About – Do Lectures

Kinda like Tedx or Ignite, but more oriented around action and getting things done to change the world. Nice.

About – Do Lectures:

” The idea is a simple one— that people who Do things can inspire the rest of us to go and Do things, too. So each year we invite a set of people down here to come and tell us what they Do. They can be small Do’s or big Do’s or just extraordinary Do’s. But when you listen to their stories, they light a fire in your belly to go and Do your thing, your passion, the thing that sits in the back of your head each day, just waiting, and waiting for you to follow your heart.

To go find your cause to fight, your company to start, your invention to invent, your book to write, your mountain to climb. The one thing the Doers of the world Do, apart from Do amazing things, is to inspire the rest of us to go and Do amazing things too. They are fire-starters.”

Truth in advertising…

I have had quite a few people follow me on twitter recently that weren’t exactly people. They were organizations and schools. They were large groups of people that all somehow are tweeting with the same account. This, is a little unsettling to me and I’m not sure why.
 
I guess it is partially because I believe it is a little less than genuine to have a single voice represent an entire entity. I also believe that many groups are joining twitter simply to advertise that they are on twitter. This is even less genuine.
 
To me, an organization should encourage all of it’s members to become a part of a learning network. It should ask all of it’s employees to have heir own voices and then stream them all into a single place. The school should aggregate the conversation about learning in their space, not merely give updates as to the merits of their latest program changes.
 
You raise the level or discourse about any topic by giving that discourse an official channel. By asking all participants in an organization to tweet on behalf of that organization, you can actually find the pulse of what is going on. Which is, after all, the major goal of Twitter.
 
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The educon 2.1 opening panel.

Idea one: The purpose of school is not to churn out a finished product. Innovation doesn’t come from a place of completion.
 
Idea two: If we mean 99 percent of the places that we call school, I would say there is no purpose.
 
The purpose should be to be THE place to go and create, learn, and build real things.
 
Idea three: The purpose changes. Does the purpose take into consideration of all cultures and ideas. It can’t just be the transmission of values, other than inquiry.
 
Idea four: The purpose of school is to create community.
 
The best thing you might be able to do in a day is getting the students to talk to one another.
 
Idea five: The purpose of school is to learn how to communicate.
 
You have to be able to present arguments and convince people that you know what you are talking about.
 
Calibrate what students know as important, difficult, and original.
 
Idea six: The purpose of school is to expose kids to people who are actually doing what is possible.
 
Perhaps it is in finding out how things really work. Perhaps it is in not knowing everything. Perhaps it is in knowing exactly what you want to do with your life.
 
Idea seven: The purpose of school is to be the great equalizer. But the system can’t keep up.
 
We need to fix it so that schools are what they should be.
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Guest Teaching 12.05.08

Cores 1-4:

1. Discuss-on:
2. Brainstorm ways in which you would like to “reframe” A Christmas Carol:
3. 
4. Well, let’s talk about how we will be reframing A Christmas Carol using animation and microblogging.
5. First, XtraNormal will allow us to completely create the scene, choose the characters and their actions, and even add background music, all without having to record a single video frame or sound file. Let’s take a look.
6. Next, Edmodo will allow us to have some conversation around what we are creating and learning. It will allow us to all think out loud without having our thoughts become too entangled (or having it get deafeningly loud in here). It is the way that we will honor the process of creation and not just the product at the end.
7. The conventions of microblogging are as follows:

• Write down exactly what you are choosing to do with your project (which scene you are using, which characters, etc.)
• Write down why you are making the choices you are making (why put Scrooge on a beach, etc)
• Write down questions that you have about your project (why is Scrooge so angry; does he have to be in our reframed version?)
• Reply as much as you can to others.

As for the requirements for the movie, please use the following guidelines:

• Have no fewer than 5 dialog exchanges.
• Do not copy and paste words from the book/play. Rethink the dialog so that it is appropriate for the scene that you have created.
• Block out the entire scene before you click Action!
• Don’t forget to have tell your microblogger what you are thinking.