Thoughts on Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, Ch.10

It was difficult finding a link to this chapter in terms of school reform, and perhaps that is the most illustrative thing about a chapter on the rise of Open Source software. I have already suggested that the emphasis on the school->teacher->classroom linear organizational strategy goes far to inhibit collaboration, both for teachers and students. Yes, the provincial teachers' union has its own online repository and collaborative space, but if it is a challenge to get teachers to collaborate and share between schools (although it's improving), it's even more difficult to facilitate that across districts.

The absence of a viable community of practice that meets beyond the school level made me question where it was teacher's get their new ideas from? Opportunities to meet and talk with other teachers from outside of our district takes on more importance and I think a real push needs to be made to incorporate this into city and provincial conferences and conventions. I don't think we need more presenters to teachers, but rather more facilitators of conversations and sharing sessions between teachers.

I'm sure there's some kind of Wikipedia re-invention of the K-12 system waiting to be created by someone, but I find the current system so deeply entrenched in my thinking that it's hard to even guess what that might look like or how it might function. But it's there, I'm sure.