Video Story Problems Go Hollywood

There’s been a lot of traffic on Twitter and a few blogs (some of them quite prominent in the education world) about the Video Story Problem concept that I’ve been toying with the last few years. It helps that I’ve had plenty of educators and students helping me with it, and as of today we’ve collectively produced almost 200 videos that help capture math (and a little bit of science) in the real world to be brought back into the classroom.

So it’s with no small measure of humble gratitude to many educators out there sharing my ideas that I have an opportunity to present the concept in Los Angeles this weekend. I’m headed out to the Milken Community High School in Los Angeles to lead a couple of Video Story Problem workshops at the Playful Learning Summit being held there. I’m a little nervous, but hopeful for a good day of learning with teachers on the West Coast. Although it will be a quick turn around (fly in the 8th, lead the workshops on the 9th, and come home on the 10th), I’m excited to work with some educators eager to take a more playful approach to learning, and reconnecting with some old friends that I haven’t seen in several months.

I promise not to show up at the doorstop of any celebrities, shamelessly asking them to give me a cameo for a math video, but I won’t deny that I may feel an urge to stop at one of L.A.’s many tourist traps. Perhaps a walk down Rodeo Drive and attempting to recreate the shopping scene from Pretty Woman with a remix of my Kohl’s Cash video problem will be enough to keep me from making too much of a fool of myself….

Nah! I can’t help but make myself look stupid in public by asking nerdy science and math questions to an imaginary classroom in my phone. I couldn’t even make it through a trip to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago last month without creating a quick “how can you explain this” science video for Foucault’s Pendulum.