District Administration - June 2009 - (Page 52)

I Am Adventurous I Am the Expression of Music I Study Abroad Above is an excerpt from Tyaira Hayden-Downs’ Tel.A.Vision. Tyaira, an 11th-grader at Dunwoody Academy Charter School in Minneapolis, and her peers trained other young people to create their own videos at the Wired for 2020 event at the Mall of America in April. Vision Videos BY MARY JOHNSON PATT I A new Web-based tool, Tel.A.Vision, inspires young people to dream the possible dream. freshman year of high school, employing 21st-century technology such as the popular career-based software developed by Naviance to help students map their school and life journeys. But what is the ﬁrst step in inspiring those teens to deﬁne and pursue their passions? “Nothing happens without a vision,” says George Johnson, a former special education teacher and self-described “serial entrepreneur.” Johnson founded several successful technology and Internet companies in his home state of Minnesota, including Internet Broadcasting and TECHIES.com, before becoming what he calls a “vision coach” for scores of other business and community leaders. While heading up Entrevis, a company he founded that motivates adults to reach their full potential, Johnson realized he could do something similar for young people while they are still in school. “We have a huge vision deﬁcit in this country,” Johnson explains. “ ere is so much fear and negativity, especially in the media. I decided to start a movement about bringing more hope and possibility into the world, and to do it by helping kids create little three-minute visions of what they want their life to become.” Enter Tel.A.Vision. Johnson’s free Web tool gives today’s tech-savvy youth everything they need to create and share “vision videos.” A Tel.A.Vision is essentially a highly personal montage combining a student’s written hopes and dreams with IN EARLY MARCH, AS HE addressed the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., President Obama spoke at great length of the reforms he believes will give Americans “a complete and competitive education, from the cradle up through a career.” e proposals he laid out for improving early childhood education, K12 standards and assessments, graduation rates, teacher quality and college funding will be debated for months to come by thousands of school administrators, teachers, parents and politicians. It was the voice of a single teenager, however, that helped drive the president’s messages home that day. At the end of his speech, Obama quoted Yvonne Boroquez, a California student whose high school class recently made a video exploring the impact of the economic crisis on their dreams of higher education and professional employment. “It was heartbreaking that a girl so full of promise was so full of worry that she and her class titled their video ‘Is Anybody Listening?’” Obama said. “I am listening. We are listening. America is listening,” the president assured Boroquez and her classmates. What of the myriad young people who aren’t as far along in the life-planning process as Boroquez, students who need help identifying their dreams before they can be heard and mentored? Increasing numbers of school districts are starting the higher education drumbeat by the 52 June/July 2009 still photographs, music and computer animation—created with tools available online at www.telavision.tv. “Tel.A.Vision could never have been done before,” Johnson says. “It took the combination of high-speed Internet access (which we now have in most schools and over 50 percent of American homes), lowcost computer storage devices, access to music and photo ﬁles, and Web 2.0 software—which means there is no software that you have to buy to make this happen. Any kid who has access to a computer and the Internet can do this.” Several months before Tel.A.Vision’s oﬃcial launch in October 2008, Johnson tested the vision video concept in the Stillwater School District, east of Minneapolis, which serves the children in his hometown of Lake Elmo, Minn. e free online creation and sharing of personal videos instantly proved both appealing and accessible to 120 techsavvy ﬁfth-graders at Lake Elmo Elementary School, including Johnson’s own son, Adam. Johnson says the reaction was just as positive among the 700 middle school kids who created Tel.A.Vision videos at nearby Oak-Land Junior High. “One of my favorite stories is about an eighth-grader who had checked out, had not completed one assignment all year,” Johnson says. “She did her Tel.A.Vision video. And what she wrote in her diary was, ‘It’s about time somebody asked us what we want.’” District Administration http://www.telavision.tv http://www.TECHIES.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - June 2009

District Administration - June 2009
Contents
From the Editor
News Update
Stimulus Monitor
District Profile
Admin Profile
Crisis Response
Tech Disruptions
A Deeper Shade of Green
The New School Lunch
Business Brings Sustainable Lessons to School
A Netbook for Every Student
Vision Videos Empower Students
New Books
How Well Does This Web Site Work?
New Products
Problem Solution
Online Edge

District Administration - June 2009