Actionable Innovations Global is a professional learning community where participants explore innovation in education. Every Friday, we meet to discuss trends in education and invite inspiring guests to join us and share their work. Parents, educators, students, and others interested in improving teaching and learning are always welcome.
Join us on Friday, March 17th, for an Actionable Innovations Conversation with Bob Greenberg of the Brainwaves Video Anthology. Bob Greenberg has spent 30 years as a public school teacher, 15 years in Stamford, CT, and 15 years in Bridgeport, CT. In between, he spent 15 years as a full-time professional magician working trade shows and hospitality events for corporate clients, including IBM, 3M, and CIGNA.
The Bridgeport Public Education Fund recognized him as an Outstanding Teacher in 2007. The Connecticut Association of School Librarians honored him with the 2012 Pellerin Classroom Teacher Award for “collaborating to advance student learning.” His project “Bringing Books to Life” used stop-motion animation and green screen video. He has presented this project at ISTE Philadelphia and CECA Hartford, Tech Forum New York, and BLC Boston. He was twice invited to bring his students to Tech Expo in Hartford, where they shared their work with the State Legislature and met with the Governor. He also wrote the technology presentation that helped his school become a Lone Pine Award winner.
Bob’s classroom had no walls, and his students, known as “The Brainwaves,” had their own class blog where they shared their work and communicated with classes around the world. To prepare his students for the future, where they will live in a global economy, his class participated in global project-based learning. Bob’s second and third-graders Skyped with students in Argentina, Canada, Guatemala, New Zealand, Indonesia, Bulgaria, Russia, and the USA. He helped organize a Global Newspaper with contributions from children from seven countries. He also helped organize a global video project for the International Day of Peace. Drawing on his contacts, he enlisted 26 classes from 18 countries from every continent except Antarctica.
While teaching, he posted over 150 student videos SchoolTube. Since retiring in June 2013, he has traveled the country filming the thinkers and doers in Education, including Sir Ken Robinson, Noam Chomsky, Herb Kohl, Jonathan Kozol, Linda Darling Hammond, Ken Burns, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Diane Ravitch, Yong Zhao, and Jerome Bruner. His YouTube Channel, The Brainwaves Video Anthology, is a growing collection of 2,000 five-minute bite-sized video lectures from thought leaders at Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, and more. It has more than 5 million views in 234 countries.
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