Sharing

I was reading an article called "Simulation Nation" in the magazine Edutopia (published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation). In it, author Marc Prensky writes about why more simulations aren't used in K-12 education. Among his reasons: Lack of sharing. He writes:

In the age of the Internet, it seems logical that when something works for a teacher in one classroom, it should be quickly broadcast to everyone teaching that class or level. But our teachers, for the most part, are terrible at sharing. Those who have success with simulations owe it to their colleagues to post what they do on the Web -- as an HTML page, a Web site, a blog entry, or a video -- available for all to see.

I immediately thought of theatre blogging. We write an enormous amount about our opinions, but we don't often share our discoveries. What works? What doesn't? Wouldn't it be a wonderful learning tool for theatre students everywhere if there were a cache of tips and discoveries from theatre professionals that would give them the benefit of our experience? And if we created a set of tags that we would hold in common, a Delicious search would easily lead them to all the different ideas. Theatre teachers could draw from the posts in constructing their classes, motivated freelancers could deepen their knowledge base without having to rely on college profs.

We've seen the power of the theatrosphere when an idea like the national opening caught fire. Might we also harness that power for educating young people and each other?