TEL.A.VISION Helped Me Create a Doorway to Discuss ALC Student’s Futures

Posted on 03. Feb, 2010 by in All Posts, Power of Vision, TEL.A.VISION Stories

By Tom Wendt

St. Croix Valley Alternative Learning Center

I recently used TEL.A.VISION with two of my classes at the St.Croix Valley Alternative Learning Center (SCVALC). The students got into it. They took ownership of their videos. They all finished the project. The software was simple to use and there are online lesson plans to follow.

TEL.A.VISION got the students looking ahead; looking to their future. It was a doorway to open for me to have discussions on where they are headed and what they are doing.

I’ve often said that the hardest students to work with are those who have no direction. When a student has dreams and goals you have something to work toward. If you don’t have goals and you get knocked off course there is nothing to help steer you back. TEL.A.VISION gave them a foundation of goals that they can go back and change over time.

I’d highly recommend TEL.A.VISION for Alternative Learning Center students.

Big News From TEL.A.VISION

Posted on 05. Jun, 2009 by in All Posts, Media, Social Media and Vision, Supporters, TEL.A.VISION Stories, Web 2.0

5th Graders at Clear Springs Elementary on Parents Night

5th Graders at Clear Springs Elementary on Parents Night

The BIG news is that TEL.A.VISION  is becoming a non profit. Actually, it has always been a not for profit but we are just making it official. This will allow us to seek funds from foundations and individuals. I know that we will probably be rejected 10 times before we find someone willing to help fund us so if you know any organization or individual willing to be one of the first to talk to us let us know.

It’s hard to believe we launched only 8 months ago. In that time our partner Haberman has done a great job of getting us in all of the local press as well as the Christian Science Monitor. We had a successful TEL.A.VISION Day with a 24 hour broadcast of TEL.A.VISION videos on the Internet ( Thank you Steve). In May we did our first NYC press tour and from that will be covered in a 4 page spread in District Administration (Thank you Sue), a feature in Family Circle and have been told we will be in Scholastic and Time For Kids.

We have some exciting partnerships we are  working on.

  1. Having 6th, 9th and 12th graders in the Minneapolis Schools create vision videos as part of graduation requirements,
  2. Working with TIES Education,
  3. Partnering with Youth Services of America to create Service Learning videos,
  4. Working with The Discipline of Peace and Culture of Peace Initiative to create Peace videos,
  5. Discussions with SEARCH Institute and Templeton Press on creating a Vision Curriculum with Dr. Benson’s New book “Vision“
  6. An invitation to visit the staff of the Fetzer Institute.

While all of this holds great potential the most rewarding work has been to see the difference TEL.A.VISION  is having on youth. Three projects stand out.

  1. Working with the Divas of North Minneapolis. The Star Tribune did a nice article on them.
  2. Spending a day at Angelo Patri Middle School in the Bronx with 18 young people creating a new vision for their school ( The video is below). Their Vide Principal cried when she say it.
  3. Parent night at a Clear Springs Elementary in Minnetonka, where 75 people showed up to view amazing videos created by 5th graders .

We’ve started a new contest called “100 words for $100“. Tell us how you have used TEL.A.VISION and win a chance for $100.

Thank you all for your support of TEL.A.VISION. If you would like to receive regular updates on TEL.A.VISION sign up in the upper right hand corner.


Time Spent Online Important for Teens

Posted on 05. Mar, 2009 by in All Posts, Social Media and Vision

MacArthur Foundation logo

Since its release in November, the discussions within the blogosphere about this new study—and people on Twitter referencing it—has been a major driver of online conversation due to it being a key validation of the social media space, especially where it relates to the generation we’re raising, those who are poised to run our world.

Every intuition and knowing many of us have had—that one, huge benefit to TEL.A.VISION is empowering kids to become more new media literate and better able to communicate their individual visions—means that the release of this study and its findings will play a role as an informational milestone and one we thought you’d find intriguing as we did.

Kids’ Informal Learning with Digital Media: An Ethnographic Investigation of Innovative Knowledge Cultures is a three-year collaborative project funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Carried out by researchers at the University of Southern California and University of California, Berkeley, the digital youth project explores how kids use digital media in their everyday lives.

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