TEL.A.VISION | It's Your Story

Vision Videos Empower Students – District Administration

Posted on 12. Jul, 2009 by Ringmaster in All Posts, Media, Power of Vision, TEL.A.VISION News

A new Web-based tool, Tel.A.Vision, inspires young people to dream the possible dream.

By Mary Johnson Patt June 2009

District Administration Magazine, the magazine of School district Management, completed a three page article on TEL.A.VISION  in its June/ July NECC issue. Here is an excerpt: 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.” The 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.

“We have a huge vision deficit in this country,” Johnson explains. “There 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 still photographs, music and computer animation—created with tools available online at www.telavision.tv.

Read the entire District Administration article here

TEL.A.VISION Adopted by all Youth

Posted on 24. Apr, 2009 by Ringmaster in All Posts, How to Help!, Vision Videos

We started piloting TEL.A.VISION by working with 120 5th graders at a suburban school. The students and teachers readily adopted it. One Teacher said,”I can think of nothing I could have done to get to know my students better.”

Next we took TEL.A.VISION to a Junior High and 350 7th graders completed TEL.A.VISIONs. The students were near unanimous in calling the project their favorite homework assignment of the year. One girl, who hadn’t completed an assignment all year finished her video and in her diary said “Its about time someone asked us what we wanted.”

We created a Vision for an alternative School in Switzerland and the teacher said ” This is the best behaved I have ever seen our children.”

A class of slow learners did TEL.A.VISION  videos. The teacher said ” These are kids who don’t read, don’t right and don’t participate. We were blown away with what they accomplished.” ( One of there videos is shown below.)

Recently a group of teenage girls of color, the Divas, completed beautiful TEL.A.VISION  videos. They did a beautiful job and the teachers are already using the videos as a way to reinforce studying habits and appropriate behavior.

A few weeks ago I was at the Red Wing Juvenile Corrections Facility. The warden loves the idea of having the residents create TEL.A.VISION videos. I asked one resident if he would like to do one. He said he already knew what he would say in his:

• I make my mother proud
• I get my GED and graduate from High School
• I find a full time job
• I hang with friends that appreciate me

What we have seen is that all youth regardless of economic status, age, race or personal circumstances want the opportunity to dream of their futures of hope and possibility. Please help us spread the word.

DIVAs aim for right notes

Posted on 21. Apr, 2009 by Ringmaster in All Posts, Power of Vision, TEL.A.VISION News

Project DIVA connects caring adults who act as mentors with girls planning where their lives will take them.

Photo by Neal St. Anthony

In a front page business section article in today’s Star Tribune columnist Neal St. Anthony features project Divas and the difference creating TEL.A.VISION  videos has made in their lives.

“I have a vision of my future that helps me stay on track,” said Caprice Whimper, 16, a student at Dunwoody Academy, a charter school. “I want to be an ‘A’ student. And I want to be an ‘OB-GYN’ doctor. I take care of young siblings. And I always have wanted to help women and kids.”

Teara Hinton, 14, another North Side resident and student at Armstrong High in Plymouth, also envisions a medical career.

“My aunt is a nurse,” Hinton said. “I want to be a doctor, a pediatrician, and work in the city with kids.”

The Divas were training other youth to do TELA.VISION  videos at the Wired for 2020 event sponsored by the Minnesota Mentoring Partnership, www.mentoringworks.org

Here is an example of one of the Diva’s videos:

TEL.A.VISION and Minneapolis Public School Graduation Requirements

Posted on 08. Apr, 2009 by Ringmaster in All Posts, Media, TEL.A.VISION News

In a feature story in today’s  Southwest Journal, TEL.A.VISION’s new relationship with the Minneapolis Public Schools is explained.

Tel.A.Vision will be incorporated into Minneapolis Public Schools My Life Plan, a post-college planning activity that is required for graduation beginning next school year. Creating a vision video will be one option for seniors to complete the My Life Plan requirements.

For Minneapolis Public School students, the vision videos they create using Tel.A.Vision will focus on post-high school college and career aspirations.

Southwest’s Jastrow said high school seniors would have the option of creating a vision video for their capstone project, the final step in completing My Life Plan. For their capstone project, seniors must produce something — such as an essay or art project — that both reflects on their high school career and also looks ahead to life after high school.

Jastrow said the district’s AchieveMpls coordinators and licensed school counselors recently were trained in using Tel.A.Vision. Several of the adults created their own videos within an hour or so of being introduced to the program, which means Tel.A.Vision should be a snap for today’s tech-savvy kids, she said.

Jastrow said students are drawn to interactive media. And like generations of teens long before the Internet Age, they crave control.

That’s exactly what Tel.A.Vision gives them, she said.

“They’re able to combine music and pictures [with] their thoughts and personality,” Jastrow said. “They can put their stamp on what it will be.

Wired for 2020 to Feature TEL.A.VISION and DIVAS

Posted on 02. Apr, 2009 by Ringmaster in All Posts, Supporters, TEL.A.VISION Stories

About Wired for 2020

TEL.A.VISION  and Project Divas will be at the Wired for 2020 event at the Mall of America from 10-5 on Saturday April 18th. Come and learn how to make a TEL.A.VISION Video and than sit down at one of our interactive stations and make one yourself.  Here is a link to a post about the Divas project.

Mentor and Youth Engagement

Wired for 2020 is the Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota’s year long engagement campaign to get more mentors involved with youth in the state of Minnesota. It is our mission to interest caring adults in becoming mentors to youth.  Caring adults who are willing to help young people spark their future career interests and expand their possibilities. Through the Wiredfor2020.com website and event at the Mall of America on April 18th, the Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota hopes to provide youth and their mentors with resources, edutainment, and social media tools to engage them in conversations about their future opportunities.

The Wired for 2020 Event is at the Mall of America Event on Saturday 4.18.09 from 10am-5pm in the Best Buy Rotunda and the West Market and is open to the public.

Dr. Chinta Mani Yogi Chi and Vision

Posted on 23. Jan, 2009 by Ringmaster in All Posts, Power of Vision, Supporters

I just returned from the World Spirit Forum in Arosa, Switzerland. While there I had lunch with Dr. Chinta Mani Yogi Ji (his bio and website). Yogi Chi is from Nepal and is the founder of three schools, an ashram and the Society for Value Education. He is also a patron for the Youth Society for Peace (more here). He is widely known throughout Nepal. Over 500 youth have been part of the  Youth Society for Peace and every year he sends a few youth to the World Spirit Forum.

I asked him what he does with the youth in the Youth Society for Peace and he told me the story he tells the youth. “You can learn mathematics but you can not own mathematics. You can learn science but you can not own science. You can learn reading but you can not own reading. So what is it you can own yourself? The only things you can own yourself are your values and your vision. What I tell the youth is that they must have their own set of values and they must have a vision for their lives.” He told me “This is the key to peace and what I teach the youth.“

I showed Yogi Ji TEL.A.VISION and he loved everything about it. He promised he would bring this to his youth. He shared that there are many obstacles including having only 8 hours of electricity each day and spotty Internet access but that he would make this happen. He also invited me to Nepal to work with his youth.

His comments on TEL.A.VISION and his interest in bringing it to his students was another confirmation that we can make TEL.A.VISION  a world movement.