Sharing Teaching Materials

[John Simkin]

The reason why I wanted to be a member of this forum is because I'm passionate about trying to set up a teacher's organisation in Australia. What I'll like to set up (with others) is a resource centre where teachers can share materials, experiences and discussions with each other: a bit like what this board is doing but have a facility where people can upload/download materials they use in the classroom easily. I want to also create an avenue where teachers can get useful training which they can use towards ongoing professional development / accreditation. The avenue can also be used for teachers to express their opinions of how they think the teaching industry should be heading. This will also be leading towards recognising dedicated/great teachers through awards and hopefully renumeration. Within this organisation, it is hoped that a tutoring facility will be set up so this can be available for all students and teachers who want to earn some extra money.

It's still in the very early stages of development but that's the major goals. It will be great to hear some of your inputs as to what you all think of this. We wish to create something which is useful for all teachers.

This sounds like a great idea. In fact, Andy and I have always wanted this forum to become a place where teachers can upload and download teaching materials.

[Guest]

The reason why I wanted to be a member of this forum is because I'm passionate about trying to set up a teacher's organisation in Australia. What I'll like to set up (with others) is a resource centre where teachers can share materials, experiences and discussions with each other: a bit like what this board is doing but have a facility where people can upload/download materials they use in the classroom easily. I want to also create an avenue where teachers can get useful training which they can use towards ongoing professional development / accreditation. The avenue can also be used for teachers to express their opinions of how they think the teaching industry should be heading. This will also be leading towards recognising dedicated/great teachers through awards and hopefully renumeration. Within this organisation, it is hoped that a tutoring facility will be set up so this can be available for all students and teachers who want to earn some extra money.

It's still in the very early stages of development but that's the major goals. It will be great to hear some of your inputs as to what you all think of this. We wish to create something which is useful for all teachers.

This sounds like a great idea. In fact, Andy and I have always wanted this forum to become a place where teachers can upload and download teaching materials.

I would be very keen to get Australian and UK teachers talking and sharing here. We can certainly enable uploading of resources - the key is to get a critical mass of regular teacher users to make it take off.

As far as Teacher training is concerned I am also developing at the moment a seperate trainee teachers forum at www.kmtraining.net where something along the lines of what Kathryn describes is taking place

[Graham Davies]

It's nice idea. I already manage a site containing ICT training materials for language teachers:

http://www.ict4lt.org

It's a free site, set up initially with European Commission funding. The most important thing about sharing resources is that, as site manager, you have to keep yourself in the clear regarding copyright. You have to ensure that the resources sent to you are original works that you have permission to disseminate, or that the suppliers of the resources have obtained copyright clearance, or that the resources are in the public domain, or that they are subject to Creative Commons licences, etc. I wrote the following guidelines in reaction to numerous enquiries that my site received:

http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_copyright.htm

There are numerous sites in my subject area that are sharing resources. Some are listed here on my Favourite Websites page:

http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/websites.htm

The Times Educational Supplement Staffroom site recently contained a discussion about a resources site that appears to be sailing a bit too close to the wind and managed to upset some teachers:

http://www.tes.co.uk/section/staffroom/thr...#message3218315

[Guest Kathryn Foong]

Thank you all for your replies and resource links. I just had a quick squiz through them and they look useful to go through them more thoroughly when I get more time (it's difficult trying to develop this and hold a full time job at the same time - I plan to focus on this over my 2 week xmas break).

Yes - I've already thought about copyright laws and wasn't sure how I was going to facilitate the site without breaching them. Your links Graham would be most useful to evaluate and modify for an Aussie setting.

It does seem that the UK have a lot more of these online resource facilities available. It will be great to have one which caters for the Aussie syllabus.

We'll like to set this resource website more as a 'business' so there's incentive for teachers to contribute and perhaps have people working on the site full-time to cater for teacher's requirements/needs. That way the site will be more useful as it will cater specifically for their needs.

We hope to also work along side with our Government initiatives to help facilitate their goals of continual professional development.

Anyway, as I said previously, a lot of work to do still before we approach the relevant authorities. However, we hope to get it all ready before the end of next year to be officially launched in 2008.

Thanks again for all your replies.

[Guest Kathryn Foong]

Oh - just to set the record straight: I do not intend to charge for other people's 'free' materials etc. that's on the web. I'm hoping to present the idea/facility to the Government to get some funding for it and perhaps earn a bit more from advertising and tutoring facilities. I'll like this facility to be available for all Aussie teachers (and perhaps everywhere too but if it's getting funding by the government, I may have an obligation to restrict the service...we'll see. I haven't looked deep enough into legislation yet).