Unions and Professional Development
One of the perks of getting a press pass to ISTE was that I was sent press releases from vendor. One of the more interesting ones was about a venture, Share My Lesson being supported by AFT, the American Federation of Teachers. I wanted to find out more about this, so I chatted with the folks at the booth to find out why AFT decided to do this:
Here is one of the teachers who was involved in reviewing materials on Share My Lesson on what he gets from the service:
My thoughts, this shows that unions are about more than just labor representation, but also about improving the profession and individual teachers, something I’ve known from my own experience. My ed tech friends may wondering why the big deal about a lesson plan sharing site. It is free, rather than being a money generating site, where you pay for lesson plans, but there’s more than that. IF Share My Lesson can leverage the AFT membership, it could become a go-to resource. None of these is a given, but it’s a venture worth taking on. I’ll be looking at the lessons as I begin the process of planning for a new grade-level and will report back on how it works then.
And even if you’re not in a union (like me) it is a helpful and useful site. As a person working with their sister site, TES, I’ve been using Share my lesson for some time and it is a great site for sharing. I wish all teachers would get in there and share what they’re doing. Thanks for spreading the word. You’re right, if AFT would leverage membership it would be so very helpful but I also hope that all teachers know they are welcome whether a member of AFT or not.