Thursday, March 03, 2011

A Special Request for Student Videos on Changing Education!

I'm at the world-famous TED Conference--you know, where all the great videos come from.  :)  I'm actually part of a project called TEDActive, where as part of a group focused on education we were asked to consider a project we could do that would impact education, and especially would provide students with a chance to play a central role in that impact.

We launched our project tonight, http://www.elev8ed.org, a site for students to upload 2 - 3 minute videos that
  • Offer new ideas for what education could be
  • Inspire others to transform education
  • Propose specific actions you or others can take to improve education in your community
Tomorrow, I will give a short presentation on the TEDActive stage, calling on all those in attendance at TEDActive to reach out to at least one student and encourage or help him or her to upload a video.  It would be wonderful if there were a few videos already on the site from some students!  If you are in a position to help make this happen with a student or students by mid-morning tomorrow California Time (US Pacific GMT-8), we'd love the support.  If not, I hope you'll consider encouraging them to participate at some point soon.

Thanks so much!  In order to facilitate quick posting of content, I've turned off membership and video moderation overnight, but will turn it back tomorrow morning and will check to make sure nothing inappropriate is up.

5 comments:

  1. I have three or four great student interview videos to share, but will need to determine the parental permission issue before these go out to the web. It may not be possible within your time frame.

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  2. Thanks Nettie! Not to worry, would love to have then whenever!

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  3. What a great thing to do, Steve! Unfortunately, I'm only teaching false beginner to A1 level kids at the moment. Just started a private lesson yesterday with an 11-year-old boy who has been labelled as "problem child" who is not capable, gets bad marks at English (studies EFL at school). In our first lesson asked him if he would like to learn through a blog, where he would post his ideas on things of his interest. His first post was about his plan with his blog written in English. I must admit I can't remember the last time when I saw a kid leaving with such pride and sense of achievement. When I asked for feedback at the end of the lesson, he told me that he had learnt a lot,quote "Now I understand!" specifiying exactly the grammatical structures(!), collocations(!)- mind you, there was no grammar or language explanation at all during the lesson - and language and web2.0 skills. So why has he got problems at school?
    Had this happened earlier, I would've asked him to make a video about his thoughts on education. He is a bright and intelligent kid, who knows what he wants to learn, but doesn't fit the system, it seems.
    Hope to keep in touch and let you know about his achievements, including his blog.

    Erika

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  4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqFvjhmkopg

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  5. @Charlie: thanks, I added the video to the site.

    @Erika: heart-warming. Thanks!

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I hate having to moderate comments, but have to do so because of spam... :(