Let’s tell our stories

Posted by David Wees ⋅ October 12, 2010 ⋅ 15 Comments

During #EdChat today, we discussed the need to find a way to share our stories with the mainstream in a way that the media, politicians and celebrities really have not been using. Our objective is not to stop the debate which is going on now about education but to add another perspective to the public debate.

Our thought is to create a Youtube channel of positive stories about education. We can potentially use this channel later as a way to collect footage for a documentary about the positive effects of education. Note that these stories can be student driven, teacher driven, parent driven, or administrator driven. In the end we want stories which come from the stake-holders in the future of our children.

The channel will be available at http://www.youtube.com/EducationStories. We’d like each of you to submit a 1 or 2 minute video about any positive aspect or story you want to share about education. The idea is to share a story which you think represents one the best thing about your school, the best thing about education, or what you think education should look like. You can share a link to an existing Youtube video and we will review it and then add it to our favourites so it will show up in our channel.

You can email EducationStories@gmail.com if you have questions, concerns, or want to share your story. Although linking to Youtube would be easier, the stories themselves would be organized under a specific account. This will require more work on our part, but will result in a better message being produced for the public. We’d also like you to add yourself to this list.

Your story should be in HD MP4 format as per this article if possible. We will also assume that you have the appropriate permissions to share your video. Please email me at EducationStories@gmail.com with any links to specific real world stories about education you think need to be shared.

About David Wees

David Wees is a Canadian teacher with 7 years international experience. He started his career in inner city NYC in a failing school. He met his wife in the spring of 2005 and together they moved to London, England where David taught in a small private school which was David’s first exposure to the International Baccalaureate curriculum. London was too expensive, even compared to NYC, so after 2 more years they moved on to Bangkok, Thailand where David taught for 2 years. David has co-authored a textbook for IB Mathematics, and has his Masters degree in Educational Technology. He is now in Vancouver, Canada, working as a learning specialist in technology. He blogs regularly at http://davidwees.com.

View all posts by David Wees »

Discussion

15 thoughts on “Let’s tell our stories”

Great idea. It dovetails exquisitely with our similar notion about daily dilemmas. I hope to contribute to both efforts soon.

When you say story, do you mean the story of my career – what brought me to my beliefs and practice now? A story from my classroom? An illustration of a teaching idea? Any of those?

Also, is it worth switching out the seldom used Future Topics tab for an Education Stories tab with some guidelines no only for formatting the videos, but for reminding us of common ethical considerations for discussing our schools, colleagues, and students? Any ethical differences between blogging and vlogging?

I look forward to watching this idea develop further –

Best,
Chad

Posted by Chad Sansing | October 12, 2010, 4:02 pm

Reply to this comment
- I think your idea of switching out that tab is a great idea. Having more guidelines up about what we expect is also good. Do you mind starting the tab and we can look at what you have and add our improvements (if necessary)?
  
  In terms of what the story should look like, I think that leaving a bit open-ended is fine. We’d like the stories to be somewhat positive in nature, but still give people who contribute an opportunity to share whatever stories they want (about education that is).
  
  Posted by dwees | October 12, 2010, 4:07 pm
  
  Reply to this comment
I’ll work on the tab this week and put a link in to the how-to guide you mentioned. If someone beats me to it, that’s cool.

Does anybody object to losing the Future Topics tab?

Best,
C

Posted by Chad Sansing | October 12, 2010, 4:18 pm

Reply to this comment
I added Teacher’s Story tab last week, but it can easily be reworked.

David

Posted by dloitz | October 12, 2010, 5:20 pm

Reply to this comment
Great discussion on #edchat today and I’m thrilled to see this started immediately. Hoping to see the videos come up real soon.

Posted by Vytheeshwaran Vedagiri | October 12, 2010, 5:27 pm

Reply to this comment
Woke up in the morning (Aus time) to see this great initiative had hatched overnight!
Would this be something students could create? Or is it an educator’s perspective?

Posted by whatedsaid | October 12, 2010, 5:51 pm

Reply to this comment
- This can definitely be something that students do. I’m 100% sure that there are students out there with awesome stories about what their experience of education has been.
  
  Posted by dwees | October 12, 2010, 5:53 pm
  
  Reply to this comment
Awesome! This is so exciting…taking #edchat forward from theory,to practice. Finally being able to wrap our arms around what could become a viral, powerful catalyst for #Edreform. All can participate. So who will lead us? Teachers, students, parents, admin? I say ALL! and “Stand Up for Edu”! Thanks friends for taking the lead on this much needed force for change!

Posted by Lisa Dabbs | October 12, 2010, 6:06 pm

Reply to this comment
Hey Friends…FYI the link to add ourselves to the list (google doc spread sheet) mentioned above is blocked.

Posted by Lisa Dabbs | October 12, 2010, 6:11 pm

Reply to this comment
Wonder what you all think about something like this…. or kickstarter, any of the new web 2.0 models of community sharing and partnership…. how might this type of thinking help to change teaching and PBL type or passion/interest teaching. Not so much in the making money or promoting one idea over another, but say in critiquing and working on Teaching researching idea or work, or better yet a way to gain community support for new types of teaching or learning, school or learning communities. What if a community or group of teachers could offer a vision and mission statement for a new public school and the community to vote on, the best idea, or the model. The way it might decentralize power might be transformational, it would need a lot of retooling but think their is a spark of an ideas there that can be drawn out and developed.

Just want to throw it out there!

David Loitz

Posted by dloitz | October 12, 2010, 10:47 pm

Reply to this comment
holy cow – how are you guys keeping up with yourselves..

Posted by monika hardy | October 13, 2010, 10:53 pm

Reply to this comment
This is totally cool, and thank you David. I am on for this and will get working.

Kirsten

Posted by Kirsten | October 14, 2010, 9:08 am

Reply to this comment