Marco Torres joined us today to talk about storytelling. The kind that he encouraged us, educators, to tell about our victories, our lessons learned, and our needs or concerns. The kind Finland is putting together under HundrEd initiative that we mentioned in a previous blog post (see 2/6/2016). Or, perhaps, every blogging educator is putting out there. He asked us to leverage- a term, any consultant or business development professional must have heard 100 times over in a given day. In our context, he asked us to leverage technology to enhance learning. Whether you use the SAMR model or any other interpretation of it, he encouraged educators to encourage students to solve some interesting questions, and along the way, ask some “what if” questions.
Connect the dots, he recommended. What are we doing? What does it matter? Why are we doing it? These three questions are building blocks of building metacognitive learners.
What was most interesting to us was the link he made between telling a story and film-making: Marco said to use a wide lens to tell the context of the story. Then, he suggested to use a medium-lens to point to the action. Finally, he recommended using a close-up to really give the details to the audience. Context, action, and detail.
Marco also encouraged us to plant the story seeds. Observe the seeds grow. Document the process.
Most importantly, he encourage us to share.
Create. Share. Connect. We believe these are essential action items in empowering the innovative minds. That’s how we can build culture of innovation.
Thank you, Marco, for reaffirmation. May the Force be with you and all of us, believers.
mpowerEDU 