Teacher101

An interesting economic question is how do the likes of Microsoft stay in business. With the amount of free software do they really offer value for money? Why doesn't every person or company use stuff that's free?

I think the honest answer is that it's the way we have always done it, would people feel the same if they didn't dispatch a regular payment to Microsoft and the like. People feel safe and like the feeling of security, even if the free software can do the same job or even a better job.

I was on a course yesterday and I started thinking. Why as a teaching profession is there not more sharing going on?. We all spend time making things that will hopefully capture some interest and then we file them somewhere on a computer or on paper and don’t share them with our students and other teachers.

I know there are places where teachers can find free resources, but if you think about it in this world of cheaply flowing data our life’s should be easier and we should be able to share everything we create. Granted some websites have made some headway e.g. www.teach-ict.com, www.bized.co.uk etc but come on!

The only logical conclusion I can come to is that we are scared and want only use to see the resources (mistakes and all). Maybe VLE’s will address this issue, but I think we are a long way off yet?