Crucial Thought

Live blogging Deneen Frazer Bowen’s session. She’s an actor and educator, I think.

My comments are in ALL CAPS, but so far I haven’t put any in.

REMEMBER ALL THIS IS MADE UP. SHE IS ACTING AND HAS WRITTEN HER OWN SCRIPT.

She came out as Dr. Priscilla Normal, Ed.IDDDD and then tranformed herself into Jose Rodriguez, supposedly in 7th grade.

He calls himself J Rod, drummer for the Remote Messages, and he’s a kid who wakes up to his cell phone and then jams with his band who are all around the world.

His bass player is in Seattle and is 42 years old. Tony is in Sao Paolo Brazil and plays trumpet and is 10 years old.

A vocalist/lyricist is in Prague, la bonita Tonia.

The Remote Messages put their music out there and let folks remix their music. Showing OWL Music search.

Segue into a takingitglobal.org video from their contest that kids submitted.

She had a Keynote issue, it was automatically transitioning away from her video. She came back up as the prior student and played it off magnificently.

Now she’s back out as Angela Caldwell, a high school senior that likes video games to help her become a better surgeon. She proved her teacher wrong when she told her that video games are pointless.

School is easy, I need my own path to learning.

School gives you an assignment, you plug stuff in. 5 minute speech + PullerPint slide +chalkboard template.

If we don’t tell our stories the way we want to, who will?

Angela has a best practices club. “Dr. Norml” said they could not go online because it was too dangerous.

She wants to be a brain surgeon. Art teacher taught her there are two sides to the brain.

She put up the slide with words jumbled up but that we can still read. If you keep the first and last letter the same but jumble the middle you can still figure it out.

Why can’t we all have IEP’s? She calls it the innovative exploration plan. I get on the internet and explore the questions I have about the brain.

The paragraph is like our teachers. There are teachers that are really kickin and the crappy ones. The ones in the middle want to do something but are clueless.

She’s tired of whining about the teachers behind their backs so she started the best practices club that help kids in the classroom. She read a book about best practices for teaching and learning, and then got an advisor. Mrs. Campbell is an advisor, but tells them it’s their thing. She asked them one question, come up with a list of what works.

What are the things that teachers do that help us?

The advisor said they can’t observe teachers without meeting with principal and union rep.

The “kids” made a video about what works for them. She’s showing a video from www.educationevolving.org.

Kids want to have a voice, be a part of the conversation. The principal is giving them a  faculty meeting.

She is asking us what the one or two methods that work well for us in helping to engage students.

Now she is asking the group to share those different ideas that they came up with as to how they engage their students.

I drifted off for a few minutes into my aggregator. Oops.

She’s talking about kids using the internet to help Darfur.

Another video while she quick changes.

This is a student from Kenya that made this video using MovieMaker.

She’s back who is she this time? Same outfit, flip flops, bandana, grooving to the music, native Kenyan music.

She’s used the word tight like six times already.

Her new name is Edy, pronounced Eddie.

She’s a 10th grader.

Showing her blog as the Saran Rapper. She was a kid you could see right through, and she’s an intellectual conversationalist on her blog.

She wants people to think about or feel something new because of her blog. Her blog was put into the newspaper, and her principal told her she can take it off the Internet or leave. So she dropped out.

She is showing a letter to the editor. The kid is frustrated.

Now she attends a virtual school. Virtual means something like a real thing but she calls it real. The virtual school calls her a learner. A number of more times for the word right. Now she’s motivated to learn.

She’s saying that her virtual school is not like correspondence, she’s watching movies and interacting. The reason her virtual school is real is because:

1. She learns at her own pace.

2. She asks the questions.

3. Discussions with no right answer.

4. Keep my eye on the prize. She’s got a picture of herself with cap and gown for motivation.

Another letter to the editor, says kids can read stuff online and keep moving. Kids want to learn at their own pace.

Oddly enough, she’s reading slides to us.

She says kids have better relationships because they take the time to listen. They share who they are and are more tolerant.

Instant Messaging is now the business standard.

Kids are reading online instead of books.

By creating content kids are learning content.

88% of kids who dropout cite being bored but have passing grades.

She’s back as herself. She says what we heard from kids voices really came from kids voices. She says she didn’t make it up.

END