Networking

Quoting Steve Dembo (Teach 42)
http://www.teach42.com/2007/10/18/building-out-the-choir/

[I] now believe that the most important thing you could teach a newbie would be how to build out their network. How to connect with other teachers and resources that will push their boundaries. And most importantly, how to support themselves when they stumble.
http://edtechlife.com/ Mark Wagner pitched a variation on this theme to http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2007/

NECC, and I hope they take him up on it. Regardless, I love the title he used. "Learning to network, networking to learn." Catchy, eh?

Falls right in line with that old phrase " Give a man to fish, he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime. Connect him to networks of hunters, and AllRecipes.com and he'll be able to eat a tasty fillet of tilapia with mushroom risotto and spring vegetables with lemongrass today. And tomorrow, maybe he'll start off with some smoked salmon and capers before moving on to."


The image above is from a network diagram that I created looking at how my network has changed in just the last 3 years. It is amazing how my life has changed with facebook, delicious, other online communities.
A recent story was shared with me about a student posting an essay frame to Wikipedia. Three days later the story was written. I asked a group of teachers how they would respond:
-Well, divide the mark by the number of contributors...
-No accept it as they didn't write it...
-Make sure that they quoted their sources

I look at it in a different way. Kudos to the student for being able to get the job done. This student knew how to work collaboratively, to draw on his network, and work in a timely fashion. Providing the essay was done well, they would have full marks in my books. I am not the creator of all information that I share. Why would I expect students to have to be the creator of all of their information?

Perhaps the assignment could even be tweaked to have the whole class work collaboratively to write either individual essays or create a content resource - such as a WIKI !.
Kevin