MTBoS Mission 8 is about sharing the resources. There’s little collaboration at my school, other than a few videos or an occasional pet project. I’ve tried to (besides the cool videos) share some stuff that’s actually usable in the near future.
Wait, we were supposed to wait until now to share stuff?? Hmm.. let me go back through my sent mail to see what I’ve shared. Some links were directly from MTBoS participants, and some were from web-surfing-after-MTBoS-links-and-Twitter-feeds, so I’m not sure from whom I obtained them.
There’s Trig War and explicit instructures to check the links within, for a group of math teachers who want more games. And Infinite Series by paper. And just this morning, I sent that amazing Desmos picture to try to inspire a few digital graphing teachers.
Mr. Stadel’s POPS (and a bunch of other sites), that I’m going to use in our common room as a Puzzle O’ Week challenge for small prizes.
WA state standards to myself, as a reminder to check my alignment.
MTBoS Mission 3 (the one with links to resources), to a teacher I know would use them.
…and an invitation to the math teachers for the MTBoS challenge itself in hopes someone else would join me (but nobody did, and they’ve clearly missed out).
I have enjoyed my time in the MTBoS very much, and am kinda sad for it to be over. The best part of this whole collaboration was just that… the collaboration! I found it interesting to see how many people participated in MTBoS #7 (the DITL one), and how similarly crazy our schedules are. i think there’s a lot more common between teachers than we realize. I’ve really enjoyed digitally-meeting a bunch of passionate educators who truly care about their craft and their subject and their students and the difference they are trying to make. Although my blog’s been running for more than a year, and it’ll definitely continue, I wasn’t planning on continuing my Twitter account after the MTBoS, but helping people with homework across a couple of time zones somehow made my afternoon (maybe I need more interesting afternoons). I joined the MTBoS missions in large part to fulfill a collaboration stipulation as part of renewing my teaching license, and I’m so glad that it’s become something much deeper than just a thing to check off a box on the state’s form. I’ve started recognizing a few online-handles, and find myself poking through particular blogs sometimes. It’s wonderful to have colleagues who want to make a difference in themselves and their students, and I’m very grateful to have had this opportunity with all’y’all.
notphlogiston 
I know the feeling of little to no collaboration–2 math teachers in the high school means no overlap of classes. MTBoS has been a great outlet for me to get and share new ideas too. Keep on keeping on!
Well-stated summary of the benefits of online collaboration. It’s fun to get to the point where I look for certain folks on twitter and get psyched to see them appear in my inbox when new posts arrive.
That’s interesting that you were able to use this experience towards your license. I think that’s very cool and practical…what state are you from? And I’m glad to hear that your experience went beyond what you expected!
I’m in WA state. There’s a section in the renewal about “community”, so I figure that, even though I’m a science teacher, MTBoS should qualify as collaboration.