Will’s got a post this morning in which he both lays out a new resource as well as expresses a concern that I’ve had for some time. The resource looks useful — a Digg-ish site for teacher news. The concern, though, is worth re-airing:
And to be honest, this is all stemming from a bigger burr in my brain of late that has to do with the seeming randomness of all of the really great work that people in this community are starting to create. It’s just feeling like it’s all over the place, and that if we could in some way get our collective act together, we could start creating an incredibly valuable resource. I know it’s all about small pieces loosely joined, but wouldn’t it be great to point the newcomers to one spot that was a clearinghouse for all of this work? Not to mention the value it would have to us old timers in terms of bringing people in. I mean all of a sudden, it seems like everyone has a wiki, and most all of them have great intent and good content. But there’s also a lot of duplication of effort, and more importantly, dis-connection, at least that what it feels like to me.
Am I wrong?
I don’t think he’s wrong at all. We constantly reinvent the wheel when it comes to most of this stuff — inventing a new presentation site to meet our needs whenever we need one; mixing and re-mixing the content that we need when we need it, and so on. Of course, that makes sense — we’re all somewhat loners when it comes to finding both the time and the motivation for creating and sharing all of these tools and resources. But frequently, it does feel like we’re duplicating labor, as Will suggests. There’s amazing work spread out all over the place.
Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be. Maybe a centralization will kill creativity and incentive to explore. But maybe not. I’m certain that I don’t know the answer. I do, though, recognize the problem, and it’s only going to grow as more and more teachers and others catch onto the power of Web 3.14159.
Any ideas? Here’s a small one that I’ve got — let’s put a moratorium on new wiki creations until we flesh out some of the really good ones. (And, hey, any chance someone will remind me about all of the good ones — I was going to link to a few — but I bet y’all can do a better job of summarizing which ones are the best.)
(And yes, I do realize that this post, in some way, is a perfect example of what Will’s talking about. I’ve re-stated the problem in a second place, thereby fracturing the conversation a bit. If you want to respond, might as well head over to Will’s place and post a comment there, as that’ll at least keep comments on this topic limited to one place. For now.)
I said the same thing in an email to Anne Davis about her wiki as I prepare for my presentation at TIE:
“I think something like your wiki could really help out. If we could all come up with one really good site (or at least clusters of sites) to reference, we could maybe stop recreating the wheel. Of course the wheel will keep changing, but it might give us a good base to work off of.”
It was after complaining about how hard it was to get ready for this presentation because every time I thought I was ready, somebody posted something new and great that I wanted to include!