0014: Help Me Help Teachers. Hashtag, #3forteachers

let us begin with a closed-circuit
message to one of my viewer listeners
Jeff Holman who was the only person last
week to send me an email asking if I was
okay because he didn’t get the video yes
I am fine which kind of proves to me
that this podcast is not going to ever
be on a government list of approved
essential podcasts you know I hope it’s
helpful to people but it’s certainly not
the most important thing and last week
when you find out why I did not do a
podcast episode last week I think you’ll
understand and I’m hoping you’ll give me
some help we’ll find out what that’s all
about up next on this episode of the vo
heroes podcast
[Music]
here’s what’s been going on and why I
didn’t do a podcast episode last week
and I didn’t send out a podcast saying
I’m gonna I’m gonna do a podcast episode
next week I just wanted to let you know
because that would have been crazy but
here’s what happened a little bit over
two weeks ago
it became really obvious to me that
teachers were gonna be struggling the
schools were being closed the classrooms
were being shuttered the kids were being
sent home the teachers were being sent
home they were waiting tearfully to each
other maybe they lived in the same
neighborhood and they could walk around
and wave from the sidewalk but clearly
there was a period of isolation going on
it was gonna be a little bit different
in their experience and their kids
experience then maybe the rest of us and
it also became very clear to me very
quickly when after they’ve been home for
a day or so and they started getting
emails from the principal or the school
board or the administration saying hey
while you’re sheltering in place and
social distancing and all that keep
teaching your classes yeah don’t stop
teaching you’re climbing you know how to
use the the Facebook live and the
YouTube and the zoom and what isn’t it
called is called zoom Airy yeah it’s
called zoom you know that’s what they
were getting was notes like that
and some of them were like what are they
talking about I don’t know I don’t know
what to do here I don’t I don’t have the
equipment to do this or the space to do
this and I realized right at that moment
when I started hearing that over and
over and over again that I could do
something about it and so I did a little
bit over two and a half weeks ago I
started what’s called a development
sprint where you pack night and day work
into getting something one project done
as quickly as possible as deeply as
possible and I wanted to do it as fast
as possible because I knew they were
gonna need it soon and what I did was I
created a course called teach your
course online and you’ll find it at
teacher course online.com and what
you’ll find there is a course that talks
to teachers about what they did in the
classroom and how to do that from home
but by celebrating how do
print online is from in person it shows
you how to choose the space in your
house that you’re gonna be teaching from
and how to set up lights so that you can
be seen and look professional and what
cameras to use and if what you’ve got is
what you’ve got how to use those even
better how to set up a microphone how to
use a tablet as an electronic whiteboard
how do you zoom I did that episode a
couple weeks ago where I showed you real
quickly how to lock zoom down so the you
earn zoom bombed well in the lesson that
I put in the course I went as you know
step by step by step through every
single setting in zoom to show you
whether to enable it disable it what to
do and all that just to make sure that
you’re super super safe and I by the way
made that lesson open to the world and
then I talked about online culture and
how to create a good online culture for
your students and then how to take what
you’re learning in this course and maybe
develop your own course maybe you’re a
math teacher who loves magic and you
want to teach magic online well take
what you’re learning in this course and
create your own course and make some
money with it while we’re in these tough
times so that’s what the course was all
about it’s available right now
I finished it up over the weekend I was
right in the midst of it last week
that’s why I didn’t do a podcast episode
and I finished it I finished it in
quotes I still have some things to do
and I’ll do it with the help of the
teachers that are looking at it now
there were some things that I had
questions about and I want to serve that
community so it’s sort of like a
feedback loop that I’m gonna get but for
the most part it’s done and I was gonna
sell it for $49 I figured pretty much
every teacher can afford 50 bucks right
and even if a teacher had contacted me
and said I just I don’t have $50 I would
have given them the course and when I
said that out loud
it made me think why don’t I just do
that for everybody
so in the middle of having talked to my
team about how we were gonna sell it and
how it was gonna be in the shopping cart
and how it was gonna be accessed and how
we were gonna create a group around it I
decided to give it away for free and
well first let me let me play a clip for
you here’s here’s a clip from the
episode I think we’re gonna play a clip
on the lighting so go three-point
lighting and it’s how Hollywood lights
most scenes now I’m gonna demonstrate
how this works ooh
scaredy kids all the nights are off
I’ve actually got a room light from the
other room just so you can see the
outline of what I’m doing but the first
thing I’m gonna do is I’m going to turn
on the key light and that’s gonna be up
and to my right and when I turn that on
you’re gonna see that it lights the
right-hand side of my face so let’s take
a look at that so there we go that’s
with my key light on but it kind of
looks like I’m sitting in the middle of
a stage somewhere with a spotlight
shining down on me there’s a lot of
shadows underneath my face the key light
does a good job of giving light but what
we want to do is even things out we want
to add a fill light so let’s do that
there we go
now we have a fill light but it’s not as
bright as the key light the key light is
let’s call it a hundred percent and the
fill light is more like 50 or 60 percent
that’s why I said use a 100 watt bulb if
you’re gonna put a lamp close to you and
use a 60 watt bulb if you’re gonna put a
lamp close to you on the other side so
key light 100 percent fill light 50
percent now I mentioned you can make it
even better looking and more like
Hollywood but get that cinematic look by
adding a third light a hair light a
backlight here’s what that looks like
there you go see the difference it’s
subtle but it makes a big difference it
helps outline my head a little bit
better so that’s what all the courses
lessons are like we do that with the
camera we do that with the microphone we
do that with your tech systems with
everything so it’s gonna be given away
for free and when I first started the
point was to create a sales video a
video that people would see if they
clicked on a Facebook link an ad they
would be taken to something that told
them why I did it and what the problem
was and how I was gonna solve that
problem and then how to get it and that
video quickly became an informational
video let me just play the beginning of
that for you so you’re a teacher and I
bet when you started planning the new
school year last summer you probably
didn’t have on you’re gotta get this
done immediately list I have to learn
exactly how to teach online exactly what
I teach in my classroom it’s going to be
very important later this year but then
all this happened unprecedented
disastrous developments have taken us
completely by surprise that dominated
the news forced us to take drastic
safety measures shutting down all the
businesses halting the economy and
stopping life as we knew it closing
schools and sending kids and you home
and now we’re all sheltering in place
wondering how to simply survive this
mess and then the principal sends you an
email hey while you’re at home
sheltering in place and social
distancing and all that
do your best to teach your class online
okay good luck no training no nothing I
mean they think everybody knows how to
do it right but do you know how to do
that or are you struggling teaching over
the Internet is not a skill that you
learn in high school or even in the
education classes you got at university
or a requirement for your certificate so
how that video was going to end was okay
just click the button below and pay $49
and you’re in the course and now it’s
just click the button below and you’re
in the course
and what happened at that point was
everything changed about the strategy
everything changed about what we were
doing and by the way this is where you
come in so pay attention everything
changed about how we were going to
distribute it how we were gonna get the
word out and how we were gonna structure
things I actually hired a PR firm to get
the word out to get me on on television
shows and and radio shows and podcasts
and interviewed in in websites and stuff
to talk about this and why I’m doing it
and the press release that I created for
a PR firm the headline was Hollywood
actor rushes to get course created for
teachers to be able to teach from home
online and then the subhead was secretly
hopes everyone gets it for free and he
has no paying customers because I really
do hope that for the next 30 days the
course is free and I don’t mean for the
next 30 days it’s free and then I start
charging you I mean it’s free well if
you get it in the next 30 days it’s free
forever
after that I’ll start charging the $49
for it but in this 30 days when we need
it most
it’s gonna be free and I was sharing
this with a number of friends including
one very close friend who I’ve known for
a long time Jen Psaki who is a professor
of psychology I think she was at
Berkeley she ran there summer camps but
she was a Berkeley a faculty member and
very much into the education community
very much understands how teachers think
how teachers are trained what what helps
them what hurts them and she said you
know you really should be careful about
this because talking to people about how
to look good on camera and have lights
and a microphone and all that that could
make some feel sad or inadequate and
they’re already sad about what’s going
on already angry so you might want to
say something about that and I took that
to heart and here’s what proceeds the
very first lesson in the course before
we get started I want to acknowledge the
big elephant in the room I would not
have created this course if it wasn’t
for the coronavirus this
absolutely incredible disaster that
nobody saw coming nobody saw the disease
coming nobody saw the effects on society
the changing of social norms the
shuttering of businesses and the closing
down of schools and the closing of
classrooms and sending our kids home
sending you home and then being in some
cases very dismissively notified by the
school system that you should continue
teaching your classes just teach you
from home like how hard can it be you
guys know about the YouTube right
no preparation in some cases no
equipment no training no understanding
of the the differences between in person
and online connections I I want you to
understand that I get the pain I feel it
myself but not to the degree that I’m
sure you do it’s hard you know school is
organized for teaching success the
schoolroom the classroom your home your
home is designed for personal success
right sleeping and eating and watching
television and washing your clothes in
the laundry room the laundry room was
not designed for school teaching success
and so you’re being asked to shove a
square peg into a round hole and I want
you to understand something very
important this class is not about saying
you’ve got to get a really expensive
microphone you’ve got to get a really
expensive camera
this class is about taking what you have
and making it better if there’s a little
nugget that you pick up when I talk
about using your smartphone as your
camera that you didn’t know before then
I feel incredibly awesome for that if
you can make things better great but
what I don’t want to have happen is I
don’t want you to feel sad or angry or
less than adequate or like an imposter
or anything that we often feel when
we’re presented with skills and
possibilities that we just can’t take
advantage of because we don’t have the
resources for it that’s not what this
class was about this class is about
helping teachers do something that they
weren’t planning on doing and they
weren’t prepared to do your superpower
is incredible
I want to use my superpower which is
using cameras and lights and microphones
and and being you know in a situation of
delivering information online to your
advantage but I wish I had your
superpower
I wish I had the superpowers of all the
teachers that I had growing up
you guys are heroes and I want you to
understand that and then I feel your
pain and then I’m gonna do what I can to
help so let’s get started
[Music]
okay I had to do that part like I think
four times before I did one where I
wasn’t crying like a baby at the end
like a little baby but it’s important I
didn’t want it to be a struggle between
the digital haves and the digital
have-nots I didn’t want to be
contributing to the digital divide so
the course is all about taking what you
have and making it great all right so
here’s where you come in
if you could help me get the word out
I’d really appreciate it and I’ve given
you some tools first of all there’s
teacher course online comm right
second I created a little side hustle
for teacher course online.com and it’s
called
three four teachers comm the numeral
three fo our teachers com
and what this is is an acknowledgment
that we all have a lot more time we may
be more busy than we thought we’d be but
we all have a lot more time than we
thought we’d have at this point in our
lives because of what’s going on with
kovat 19 and I’m asking you for three
minutes each day for the next 30 days so
a total of 90 minutes across a month an
hour and a half but three minutes and it
probably won’t even take you three
minutes to do what I’m asking here’s
what I’m asking when you take this three
minute period go to Twitter first and
tweet something short and sweet and
pithy about how awesome and fantastic
and amazing and heroic teachers are
include the hashtag 3 for teachers and
the link 3 for teachers com that will
drive people who see that back to this
particular site 2 3 4 teachers comm site
then just copy what you tweeted go over
to Facebook and paste it and then go
over to LinkedIn and paste it and then
go over to tumblr or Instagram or
wherever and paste it and if you want to
go crazy and make little memes about it
that would be great too I just want to
drive people back 2 3 4 teachers calm
when they go there if they’re a teacher
they’ll find a link to the course and if
they’re not a teacher they’ll find out
how to do all this that I’m asking you
to do and it’s not a lot in the demo
that I have on that side I think it took
a grand total of 144 seconds to do what
I just said
and I think if you do that enough people
will pick up on three four teachers calm
that we might make something viral oh my
gosh it would be great because it would
get the word out it would help spread
the joy of teaching and teachers and it
would really help me help our kids and
the people that we place our trust in to
take care of them and lead them on a
daily basis would you do that for me
would you help me I’d appreciate it
go to three four teachers calm the final
part of that whole three minute thing is
to then post what you what you tweeted
in the comments at 3:00 for teachers
calm to inspire other people maybe even
to give them something to copy and paste
themselves into those social networks
and let’s spread the word let’s get it
out there I’m putting a thousand dollars
of Facebook ad money behind this I
thought it was gonna make a little money
on this but it’s gonna end up costing me
and that’s fine that’s absolutely fine
if you could help me I’d really
appreciate it
so the course again is at teacher course
online.com that’s where you send any
teachers that you have in your family or
your friends or that you know about and
really teachers we’re all teachers so
you can go grab it too if you want and
if you could help me get the word out at
3:00 for teachers comm I’d really
appreciate that too and in fact this
episode I’m gonna ask you you don’t have
to leave a comment below for me and let
me know what you think about all this go
to three four teachers comm leave a
comment there that would be great so I
hope you understand why there was no
podcast episode next week there will be
in the future I promise I want to thank
you so much and as I often say and in
this case it has a little bit different
meaning and hopefully a more deep one I
hope this helps thanks for watching and
for listening I’m David H Lawrence 17th
and I’ll see you next time
[Music]