Heidi Hass Gable has done something special!

Here is her presentation, What I Want for My Children:

Her post simply says this:

My hope is that it will move you, it will motivate you,
it will make you think and it will inspire you to get involved in your child’s education,
to support your teachers and to be part of creating great schools!

Her subtitle: ‘Creating Great Schools — Together’ gets immediately to the heart of the matter.

The power of the message comes from the action she asks from parents…

… and what does she ask of teachers and all other educational partners? The exact same thing!

This comes shortly after the 5½ minute mark. This is what changes this video from a parent’s perspective to an educational partner’s perspective.

“If we want these things for our kids, then we have to do them for our teachers as well.”

Doing what’s best for our students, our kids, is what education is all about. It is what a collective WE want.

‘What I want for my children’ is a move in the right direction of meaningful collaboration that can only make our schools better.

It is finally done! I had planned on first showing my video version of A Brave New World-Wide-Web Slideshow in Boston at BLC08. I did it on Mac Powerpoint and it did not convert easily to video… it wouldn’t even convert to PC Powerpoint without the timing messing up! I spent hours on this! I ended up showing the powerpoint version and had a number of people ask me for the video version. Well, this weekend I converted it to pc Powerpoint, then with some $45 software, it is FINALLY done! This is a personally ‘story’ that I tell, but I think it can speak to others and I hope it speaks to you! Be brave! Do not go quietly into your classroom!

[Scroll down for a better version]

A Brave New World-Wide-Web

I plan to offer a downloadable version that is of a better quality here, but I’m off to spend some family time on the beach while the weather is still good. It is coming soon!

Update: High quality version below (& here) and available for download here.

The task was simple: Have your advisory pick an issue in the school and then create a video that promotes awareness of the problem and/or a solution to the problem. This is what Mr. Williams’ advisory came up with last year.

I like the use of camera direction to help tell the story. This to me is great storytelling… which is almost a lost art. Videos like this tell the story more by design than by content. Oh, and like all other Advisory projects this was not done for marks, yet you can tell the students were enthusiastic about participating.

Storytelling is something we should all spend more time on… as educators and students!

Licensed To Pill

Comedy or social commentary?

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New voices: #3 of 7, this blog is probably better read than mine, but again I think it is invaluable for educators to read: The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk.

In a recent post, Labels and Limits, David quotes a Washington Post article, “Increasing numbers of children are given increasingly specific labels, ranging from psychiatric and neurological diagnoses such as Asperger’s and attention-deficit disorder to educational descriptors including “gifted” and “learning disabled.” He argues that students don’t deserve ‘fixed limits’ or labels placed on them.

I think this fits with the idea of us living in an over-prescribed society… every teacher has met a kid that ‘needs’ medication to ‘fit into’ the classroom, but I wonder how much of this is an issue of placing square pegs in round holes? At what point do labels hinder rather than help?

After reading Christian’s Stop Blogging Because You’re an Educator over at think:lab, I have been more compelled to look for new voices outside of edublogs. I will continue to call it new voices, but really I am seeking out different perspectives whether new or not.