Sharing & Pearing is Caring!

Roses are red,
Peary is green
With Google Drive sharing
We can all be a team!

When it comes to Valentine’s Day, I’m here for the puns. And the cheesy poetry. And the foil-wrapped, heart-shaped chocolates. But really, for me the joy of Valentine’s Day is in the opportunity to showcase my creativity while inspiring and delighting my friends.

As educators, we spend most of our days, not just Valentine’s Day, trying to inspire, delight and educate our students. But how often do we make that extra effort to do the same for our colleagues? You’re already sharing your thoughts and ideas on Twitter or Pinterest. Have you considered treating your lesson plans and resources as something to be shared to inspire and educate your peers?

I regularly get questions that start with “Do you have a Pear Deck for this or that topic?” Even my power-using Pear Deck Certified Coaches ask each other this question on a regular basis. I used to google “lesson plans for high school english teachers” almost weekly (we’ve all been there, right?). Only to find myself wading through a sea of sub-par content. We’re all looking for inspiration constantly, so what could we each be doing personally to share that sought-after inspiration with others?

As Pear Deck’s Teacher Advocate I love it when teachers email or tweet pics of your stellar lessons with Pear Deck. I take that back, I absolutely adore those moments. I often wonder though, how often are you sharing those lessons with your peers? What happens to the beautiful Pear Deck you made after that class? Does it languish in your Google Drive until next year? Or, heavens forbid, sit forlornly on your desktop? Friends, we can do better than that! Aren’t we always telling our students that sharing is caring?

This Valentine’s Day is your day to share the love and inspire your peers. Here’s a tech tip that will make it super easy.

Get Set To Share

Start by making a shared Drive folder for your department and dropping your Pear Decks in there for everyone to access.

Pay Attention To Your Settings

When it comes to sharing Drive files: pay attention to your Share settings. I recommend forcing users to make a copy of the deck. Check out Kasey Bell’s quick how-to on Shake Up Learning. Or, install the Sir Links-a-Lot extensionin the Chrome Store. Changing the URL to end in /copy will prevent people from editing your original copy and save you a lot of headaches the next time you want to use the file.

Send Out Invitations

Invite your colleagues to do the same. Consider how much a new teacher could benefit from such a repository! Think about what it could do for a teacher on the brink of burnout! Maybe your engaging lesson plan can rescue a weary teacher.

Think Big

Does your school or district has a Pear Deck premium subscription? Then think BIGGER! Make a schoolwide or district-shared folder! With a few clicks and a some fellow teachers to jump on the bandwagon with you, your school could be the proud owner-curators of a free content library. If you’re a teacher who likes to tweet or you’re part of online PLN, don’t forget you can tweet your sharing links to your Pear Decks as well.

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If you still need to be convinced of the merits of sharing the love and the content with your peers, take a look at last week’s blog on breaking out of teacher silos. I’m convinced that the more we share our brilliance with our peers and draw on their creativity and wisdom as well, the better educators we become.