Bill to introduce one of the mothers of the Applied Improv Network, ladies and gentlemen! This is a delightful stretch for me to use PowerPoints, so I'm hoping that it all goes well. I want to share with you my 32-year journey. One of the things that has been delightful about being involved in this organization from the beginning of 2002 when we found each other is that there's enough of us that have been doing it for a while, but there's no need for those of you who are new to reinvent the wheel. So we're really committed to, and I personally am also committed to helping make a much steeper learning curve and get people quicker out into the world, bringing this fabulous philosophy, mindset, and belief that we have that yes and can actually change the world. I've held the belief for a long time that it was the secret to world peace if we could just get all the leaders of companies together and teach them yes and. So the thing that's been really interesting about this journey is that I had the opportunity to work in front of all different kinds of groups from girl scout leaders to boards of directors of churches, to senior citizens, to tellers in banks, all the way up to executive teams in high-tech companies. And when I first started in 1980, the first company that I worked with was a local company here in San Francisco, technical communications, and they could then improve as a good way to get people speaking more spontaneously. So they hired me to come in, design, and then complete a spontaneous communications course, which I did. Now the interesting thing was that they insisted I take their basic course first to see what they did. I was going to be the advanced course. So when I did the basic course, all my improv skills just kind of rushed to the floor and they were so impressed with my presentation skills that they hired me for time to come in and coach executives. This was my first journey into the corporate world. Very, very interesting experience. There were two things I learned. The most important one was that this particular skill set has an amazing range of applications. I had no training to do what I was doing other than running improv. And I was very good at seeing what was happening and doing positive feedback coaching. They ended up asking me to train all the other coaches. At this point I was using applied improv. I wasn't really designing programs and a lot of the stuff that I do now. That first eight years I had to confess I floundered every time I got brought into an organization. I was speaking from the filter of an improviser, an improviser. And I kept running into all kinds of confusion and resistance, especially when I would bring up, yes and. So after a while I got some feedback about this and I realized I was making two major mistakes in that I had two very large assumptions I was operating from. The first assumption was that it's very obvious and it's very easy what we're doing here. And it was for me. So the minute I started to bring the improv from that perspective, this is easy, then an interesting thing happened. All these, where did that go? Okay, here we go. Every time I would go especially into one of these high tech or very left-brain companies, it wasn't working really well. Now I could hit a lot of it through the charm of my personality. Okay, we're having some fun here. The charm of my personality could carry it to a certain degree, but I was really aware that things weren't really working. So when I discovered I had this assumption, I started to look at it and I realized, oh, yes and, it's jargon. Every field has jargon. Every industry has jargon. Every group that gets together has their own shorthand and jargon. I ran into that recently. The thing about jargon is the people who speak it are assuming everybody knows it. I had to transfer a CD from one to another. I was copying a CD so I learned the software and I got it up and it says, do you want to rip or burr? I had to call somebody. Translation please. Another one I just learned recently is the word epic. I love going to movies that are epics. When you're in the field of finance and you're talking about stocks, that little four letter code that designates the stocks, that's called an epic. Another one was I've got some friends in retail and they were talking about what's the shrink? Okay, when I put a wool sweater in hot water, I understand shrink. But in the retail field shrink means stock loss to damage or theft. Beta, second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the tech world it means to test. In the finance world it means a comparative measurement of risk. So we have to be aware that when we say yes and we're talking jargon. And it's important that we clarify that. If we take it literally, there's a very strong implication that the word yes means approval and agreement. And so what does it mean for us? So let's define it. See if I've got these in the right order here. You get to see this one. Because yes, approval and agreement in theater is actually right on. You come on the scene and you say, oh honey, I love having our honey moon here in the Arctic. So immediately I agree totally to the premise that we are now in the Arctic and we're newly wedged. That's our basic and we go from there. I agree. I approve. I totally embrace it and we run for it. So this doesn't work if we put it into a context where people don't agree. So let's look at what it could mean for us. It's really important to define it. Let's see if this is true. I have to un-flank it and move it. Okay. So here's defining our jargon. What the yes means is acceptance, appreciation, and we demonstrate that through acknowledgement. We're encouraging. We're respectful. And it does not mean agreement. When I got that, it made a huge difference. Because if we break agreement in, then we have some people who might get it and some people who don't. So we create a device of this and we have activated a whole lot of yemen, yemen, yemen, yemen in the room. And that's not what we're trying to move forward with here. So we then, if we instead just really mean this is our definition and we always define our terms. I have had really good experience with clients. Yet this has a different meaning. So I may not even use the word yes unless I always context it that it's jargon. So what does this do? It creates a mindset that is open and willing to entertain new ideas, new opinions, new perspectives. It appreciates and encourages experimentation. It looks for possibilities. What could work? It expects and honors differences. It's solutions focused. It's curious. So this is a mindset that's very different from a mindset that needs to agree. Can you see that? And this helps put our clients in a space where they go, oh, there are places that I could do this. I have a client right now. Some of you may be on our client-based website may have seen the little video clip of the CEO of Ask, a client of mine, discussing the use of improv in his organization. The host kept trying to make it like, oh, so you're playing with rubber chickens. Oh, so you kept trying to be really keepin' funny about this. And Doug, the CEO, said, we brought it in to solve a business problem. He just anchored it. It's a beautiful way to learn about some language. He's watching what he did. Their business problem there was that they were great problem solvers.  And when you're problem spotting, you're looking for what won't work. All right, so in a sense, all their good problem solving skills was pulling the rug out from underneath their ability to improvise, I mean, to innovate. Because they kept shooting down each other's ideas constantly. He said they had a big innovation session. And the best thing that they came out of it was, let's get ergonomic chairs. That was the big idea that came out. And since I've been bringing applied improv in with them, they have actually got several new apps up. And they've changed a lot of their processes. And there's a new language around the floor of the building. It's very, very interesting to hear it. I want to have you get a chance to practice a little of this mindset. So I want you to imagine that you've just built a home and you have hired a very expensive interior decorator. All right. And they have come in and they've said, based on this setting of your home, my recommendation is that you have brick furniture in your living room.  Raise your hand. Confess. Okay, great. Yes. And imagine if you're more of a left-brain group than we are, how many hands would go up? All right. So that's a mindset. It's a way that we look at things, spot the problems. So now what I want you to do is turn to somebody near you and between you, back and forth. I want you to come up with three reasons each. One, then another, then another, then another, then another. What could work about brick furniture in this living room? What could you like about it? All right. So take about a minute and exchange from that mindset. Got to unblank. Two minutes? Could you do it? That's an exploration of that mindset. And I usually use something of that nature just to provoke the problem spotting and give them a chance to experience something different. And what happens when people are in this mindset is it provokes a very interesting thing. It lays the platform down for the end because we're already open and willing and ready to look. So we build off, we add to expand from. And this is where I join in and it becomes collaboration and co-creation. So what I want to close with is that the second assumption is that this is everything. It does everything. It does everything. And which is not true. It's a tool. And this tool has certain purposes. And here's our purpose. Communicate versus telling, encouraging, innovation, dealing with change, working together, managing, leading. And there's way, way more situations we want to connect, create, support, expand and explore. That's where this tool is useful. It's not useful here to have a hammer. And it's not useful here. It's a different tool than these tools. It's really important to honor and acknowledge the tools that people have that work well and what the yes and offers is an alternative tool. And when we understand that, we can build a case for this very easily and experientially that gets people to shift into the new mindset. I like to leave people with a little gift, and so I brought one for you, is a yes and button as a kind of a touchstone and a reminder of this whole process. So please, sometime during the morning or the afternoon, help yourself to a button. And thank you. Thank you, Sue Walden. That was wonderful. Who's going to steal from that?


I'm Zeke and welcome to the Dream Green show. Summer has flew by in the holiday season is quickly approaching. The holiday season is the make it or break it season for many companies inside of the stock market. In fact, Black Friday comes from many companies are being in the red. That mean they are negative. They are not making any money at all to be in the black. Black means you are now a profitable business.  So that's what the term Black Friday comes up. So I'm going to be you guys the top seven stocks that you should keep your eye on during this holiday season that could help you make some money and take some profits. Now, I'm not saying right now is the best time to buy these stocks. But if you are looking to make some profits on stocks that you are already on or if you're planning on holding these companies for the next couple of years and play their earnings calls, predicting that they're going to beat their earnings because of the holiday season, this is the video to watch. I'm going to bring you guys the top seven stocks to watch this holiday season. But before we dive into it, this video is brought to you by Weeble signed up now by clicking the link down in the description deposit any amount of money and you receive up to 15 free stocks, value up to $30,000. With those 15 free stocks, you could keep them inside the portfolio and decide to use it or you can sell those 15 free stocks and withdraw all of your money. Guys, it's literally free money. Also left a link in the description to Moo Moo deposit $100 and you receive many free stocks that way, value it up to $30,000 as well. So don't miss out on that opportunity, guys. Both of those links are going to be down in the description. But enough talking, let's go ahead and dive straight into this video. Welcome back dreamers. Here we are on stock number one ticker symbol AAPL, Apple. Now Apple is sitting at $150 and 88 cents at the recording of this video. Apple is number seven on this list because they have always prepared for the holiday season. They have that WWDC summer edition and that fall edition to introduce a lot of new devices that's going to come out that season. They announced all of their latest releases. The iPhone, the iMac, the iPad, the AirPods, they really announced all of their new devices during the WWDC. And when they have that fall event, it is just in time to spark sales for Cyber Monday and Black Friday. As you can see here, Apple is down 4.29 percent on the year. So you could begin at Apple on sale. In fact, over the last holiday season back in 2020, they had a 21 percent growth over the previous holiday season of around one hundred and eleven billion dollars in revenue. So they are setting their sales up to sell their phones, their AirPods, their iPads, the Mac, the everything that they sell is just in time for Cyber Monday and Black Friday. When they are pushing out for you to buy gifts for your family, that is what they're doing. So that's why Apple is number seven on my list. This is a great company to hold for the next 10, 15 years. And if you're already holding on to them, they could spike doing their next earnings report and you could make a decent profit. Stock number six is PayPal ticker symbol PYPL over the last year. They are down, unfortunately, 57 percent, but you could see them as being on sale. Now, PayPal, there's going to be a ton, a ton, an absolutely mass flow of online shopping and a lot of the way that people check out is through the form of PayPal. So every time someone checks out through PayPal, they're going to make a buck. So if you think Cyber Monday is going to be as big as you think it is, if you think a lot of people are going to be buying Christmas presents during this holiday season, then PayPal might be at the top of your list. In fact, it's at the top six of mine. The whole during the holiday season to hopefully has a quick little spike in us to collect some profit. But I do not mind holding PayPal over the next five to 10 years as I do see growth inside of this company. So that's ticker symbol number six, PayPal. Now, coming in at number five is ticker symbol TJX, TJX. Now, TJX companies, let me tell you guys, if you're one of the ones that has your mom decorate the house for Thanksgiving, decorate the house for Christmas, decorate the house for any of the season, then I'm pretty sure a high percentage of the time they have bought something from this company right here. TJX, in fact, over the last year, they're up by the rest of the marketers down. They are up 7.84 percent already seeing a spike during this upcoming holiday season. Now, let me tell you what they own. They own TJ Maxx, they also own home goods and they also own Marshall. So whenever you see people decorating their house, getting pots and pans ready for the holiday season, I'm pretty sure that shopping at Marshall is getting gifts in our decorations for the house. They're getting new rugs, new carpets. In fact, I just got a new rugs from home goods. So if a person like me that don't shop a lot is already getting ready for the holiday season, then I could see a little growth in that company during this holiday season. So when there's a lot of talk about inflation, these discount stores, not high end stores like Polo and Ralph Lauren, where you go in and buy luggage from them. No, these discount stores like Marshall, TJ Maxx and home goods to where you can decorate your house will be beneficial as inflation continue to rise and that's why they're number five on my list. Now, number four is going to be a double header. I got L U V Southwest Airlines and I got United Airlines. Here we go, United Airlines. So over the last year, United Airlines is down 5.86 percent. As you guys know, there's a ton of traveling doing the Thanksgiving breaks and during the Christmas breaks. In fact, these airlines is already preparing for a crash of demands this holiday season.  And it's likely that this company will be even more profitable during this holiday travel season. So that's ticker symbol number four, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines. Now, coming in at ticker symbol number three is Target and Walmart. Once again, with inflation, there's going to be a lot of people shopping at Walmart to get their groceries, to get their gifts for the holiday season. Over the last year, they are up 4.44 percent after taking a big decline right here earlier in the year, being down 17 percent. They are now up 4.4 percent. I do own a couple of shelves of Walmart right here. I could plan on taking some profit after the holiday season if I continue to see a rise in the sales and the price and revenue through Walmart. Now, we'll scroll down to the analytics, 37 analytics, 73 percent of them that are saying that Walmart is a strong buy and 27 percent of them are saying if you already own Walmart, continue to hold on to it. And 0 percent of them are saying sell Walmart. So 0 percent of the analytics are saying that Walmart is going to do bad this holiday season. In fact, they're saying if you already own it, continue to own it. And if you don't own it, 73 percent of the analytics are saying you could buy it. One of the reasons I love Walmart is because they are about to be dividend kings. That means a dividend king is a company that's inside the S&P 500 and increased that dividends for the last 50 years. Every single year for the last 50 years, Walmart has increased that dividends every single year for the last 48 years. So there's just two years off, about a year and a half off from becoming dividend king. So this is another one I plan to hold inside my portfolio for the next couple of years. I could buy, I could sell some at the top if you continue to rise and get back in if it dips again. But Walmart is always going to be inside my portfolio. And this is one of the companies that perform well during every session. So that's going to move us to the next company, Costco. Here we are on Costco ticker symbol COST. They are at five hundred and twenty three dollars and fifty six cents. In fact, over the last year, they are down one point nine seven percent. Another company that you could possibly grab at a discount right now that it's down one point nine seven percent on Costco. If you guys don't know, it's a big box retailer. They sell many of their items in bulk at a very discounted price. Once again, trying to beat inflation membership at Costco is one of the top in the businesses that has a ninety two point six percent renewal rate. That means every time it's time to renew ninety two point six percent of their customers renew their membership to shop at Costco. Now Costco is likely to generate tremendous sales during this holiday season. Now with Costco being down for the year, this could be a great time to grab some shares at a discounted price. Analysts expect Costco to gain around 14 percent this holiday season, putting them at number two on my list, which takes us to number one.  So here we are Amazon ticker symbol AMZ in Amazon is at ninety three dollars and ninety eight cents over the last year. They are down fifty percent, but you can't spell holiday season without Amazon. A lot of online shopping is going to be done with this big box Goliath giant right here, which is Amazon, which has taken a lot of industries out of their business. Amazon is the biggest e-commerce business on earth. There's I mean, there's not a lot that I have to explain to you guys. If you don't know where Amazon is, you have been living under a rock. But if you're a new investor and you see it's down fifty percent, this could be a good opportunity for you to get in as a long term investor. I know why that prices down because I don't see Amazon going out of business anytime soon. In fact, if you scroll down, ninety percent of the analysts is saying that Amazon is a strong buy. Ninety percent are saying that Amazon is a strong buy. Eight percent are saying that it's a hold and two percent are saying that it's a sale. Now, me personally could have pulled back some more. Of course, it could pull back some more. I'm going to be patient. If it does pull back some more, I'm going to go in and buy up a couple more shares. But if Amazon continue to rise, I already have my feet wet in the game. And I'm going to collect some of that sweet profit during this holiday season. And there we go, dreamers. That is my top seven stocks that you need to keep your eye on this holiday season that they could set up your portfolio to perform well. This upcoming earnings report for twenty twenty three. Let me know down in the coming section, which one of these seven is your favorite one. I can't wait to see what you guys pick. Or if it's one that I left off this list, let me also know that down in the coming section. But if you like to know any time I buy and sell stocks, I'm going to leave a link down in the coming section. That'll take you to my Patreon. The Patreon will take it to my discord inside the discord. I post every single time I buy and sell a stock. I post my option trades, my day trades, my technical analysis.  So if you want to be a part of a community of traders that want to be financially free, just like you, go ahead and check out the link down in the coming session. But in that, guys, make sure you subscribe to the channel. Hit that thumbs up button. If you would like to help out this channel, the easiest thing that you could do right now is hit that thumbs up button because it helps out this channel more than you can even imagine. Whether than that, I'm Zeke bringing you the dream grand show and I'm out. Peace.


I'm going to be reading from the Iron Heel, which is a book that Jack London wrote. It foreshadowed the events that were to take place in Spain, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Hungary, Germany, and the United States. In 1906, Jack London wrote the Iron Heel. It was published in 1907. In an introduction to the book, H. Bruce Franklin of Rutgers University wrote, In 1922, the Fascists marched on Rome and toppled the government. Within two years, they were ruling Italy. In 1929, the Iron Heel was published in Italy. The translator, in a carefully guarded introduction foresees the battle that will burst forth who knows when between the platocracy and the people. Within months, the Fascist government had banned all cheap editions of the Iron Heel and other London's revolutionary books, labeling them as part of a plot to overthrow the regime. Expensive editions were allowed to remain in print, however, for the government saw no threat in this book as long as it stayed in the hands of the cultured classes. In May of 1933, ceremonial burnings of defamed books took place all over Germany in the presence of Captain Gound Academic Senates. On May 10th, 25,000 books were burned in Berlin. Jack London's books were included in those burned. But it is in America where London foresees the struggle between the impoverished masses who do most of the world's work and the privileged minorities who live off the profits. He points to the most essential fact about fascism. It is the form that the capitalist state assumes when the oligarchy feels that its economic and political power is seriously threatened by working-class revolution. I cannot lay too great stress upon this high ethical righteousness of the whole oligarch class. This has been the strength of the Iron Heel, and too many of the comrades have been slow or loathed to realize it. Many of them have ascribed the strength of the Iron Heel to its system of reward and punishment. This is a mistake. Heaven and Hell may be the prime factors of zeal in the religion of a fanatic, but for the great majority of the religious, Heaven and Hell are incidental to right and wrong. Love of the right, desire for the right, unhappiness with anything less than the right. In short, right conduct is the prime factor of religion. And so with the oligarchy, prisons, banishment and degradation, honors and palaces, and wonder cities are all incidental. The great driving force of the oligarchs is the belief that they are doing right. Never mind the exceptions and never mind the oppression and injustice in which the Iron Heel was conceived. All is granted. The point is that the strength of the oligarchy today lies in its satisfied conception of its own righteousness. Germany 1933, the first wave of cleansing, some 1200 professors were purged from institutions of higher learning. This opened opportunities for advancement whose disciplines or sympathies were aligned with the Third Reich until it became their turn. The Third Reich Education Minister Rust asked the imminent mathematician David Hilbert, if his institute has suffered as a result of the departure of the Jews and their friends. The professor replied, suffered? No, it hasn't suffered, Herr Minister. It just doesn't exist anymore.


Welcome to the usability trial for the National Literacy Learning Progression. We will now explore the literacy progression. As we work through the structure and format of the learning progression, there are a number of terms that you will hear. If you need to revisit these terms, you will find them explained in some detail on pages 3-5 of the PDF version of the progression. Let's start with the structure. The literacy progression is organised under the three familiar elements of speaking and listening, reading and writing. These three literacy elements are important in all learning areas of the curriculum. When you are considering a task or activity that students will be undertaking in your classroom, you might begin by considering what the main emphasis of that activity is. Will the students be using some research evidence to create an explanatory text? The literacy focus here would be on writing. Will the students be engaged in a structured small group discussion? The literacy emphasis here would be on speaking and listening. Will the students be reading two texts on the same issue or topic and making comparisons between the information in the two texts? The literacy emphasis here would be on reading, although the students may be writing notes as they read. Under each of the elements, there are a number of threads. The threads are components or aspects of literacy knowledge and skills. The choice of these threads and their titles has been the subject of much discussion with both practitioners and experts. The number and names of threads might be something that you would like to comment on when you provide us with your feedback. Under the speaking and listening element, there are three threads. Speaking, listening and interaction. Under the reading element are the key decoding threads of phonological awareness, phonic knowledge and word recognition and fluency. These threads are usually considered as constrained skills because most students are able to complete all of the levels of these skills by the end of the early years of primary school. Also in the reading strand is the holistic thread called understanding texts where students' skills in reading, understanding, interpreting, analyzing and evaluating a range of print and multimodal texts are described. Increasingly sophisticated understanding of texts is influenced by the complexity of the texts being read. Text complexity advice is provided at Appendix 6 in the PDF version of the progression. It describes the features of increasingly sophisticated texts, such as the topic or subject of the text, the vocabulary or the types of language features. It is intended that understanding text thread be read in conjunction with this advice. The writing element needs the most explanation. Here the holistic thread creating texts incorporates the features of a piece of student writing. There are a number of indicators within each level to reflect the fact that a text has many components which can be identified and assessed individually, but need to be considered holistically if the writing as a whole piece of text is to be judged. Then there are the four supplementary threads in the writing element. Spelling, punctuation, vocabulary and grammar. Of course student skills in these component threads would be developing simultaneously and in conjunction with their skill in producing texts. This reflects the intent of Australian Curriculum English, which emphasizes this relationship. Students are concurrently developing knowledge and skills in areas such as spelling and vocabulary and applying this knowledge when they write texts for a range of purposes. If you are focusing on writing during the trial, you can locate students on the creating text thread by making an overall judgment based on a student's text. Then you might also wish to focus on an aspect of writing such as punctuation or vocabulary, especially if this has been a focus in your teaching or it is an area where your students may be facing difficulties. What do you need to do first? Firstly, familiarize yourself with the progression. You may like to print the PDF version. It is important that you take some time to become familiar with the structure, form and indicators of the progression. A good starting point would be to look at the beginning and end points of the thread to get an understanding of the range. For example, the speaking thread begins with making simple requests and expressing feelings and short phrases and finishes with confidently and critically evaluating ideas. When you have scanned the whole thread, you may wish to pay close attention to the levels where you think your students are most likely to be located. Once you are familiar with the progression, the next thing you need to do is select six students from your class or group. If possible, these students should represent the range of students in your class. So, two high-performing students, two mid-range students and two students who may be experiencing some difficulties in literacy. Next, think about what you are planning to teach during March. Think about the most relevant literacy threads for the planned learning and tasks or activities that might provide you with the evidence to assist you to locate the literacy development of these students. You can work with up to three threads for the trial. For example, if you are focusing on the writing element, you may look at the creating text thread along with spelling and punctuation. The task or activities you use can draw on content from any learning area. It may be a writing task or a group discussion or a comprehension task. The choice of task is up to you as long as it provides significant evidence of the literacy development of your students. During March, across a range of learning activities, identify evidence to locate the six students on the relevant threads of the progression. It is suggested that you make notes of your observations and judgments on a printed out copy of the threads that you are focusing on. You will be asked towards the end of March to enter your comments about using the literacy progression into the online survey. Using the progressions in this detailed way will assist you to provide high quality feedback. Your feedback will help us to improve the progression so that it is usable for all schools across Australia in 2018. Thank you for your participation in the trial. Please contact us if you have any questions or you need any further information. All the best.