Co-creating content

The EEA encourages the researcher to collaborate and co-create knowledge throughout the create stage (Crotty 2016, 2014). At one validation meeting I shared my draft curriculum content. A peer questioned me about the fact Pope Francis was not mentioned in the curriculum. She noted, perhaps jokingly, that if the content was based on my values and passions he should be included, as I often expressed such admiration for him. My supervisor, Dr. Byrne suggested adding a quote from

Laudato Si informing me that Pope Francis spoke about sacred places in it. The

opening quote inside the Wonderlands iBook now comes from this encyclical. Reflecting on this feedback also inspired me to include a lesson on World Youth Day with a link to Pope Francis’ message to young people. Adding this lesson helped me to expand the curriculum from just examining places of religious significance to the act of pilgrimage as a journey, further enhancing the curriculum.

I had the benefit of ongoing collaboration and co-creation with my colleagues in the RE department as indicated throughout this chapter. Their input was instrumental in

shaping the curriculum from ideas to fruition. As I developed the curriculum the feedback I received from my colleagues was essential to ensure that it brought together our collective ideas to create a personalised curriculum for our workplace. At RE department meetings we sat together and decided on the learning outcomes for the curriculum, discussed the pedagogy, agreed on the assessment tasks and marking scheme for the student project and shared technology tips. As I wrote content my colleagues provided valuable constructive feedback. Figure 4.26 is evidence of hand written feedback I received from a colleague on an early draft of the curriculum. Figure 4.27 is evidence of the willingness of my colleagues to share their personal perspectives as well as their photographs to enhance the curriculum.

Figure 4.26: Written feedback Figure 4.27: A colleague’s perspective

Welcoming this constructive feedback I could see how it moved me beyond my own limitations. I reflected on this in my journal:

Laura felt that the chapter on Awe and Wonder was too focused on places and nature and said that for her becoming a parent is what comes to mind. I realised that the content only reflected my own perspective and luckily Laura was happy to share beautiful photographs of her daughter to illustrate the point. (Journal

The importance of being open to co-creation had to be balanced with my role as researcher. Therefore it was up to me to decide what ideas were worth incorporating and what ones were not. The following extract from my journal shows evidence of feedback I received that I acknowledged but did not fully agree with:

Aoife would like to see a section on Taizé and Laura suggested more places of pilgrimage in other world religions, not just Islam. I understand that Taizé provides a unique ecumenical dimension but I have to draw the line about what places to include lessons on. Islam is included because students already study this religion in second year. The lesson on Jerusalem looks at it as a sacred city for Jews, Christians and Muslims. I don’t want to write background lessons on religions they have not studied yet. Students can still pick any place, from any world religion for their research component. I can add relevant web links to help facilitate this but I don’t think it is realistic to try and cover any more places in detail (Journal entry extract, 20/03/16).

Some of my final feedback from my colleagues came as used the iBook artefact with their class. The feedback questions that I had prepared as starting point for discussion was shared with colleagues to prompt formative feedback. (See appendix H). My colleagues also noted minor spelling and grammatical errors as well as some technical issues.

Table 4.3: Colleague  feedback and resulting  action to improve artefact

The feedback I received continued to shape the content. Figure 4.28 is an example of specific ideas for content that came from my colleague Laura after her first time

Feedback Action

The link on page 14 doesn’t work Replaced with another link On the quiz on page 19 option three has

two answers together

This was a typo and was removed When I clicked on the picture on page 22

nothing happens

This was an error as originally I made it a link but that link was moved

The instructions for the digital disciple activity at the end of chapter 3 were not clear to the students

Edited the text and elaborated on the task

The slideshow on Jerusalem doesn’t work

It works once you click inside the box first so no action was needed

using the lesson on ‘awe and wonder’. This feedback was incorporated into the second iteration of the iBook artefact.

Figure 4.28: Colleague content contribution

The issue of copyright for images was as difficult for me as it had been for the student created iBooks. As a starting point my passion for travelling and photography meant I had plenty of my own photographs to use. The mobility of the iPads, as highlighted in the literature (Melhuish and Falloon 2010), made them ideal for accompanying us on the trips to Lourdes, Glendalough and Lough Derg so I was able to take photographs specifically for Wonderlands. I didn't want to limit myself to my own photographs, and this wasn’t possible when adding in lessons on places that I have never been to. Advice for websites that provide copyright free images came from my digital champions. The emphasis on collaboration in the EEA helped to overcome these limitations and improve the design of my iBook. Dr. Crotty invited me to meet Sr. Tess Ward, an avid iBooks Author who has developed bilingual literacy programmes for remote indigenous communities in Australia. After sharing my struggle for images of the Holy Land she emailed me a folder of her

photographs with permission to use them for my iBook and also for my students to use as seen in figure 4.29.

Figure 4.29 Collaborating to overcome copyright issues for images

The collaboration further extended to my colleagues and students who kindly shared their photographs. See figure 4.30 for an example of photographs students shared from their pilgrimage to World Youth Day.

Figure 4.30: Student content co-creation

The collaborative nature of the iBook design further brought to life my vision of creating a curriculum with and for my school community. The advanced levels of collaboration and co-creation that the EEA facilitates ensured that my colleagues and students felt a sense of ownership of the Wonderlands curriculum.