| It was such an honor and pleasure to connect with so many amazing teachers from all over the Bay Area on Saturday, November 14, 2015 at the Khan Academy Ambassador Kickoff Event. I was honored and incredibly humbled when I received the email congratulating me for becoming an ambassador for Khan Academy's first cohort of ambassadors. There were teachers from all over the bay area and extended bay area, including Santa Cruz, Napa, and Vacaville. The day started off with an amazing highlight among the many highlights throughout the year. After introductions were made with our "Two Truths and a Lie" activity, we had the pleasure of speaking with Salman Khan, the founder of Khan Academy. It was wildly exciting to see Sal on the big screen as we initiated a video conference with him. He was genuinely excited for each of us to be ambassadors of this wonderful non-profit organization that provides free, world-class education. Unfortunately, after about a minute, the audio didn't work. We were able to hear him but he wasn't able to hear us. Many of us ambassadors were already so excited that we got to speak with him a bit. It was truly a highlight of the day. However, the highlight did not end there. Sal said, "This doesn't seem to be working. I'll be right over." After about 10 minutes, Sal Khan walked in and we had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with him face to face. It was incredibly exciting. He not only shared his excitement about our participation as ambassadors, but he welcomed questions from us about Khan Academy, education, EdTech, and more. It was such a rich, honest, and thought-provoking discussion. I believe Sal probably would've stayed there longer if he didn't have to join a conference call with the ambassadors in Chicago at their kickoff event too. That was another highlight in the day. After our lunch, on the west coast, we had a video conference with the ambassadors in Chicago who were meeting for their kickoff event as well. We have had interactions with them through our ambassadors' portal within LearnStorm, and this was a great way to further the connection. It was great to meet them face to face, go through introductions, and share some highlights from our days and regions. Throughout the day we learned about the company, about our roles and responsibilities as ambassadors, and about the 2016 LearnStorm campaign. It was truly an amazing experience to discuss the mission and vision of Khan Academy in which anyone, anywhere can learn anything - for free. I can't wait for what's in store as a Khan Academy ambassador. (The following is a picture of the first time I met Sal Khan. I was at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View with other tech lead teachers from the Palo Alto Unified School District on March 26, 2015, and we happened to bump into him while touring the museum's Revolutions exhibit. It was incredible to meet him and he was so kind to pose for a picture with us.) |
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Another amazing evening of gathering with our TOSAs (Teacher on Special Assignment) to discuss relationships on #TOSAchat. Kelly Martin (@kmartintahoe) moderated this important chat discussing the importance of building relationships in our work as TOSAs, ways to support educators who are already on board and those who are hesitant or reluctant, and ways to keep teachers on track of their goals and objectives. It was another very powerful time of engaging in academic discourse with the #TOSAchat community. Here are some examples of the valuable insights that came from that evening's chat. For the complete Storify, follow this link.
What an incredible success! Last night was the first #TOSAchat on Twitter and there was such an amazing turn out with over 1,000 tweets during that hour for TOSAs (teacher on special assignment). #TOSAchat all began as an idea from Ben sometime in late June/early July this past summer. Ben reached out to Karly, Kelly, and me about starting this chat. We definitely jumped on board and things quickly materialized. We messaged each other within Twitter, starting out as tweets and then into a thread of a group direct messaging. Within the first few days we had discussed what we needed to get started and we had a lot set up already. We started a gmail account and registered the Twitter profile @tosachat. With the Google account, we create sheets of possible questions, a form for participants to fill out with suggestions for topics (Karly's foresight in making the chat interactive beyond the tweets), and had a place for the amazing graphics for @tosachat's profile and advertisement banners (from Kelly's creative mind). It was an incredible example of "teamwork that makes the dream work," as Ben often says. One thing I really appreciated was that we picked what seemed like a late start date for the chat at that time but it turned out to be perfect for several reasons.
Teamwork definitely makes the dream work. Please join us for #TOSAchat on Monday at 8:00 PST for incredible discourse with a fantastic community of educators. Here's the Storify for our inaugural chat in case you missed it. |
Joe YoungMath & STEAM Coach / TOSA in Palo Alto Unified School District. Categories
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