July 19, 2013 | Posted in: personal reflection
Though I enjoy using Pinterest to curate resources, tools, professional development, and edtech articles, I have been fascinated by and interested in checking out My Big Campus for awhile now. I attended a workshop on it last fall, and am even more convinced after looking into further how bundles would be a great way for teachers to curate digital curriculum and create “digital textbooks” from a wide variety of online sources. Even better is that they can share those bundles with each other, helping to spread good sources and curriculum bundles not only across the district, but also with other teachers in the world who may be interested in what they have curated. I like that there are bundles already created, which are good starting points for a new teacher to My Big Campus. They can use those bundles as-is, or remix them and add/remove other resources to create their own bundles unique to their classroom needs. Bundles can easily be presented to students as resources to help facilitate their learning. I know that several teachers are using Edmodo at the high school, and I’m not sure what it would take to do a district-wide My Big Campus setup, but I love the idea of curating and bundling resources to share in a variety of ways.
I have used My Big Campus to create bundles with my teammates. I also attended a workshop and was amazed by all that it has to offer. I also love all the bundles that are already available to use. It is a great way of storing and finding all of your information about a topic in one place. There is SO MUCH to continue to learn about all that is available. Trying not to let it overwhelm me!
We’ve been using MBC for just over a year now, but not many teachers take full advantage of what it has to offer mainly because we haven’t had any PD time to dig in to it and learn how to use it. Fortunatley, I’ve attended eConferences and have developed a good understanding of MBC and the value of Bundles for collaboration and as a way to develop digital curriculum. Not having a 1:1 program, however, has made integration of MBC in my classroom difficult. I do, however, think it is a heck of a lot more useful and efficient than CurriculumLoft which is what our department has used in the past.