up the way they do on the google wiki; and the Blackboard wiki is really intended to be a class option, to be shared with students, not co-workers.  I am kind of frustrated with my co-workers; they didn't even have to do anything to the wiki this year--it was created and maintained by me, strictly for their convenience.  Their refusal to try something new is pretty characteristic of the stumbling blocks that mainstream American education throws in the way of technology integration into instruction.  Many veteran teachers refuse to try something new, even something that could help them out.  I am trying to persuade them one last time to give it a try.  If they are still resistant, I will have to change my plan.  One thing may work in my favor:  the major reason I started this was as a timesaver for my co-workers.  With 8 people in our PLC, and several of them with young children, it is very difficult to find a time to meet with everyone twice a month, as required by our administration.  Also, when we do meet, it is a grade level meeting, not really a collaborative process, and certainly not professional development or professional idea exchange.  If I can get approval from my assistant principal (who is also my mentor) to allow us to use access of this wiki as one of our two monthly meetings, then I will be hitting both of the two things I hoped to accomplish:  1)Finding a way to share my new found knowledge with my co-workers; and 2)being able to save them that most valuable of teacher resources-time.

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