Build Your Own Toolkit With CrowdED Learning: Summary

Good Morning Colleagues,

It has been an exciting ten weeks in our Community of Practice as Jeff Goumas has led our discussions focused on the components of reading and best practices for writing.  Jeff has provided us with many resources, as well as instructional strategies using the highlighted resources.  As members, you have contributed many valuable resources, strategies, and practices as well.  While our Build Your Own Toolkit With CrowdED Learning weekly posts have been completed, I encourage you to continue to review the resources and discussions, and to contribute your expertise.  

There has been an abundance of information shared over the past ten weeks.  To expedite finding a specific weekly topic, Jeff has created a summary document of the resources, information and discussions.  Again, please continue to share your ideas!

Good morning Jeff and thank you for leading our discussions and introducing us to CrowdED Learning!  I am excited to close our formal activity with a summary of the discussions that have taken place over the past few months!

Jeri

Comments

Thanks, Jeri!

I can't believe this is already done. Thank you to everyone who contributed and, as Jeri said—who hopefully will continue to contribute! Ten weeks is a long time, so I know that people might not have been able to jump in and share ideas as frequently as they might have liked to....or even have had the opportunity to check out all the posts. (Hello, life!)

To make sure people continue to have access to the conversations and the resources in a manageable way, we've taken everything from the past 2+ months and compiled them into this single, openly licensed resource :) 

  • Pages 5 + 6 include all of the free and open resources that were shared and discussed throughout the event

  • Page 7 includes direct links to all of the discussion threads, organized by topic and week

I’ve tried to design this so that it is flexible in its use. It’s broken out into the five topics we covered—topic overviews, videos, resources, discussion questions. This means anyone has the ability to take it and run their own PD trainings focused on exploration of the free and open resources introduced (or others you use) along with discussions around strategies for integrating them. 

Because all of the discussion threads are “live” within LINCS, any ongoing contributions—questions, ideas, new resources to consider—will be shared within the various communities. My hope is that we continue the conversation as people have more opportunity to dive deeper. 

You may also choose to take and implement portions of the training and run it within your own PD platform and/or communication platforms (Facebook Groups, Slack, Google Groups, etc.). However you choose to use it is fine! That’s why I’ve openly licensed it as CC-BY-NC-SA! It’s the beauty of open education resources :) You are free to make a copy or download this, then adjust it as you see fit for your own / your instructors' use!

One of my favorite portions of this training was the shared collaboration work that was done around the three leveled libraries we explored as part of Topic 2: Comprehension topic. (I'm hopeful people continue to contribute!) This type of sharing amongst practitioners is so helpful as it supports the time-consuming process of learning about tools other instructors might be interested in trying but don't have the time to dive deep. I’m hoping to have the opportunity to do similar types of sharing around other resources in the near future. Any suggestions for how we can accommodate this type of sharing in the future are very welcome!

Thanks again to everyone for your contributions and, more importantly, for all the work you do to support adult learners! As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday, I’m truly thankful for the amazing people I have the opportunity to learn from, share with, and be inspired by on a daily basis. :)

How to Make a Copy of This Resource

If you do have Google Drive and want to work within your own version of the Google Doc, you have the ability to make a copy of the file that will be saved as a separate version in your Google Drive. To do so:

  1. Open the document by clicking this link.

  2. Go to the “File” menu.

  3. Select “Make a Copy” and you will be prompted to indicate where in your Drive the copy should be saved. 

Once you’ve completed these steps, you will be able to directly edit within the document. 

If you do not have Google Drive or if you don’t want to work in Google Docs, you can still view the file on screen and then download it in a number of formats, including as a Word doc (editable) or a PDF (not editable). To do so:

  1. Open the document by clicking this link.

  2. Go to the “File” menu.

  3. Click “Download” and you will see the list of file formats in which the document can be downloaded and saved. 

Once you’ve completed these steps, you will have your own version of the document—in whatever format you selected—on your computer or device.

 

Jeff, as I never tire of repeating, you are an amazing inspiration to all of us. Your untiring, pioneering efforts on behalf of instructors who serve very needy students provides a unique and valuable contribution to our field. Thank you! Thanks, Jeri and other moderators as well who supported this discussion. It is a movable feast that will keep on giving in months and years to come.

Thank you for creating this wonderful resource that will make it easier to instructors to access the gems scattered through wonderful resources on CrowdEd Learning!

I hope that this dialogue continues as new resources develop and are shared here. Hat's off to one and all! Leecy