Crowdshare
Online collaborative tools makes it easy for us to share our thoughts prior to a meeting or to benefit our collective work. Setting up a collaborative document in Google and inviting participation from all serves to inform one another about each other's thoughts and ideas as well as do a lot of the decision making leg work prior to a meeting. Often throughout the crowdshare event, many will revise and alter their points of view as they read each other's thoughts and ideas--this is a powerful process.
The key here is to create the chart well and to outline the entire decision making process at the crowdshare stage. For example if you were to crowdshare a document about updating lunch room procedures, the process might look like this:
- Invite all staff to voice thoughts and ideas about what's working and what's not working with rationale. Add a time period such as two weeks for idea collection.
- After all ideas have been collected, have staff add the three changes they think are most important to the top of the list. Ask for rationale.
- Once 1 and 2 are done, meet and debate the information together in an organized way.
- Decide on one first change and establish a process for that change.
- Revisit action, assess, and move forward.
Time Lines
With the quick movement of information and the ready access to responsive tools, school life moves quickly. It's essential that staff and students have a time line of main events to use as a guide.
Online Schedules/Calendars
A shared calendar with protocols is essential too. The protocols should include the following:
- Expectations for checking calendar and updates.
- Update process.
- A go-to person for glitches, suggestions.
- Lead time whenever possible for scheduling events.
Share
With so many ideas out there and so many staff members reading, researching, and learning all the time, it's advantageous for organizations to have protocols and venues for share. The protocols and venues should work to serve knowledge exchange so that we are all aware of, and using, the best possible tools, strategies, and processes to teach children well.
What systems have you changed to best meet the needs of teachers and students today--systems that boost our efforts with collaboration, research, and focus?
