One challenge for sharing knowledge among educators is finding the best way to capture the complexity of teaching. It is exactly what the Knowledge Media Laboratory (KML) at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning intends to address with its research and development efforts to "explore and create distinct forms and models that help faculty capture, represent, and reflect on some of the critical aspects of their teaching and student learning."
KML has developed a free, web-based KEEP toolkit (Tools for Knowledge Exchange, Exhibition, and Presentation) to enable teachers and students to organize, create, reflect on and share succinct web-based representations of their classroom experiences. Sixteen creative K-12 examples using video and web technologies are profiled in The Gallery of Teaching and Learning. I particularly like the content from Emily Wolk's Pio Pico Researchers Participatory Action Research and the format of Irma Lyons' Harlem Renaissance project. Some great classroom ideas and techniques can be propagated with this tool. KML is currently working on a second generation of the KEEP toolkit with peer review and collective knowledge exchange capabilities.
The next challenge will be helping teachers locate the best idea among this growing mass of collective knowledge.
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