TIES 11: I-Imagine Waking Up A Generation To Their Own Greatness-Bernajean Porter

Bernajean Porter, an internationally known shared her work on Digital Storytelling, shared  i-Imagine, a project she has been working for the last few years to work on student engagement with telling their story.

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a TRUE leader-John Adams
77% of students report being bored at school.
Only 14% report having "Hope."
She asked, what is the role of IQ in a persons success? 4-8%
EQ-the Emotional Quota, of dreams and aspirations are much more important!
This CAN be instilled in students, but it needs brains on fire and hearts alive!
We need to go to "higher ground" to get at what kids really need.
She gave an example of a kid who was given the assignment of "drawing a city." He chose to use MineCraft to design it instead, and narrated over it.
 He gave a virtual tour of the emersive world that he had created for the assignment. What the student created is similar to this

Porter has seen technology get assimilated to do things that used to be done without, and not have an impact. She argues that we need to transform. Tapping into spaces where kids can connect and dream with the world is what needs to happen. 75% of learning is "Informal Learning!"
She thinks that we can serve the kinds of things for our students AND meet the accountability expectations of our politicians.
Educate-Can we be creative enough to use the power of technology to make this happen.

Reggio-Amelia philosophy is at the heart of this.
When technology innitiatives take place, pedagogy, like "students as documenters of their own learning," needs to roll with it! She gave a project going on in Canada right now with young students and iPads as an example of how this should and can happen.
Examples of students finding their passion, w/ technology as the power source.

• Breaking the Chain. a literacy program started by a 14 year old girl named Riley Carney. No one told her she couldn't do this!
• Blake, who got a grant when he was younger from Mozilla, and developed Firefox. He's 19 right now...
• David-Fire marshall in his town.
• We want kids to know that they matter no matter what age, or where they are.
• (Kids are Heroes!)
• New Global Citizens
• Citizen Reporting-NOAA
• The DNA of Learning from High Tech High in San Diego
• Project Tomorrow-Student Voices

When students find their passion, it changes the relationship between all their other studies!
How can we unleash that passion?


I-imagine! 
She shared a couple of quotes...

"I cannot do all the good the world needs. But the world needs all the good I can do

-Jana Stanfield

Yong Zhao-"No child has ever asked someone to standardize me!"

Students need Agency for their own learning!
Wake up the believer and dreamer in each student.
If you don't like the story you're standing in, start a new one!
It changes the maker and the destination!
In Sparks, Peter Benson talks about community connections resulting in higher grades, The Hope Survey

Assignment: Future of Me
Create your own future story, showing as many details of possible of what your life will be like.

• Vision Videos
• Docu-Dramas-As if your younger you has grown up
• Neuroplasticity-What do you want to be right about? The brain organizes around the thought you decide to hold.

Reality is what we all agree is possible/not possible

When you buy technology, you're not buying tools, but learning stories.

Future-Past-Present

Imagine it to be real, and then organize towards it. 

They are just wrapping up the teachers guide right now. They have created a "scrapbook" , and they found that "holding" the book, made it more meaningful for students.

Personal Passion-students didn't know what it looked like! 

Porter discussed having to follow Jane Goodall at a conference, talking about the passion she had for animals and Africa. There she met Louis Leakey, and the rest is history.....

Brainstorming
Minot, ND-Students activating and learning together on the project.




She then gave some examples of student work.
One student became a game-creator and built a house big enough to allow his mom to live there so he could support her as a way to "pay her back" for all of her support bringing him up!
Zhou-What if we had "talent-oriented curriculum?"

She left us with a challenge of looking for student passion, and being a sponsor of at least one of those students! She feels that technology can ignite some of that passion, and with our support, kids can make a difference!
Ask kids to be their "wiser self, giving advice to their younger self!"
We have a sacred promise when we become teachers to unleash students passion to take over the world!