Liberating Heritage Content to Classrooms Via the Web
Making it Together:
Networking to create an effective learning community
In this section:
- Making students the number one priority
- dentifying key players for content creation
- Involving relevant community members
- Collaboration between institutions
- Networking with engaged stakeholders
- Partnering with other concurrent programs
There is an African proverb that suggests that it takes a village to raise a child. If this is true, imagine the nurturing potential of the global village1 and the effect it could have on students as global citizens. The structure of the Web encourages new types of collaboration that cross boundaries and create new disciplines; this has new and complex implications for both local and global communities. The important thing is to focus on the students and find ways to create a rich user experience for them.
The importance of a strong learning network coupled with a strategy that is focused on student success cannot be over emphasized. There are multiple stakeholders who can help to create a very powerful learning experience for students. In creating Web-based heritage content, heritage professionals have an opportunity to call on community talents from both the public and private sector and encourage participation from a variety of talented individuals.
Engaging consultation with teachers and students at several points in the process helps heritage professionals to ensure that material will be interesting, practical and relevant to a student audience. This review process is essential. It not only results in useful material, but also creates buy-in from teachers and professionals who then get excited and spread the word about the material, proving an effective marketing tool as well.
Another interesting way to engage the community is to create opportunities for different professionals, experts, artists, academics and practitioners to get involved with students. It is often the case that community members are delighted to act as mentors to students and will happily engage in classroom activities, if they are invited to participate. In some cases, there may be many different ways to engage the community via different activities organized around the exhibition. In this case, it can be of great benefit to all if you are able to partner with others and “piggy back” similar educational and community events. If students are the focus of a project, individuals and organizations will often try hard to accommodate this type of collaboration, resulting in new community bonds. These types of engagements are often very rewarding to everyone involved even though they may seem difficult to coordinate.
It is significant to mention that in addition to creating new relationships, timelines can also be critical to a project’s success. The more people involved in a process, the more time you will need to accommodate everyone.