Reflecting on my sharing

Today, Dorothy spoke of the importance of sharing work with an authentic audience, an audience who has the choice to move wherever they please with the simple click of a button, but choose to remain where they are. Dorothy reiterated the fact that sharing via blog posts has been a proven motivator for learners to finish their work. It was a good opportunity to reflect on my current practice and the opportunities that the learners in our Hub have to share their learning.

It is with shame and sadness I hang my head and say that the 'share' element of the Manaiakalani 'Learn, Create, Share' pedagogy is a weakness in our Hub. I believe that there have been several mental barriers that have prevented this process from happening at all, (i.e. whole hub blog instead of individual blogs) but when I really think about it, all of these barriers can be overcome. So far, my learners have only had the opportunity to share their creations with the teachers, each other (sometimes), and a select few have been chosen over the term to share some 'cool' learning at a school assembly.

I am unsure at this point in time about how we might use blog writing as an integrated part of our every day but am extremely excited to start the process of sharing via our class blog. I am also eager to watch the development of an authentic audience and the effect that this has on our learners. Dorothy has just shared a new tool on blogger which may mean that we can make ownership of the blog more accessible to the individual learners. Watch this space! 

This session has been really crucial in highlighting the lack of this aspect of the Manaiakalani pedagogy in my own current practice. Like any engaging session, I leave feeling excited and motivated to do something different - I am already thinking about all the awesome learning they could have shared on the blog already... might need to do some backtracking!