The VIVA Project - easy way for teachers to collaborate and add voice to education policy

The VIVA Project is a interesting project I just became aware of. It's mission statement is "The VIVA Project works to dramatically increase classroom teachers’ participation in important state and national policy decisions about public education. We open direct communication between individual teachers and public officials, giving public officials authentic insight into how public classrooms and schools work best and they make policy that works better for classrooms."

Vision
Classroom teachers from all corners of their state and our country will share their best ideas and collaborate to develop actionable policy initiatives that will directly shape decisions about public education for all American students and their teachers. Their work will result in education policy that puts classroom teaching and learning first.

The VIVA Project empowers teachers to give state and national elected officials the real story from the classroom.
By sharing their ideas with other classroom teachers, teachers find common ground, learn from different challenges and together make public education work.

• The VIVA Project gives teachers collective and connective power with other teachers
• The VIVA Project is a time saving, easy way to connect with other teachers
• The VIVA Project gives the most passionate teachers an opportunity to tap into a large network of teachers with the same interests and goals quickly

Teachers – you share your idea and see what other teachers think, you can see other teachers’ ideas and tell them what you think and you can work together to pick the best ideas for positive change, making change happen, without spending hours in meetings.

The VIVA Project is organized to spread nationally and the idea behind it is excellent: help teachers communicate and collaborate with each other and policy makers to ensure that educational policies are designed to improve teaching and learning and are focused on the students. Teachers are the education professionals and politicians and policy makers need to listen to our expertise. The VIVA Project helps make that happen.

One of the benefits of a project like this is that it allows teachers to collaborate and share their ideas on their schedule, and then push those ideas and solutions to the decision makers. Teachers don't need to spend all of their free time going to policy meetings and still not being heard.

The VIVA Project website: http://vivateachers.org/

The VIVA Project Twitter account: http://twitter.com/VIVAProject


Does anyone have any direct experience with the VIVA Project that they would like to share?