ADE Day 1 - The Brand of Me

My first day at the Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE) Workshop was a long one, not long in the sense of "drawn out and when is this going to end" long. But, "full of energy and man I'm beat, we talked about a lot and reflected a lot" long. It was a great start to the workshop and apparently things will ramp up tomorrow with the HCMC ADE Race.

Most of the morning was spent talking about "Personal Branding", both as an educator and as an ADE. It was uncomfortable. It was difficult. But that's what makes us grow. Educators aren't used to talking about themselves. We like to talk about the great things students (and in my case the staff as well) are doing, creating, publishing and achieving ... not ourselves. The sessions made us think about who we are and what roles we play in life, both educationally and personally. The idea being that we have to tell "our story". After paring down the brainstorming list of roles I play to three, here's how far I got using a Mind Mapping App called Total Recall.

The next steps are to refine, revise, reflect and create the presentation as a movie, photo, on the stage or written. I'm leaning towards a movie or a presentation. The afternoon focused on pointers to enhance each of the above modes of presentation.

Then, the day was capped off with a rousing and passionate keynote address by film maker and director, Chai Yee Wei. Here is a review of his first film Blood Ties. Probably not something you'll see in a classroom anytime soon ... at least I hope not.

I'd love your feedback on the Mind Map and if you feel there is anything I could add.

Thanks. Early start tomorrow with a Photo Walk of a HCMC wet market at 6:00 am.