Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Daniel Pink's Whole New Mind book


We are reading A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink this week in ITEC 830. Here is a great example who uses his right brain to summarize the book. This chart is created by Kurt Willig in ITEC 830 class. -- I thought the chart illustrates the key concepts of the book so well that I decide to post here to keep the chart for the future classess and also to recommend the book to others. If you have not read Pink's book, it is easy read and there are many great ideas for ID people to consider as we design learning environments for digital age learners.

Monday, March 03, 2008

This is so funny

Five minute university--it is from Youtube

Web 2.0 Tools


Online Education Database has published a new article: e-Learning Reloaded: Top 50 Web 2.0 Tools for Info Junkies, Researchers & Students.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Web 2.0 Expo pass

If you are in ITEC 830, Please registerfor a free Expo Pass. We will not have have the class session that week, we will attend the conference. Web 2.0 conference will be at Moscone west from April 22-25. Use code websf08ae17 when you register for Web 2.0 Expo and save $100 off the conference package or your choice or get a free Expo Pass.

Blogged with Flock

Saturday, March 01, 2008

21st Century Skills

Everyone who is interested in educational reforms talks about 21st century skills. This week, my students and I are reading an article called "Learning for the 21st Century (A Report and MILE Guide for 21st Century Skills) http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/downloads/P21_Report.pdf. MILE (Milestones for Improving Learning) Guide for the 21st Century skills.". Students suppose to take a graphical note for the classroom discussion. Here is an example of a graphical note.

The map is produced by Kurt in ITEC 830 Spring, 2008


According to the article, there are 6 key elements of 21st century learning; 1) emphasize core subjects, 2) emphasize learning skills, 3) use 21st century tools, 4) teach and learn 21st century context, 5) teach 21st century content, and 6) assess 21st century skill. There are several more important elements are mission from this list. As a parent, I want my children to have the best education they can get. The above 6 elements are lofty goals, but I don't think they are enough for my children. I want my children to be creative beyond knowing the core subjects. I want them to have characters that they can be a good leader who has empathy toward others and knows how to create harmony in his surroundings .
Where is creativity? How about empathy? Where is harmony?


Wednesday, February 27, 2008

It is clicking! Our community is linked.

Everyone is ready to participate in the itec 830 community. Josh presented RSS. I learned several new things from Josh's presentation that I want to try out. Kurt presented social bookmarking tool called del.icio.us. He created a del.icio.us site for us. Now we all can start to contribute to this page when we find an interesting site or an article.

If you are in ITEC 830, please make a link to the site from your blog or wiki page. Thank you Kurt for being so prompt. Here is itec 830 and ID/password.

http://del.icio.us/itec_830
username: itec_830
password: spring08

Monday, February 25, 2008

For the first time they see photos of themselves

First time I visited Batwa people in Butare, Rwanda was in 2001. I took each family their portraits (10 families in all). When I returned a year later, I give them their pictures. This is their first time seeing themselves.

Looking at a picture we took of them on the previous visit

Blogged with Flock

Batwa family from Rwanda

I took this video when I visited Batwa family in Butare Rwanda in 2006. There are 10 families, and about 40 people live in a small small house out skirt of Butare where the Come and See Africa Mission Center is located. Butare is the second largest city in Rwanda and the home of National University of Rwanda where I provide faculty development workshops each summer. We became good friends with them since 2001. Whenever we visit them, we bring goats for them and they greet us with singing and dancing.

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I wish I would have entered and won one of these.

There are so many exciting things are happening in education with digital media. Here are samples of the projects that won MacArthur Competition this year. You can read more details about the competition and projects at the MacArthur Foundation site.

"The 2007-08 Digital Media and Learning Competition, administered by HASTAC and supported by the MacArthur Foundation. From a field of over 1,000 applications, seven projects won Innovation awards of $100,000 or $238,000; in the Knowledge-Networking category, ten projects received awards ranging from $30,000 to $72,000. "

Blogged with Flock

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Revived

I was so sick with coughing that I thought my eyes were going to pop out. In between coughs, I constantly complained about how awful I felt. I griped, “This is the first time that I’ve ever been this sick”. Poor Chris had to endure his own coughing as well as listen to my complaints. At one point, Chris reminded me that there will be a lot of “first times” coming up in the future. “So get use to it!” I think he is right.

Then my mind turned to Lillian Fielding. Chris, Al, and I had visited her a week earlier. She was within a week of death, yet she received us with a gracious smile. When my mind’s eye focused on Lillian, complaining words were replaced with words of gratitude. I was thankful that I had nothing more serious than a cold. My grateful heart changed my feelings toward to myself. My feelings influenced my attitude, and my attitude influenced my actions.

Humans are emotional beings. Our emotions are like the spark plug that starts our engine. I want my emotions to be controlled by the Sprit of God, so that everything I do is pleasing to God. I am totally recovered now. My body is revived and so is my soul. Looking back, I realize that my revival started with a grateful heart. I believe that my change in attitude helped me to recover faster. What a great feeling to be revived.

Our church is now preparing for a revival. Are we ready to start our church engine and move toward our goals of Glorying God, Loving One Another, and Reaching the World? Prayer is our engine. At our Sunday school we talked about greeting one another with the words “Praise the Lord and Hallelujah”. These powerful words can be the spark that starts the engine. I believe that church revival begins in the hearts of each person at First Southern.

A few days ago, Chris and I walked around Lake Chabot. As we talked and prayed about revival, we sang “Hallelujah ~ Thine the Glory ~ Hallelujah, Amen ~Hallelujah ~Thine the Glory~ Revive us again ~”. I was refreshed physically, mentally, and spiritually. Our one hour walk seemed like a minute. I recommend that you sing this song whenever you clean the house or take a walk. You will regain your vitality as I did. As we praise God with our prayers and with our songs, let’s spur one another and bring revival to our church.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Posting a picture from Flickr


DSC03176.JPG
Originally uploaded by come and see africa
I showed the class how to post this picture from Flickr.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Digital Learners

Joshua pointed out a term "infotainment" in his blog that I have not heard yet. I like the description he provided, "Web surfing fuses learning and entertainment, creating infotainment." For so long we want to create a learning material that is "edutainment" and I don't think we have been successful.

I should have let students discuss about the article that they have read than I explain about it. After I read their blog entries, I kicked myself for not engaging them as I should have. Our class discussion would have been so richer but I made the discussion (?) very bland by taking an instructor role rather than a facilitator role. BAD, BAD. I didn't practice what I preach. Especially this week topic was on active learning and learner engagement.

Everyone seemed to know the differences between wiki and blog. Angela presented about Podcasting, and Sylvia showed her teaching site using various Web2.0 tools. I like to use Freemind mapping tool in this class as a collaboration tool.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Twitter Application

We talked about different Web 2.o applications last night in education in itec 830. Twitter came up in our conversation, when I heard about Twitter, I scratched my head how this could be used in classroom. Here is an article from the Chronicles of Higher Education. Prof. David Parry from University of Taxas uses it as a classroom communication tool.
A professor's tips for Using Twitter in the Classroom

More about Twitter us in Academica


David and Phillip from last semester came and shared their finall projects --using wiki and other Web 2.0 tools to improve teaching and learning--with the class. David teaches Digital sotrytelling class for seniors, 55 plus populations, and Phillip teaches art class in high school.

Monday, February 04, 2008

Earthquake in Rwanda

Two earthquakes struck hours apart in Rwanda and neighboring Congo, killing at least 39 people, and injuring 380. I first heard about earthquakes in Rwanda and Congo just before our worship service started on Sunday, Feb. 3rd. Many of my friends live in that part of the world. Thankfully, I heard from most of my friends from Rwanda, and they are Okay. But I have not yet heard from friends from Congo.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Web 2.0 workshop

I attended Web 2.0 workshop that was organized by Classroom 2.0 people. I saw great examples and also met many wonderful teachers who truly love teaching. Here is an agenda for the workshop. I will definitely use some of the tools I learned in my itec 830 class.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

New York Trip

Pastor Chris and the mission team left for Africa on Dec. 24th. On the same day Zach and I left for New York to visit Simon and his wife Dilia. Our plan was to spend Christmas with Simon before they left for Florida. While they were gone for the weekend, I “dog sat” for them. I didn’t realized how much work was involved in taking care of dogs. Ike and Stella started barking around 5 am. That meant they wanted out to do their thing. The first day was Okay. I let them out to their back yard and they did what dogs do. But on the second day I didn’t hear them barking. When I came out from bedroom about 8 in the morning. I saw two piles of gold (that is what Simon called it) at the doorstep. When Simon called later that day, I told him about what happened at home, he told me this never happened before. I felt guilty. What did I do wrong? I fixed their meal as Simon prescribed to me; mixing rice with dry dog food with a drop of vitamins. I felt like I was taking care of babies. Actually those dogs were like Simon and Dilia’s babies. They called two or three times a day from Florida to check on the dogs and me. But enough about the dog story.

Here is about a church story. I wanted to attend a church on Sunday. I Googled the Internet and found two churches that I could walk to. The first church I walked to was a Baptist church. People were standing at the church door, laughing and talking to each other. I took few steps toward them, but no one paid attention to me. They were too busy talking. I felt awkward and unwelcome. I decided to pass that church and walked to the next church. This one was called the “New Testament Church of Christ”. A man greeted me with a big smile at their parking lot and invited me to the service. I followed him to the church, and two women at the door welcomed me with big smile. People inside sanctuary seemed to be happy to see each other and some of them approached to this stranger with warm greeting. It was a small congregation about 50. It reminded me of our church, and immediately I felt home. I wondered if our church was more like the first or the second.

Monday, January 21, 2008

January 2008 CASA Conference

2008 CASA conference, from Jan 2 to Jan 6th, went very well. The theme of the confrence was "Joseph in Egypt". Chris, Rob, Frank, Lelia went from US. About 250 students from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania attended. Sadly, students from Kenya couldn't attend because of the war that broke out on Dec. 30, 2007. Also students from Congo were turned away at the Rwanda border because of the Ebola breakout in Congo. Dealing with wars and diseases are the reality of everyday African life. To change that, African Christian students are doing something about it. They are crying out to God to help them, then put their faith into action. They lift their hearts to God and their hands to help poor people. Here are future leaders of Africa who will find solutions to their problems.
Here is the foreign minister of Rwanda, he was the confence keynote speaker. The purpose of CASA is to help students to be like him who can serve their people with Christian heart.


Wednesday, October 03, 2007

My son's art show

Simon has been working and working for this show. I couldn't go to New York to see his works, but luckily he posted his show online. I am posting the link for my family and friends. You can give him your feedback in his site. http://simonforeman.com

Saturday, September 01, 2007

New Semester

Our school started on August 27th. I have four courses to teach this semester, and they are all full. One of the reasons that I chose teaching career is for the love of learning... I definitely learn from my students. This is especially true with Web 2.0 technologies.

I use Firefox as my main browser, but when I do blogging I like to use Flock which is the secondary browser for social networking. Flock makes easy to organize and manage websites, pics and videos, feeds, blogging.

William from Rwanda is visiting us for a week. He is now a blogger, and he has been blogging for three days, and having a good time doing it. He also is learning how to swim. Rwanda is a land-locked country, so most people do not know how to swim. William is so determine to swim. He has been in the pool almost everyday past few days. I joke with him that he will be in Olympic swim team from Rwanda in 2012.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Morning Devotions

Within the blink of an eye, my summer is gone. School starts next week, but I am not yet ready to return. It has been over a month since we came back from Africa, but still my mind is occupied with our Africa mission.

The other day, Chris asked what I remembered most about all the things we did in Africa this past summer. I considered seminars that I conducted, churches that I visited, people that I met, a house that we built, goats that we gave away, and places where we traveled. I told Chris “My most cherished memory has to be the morning devotions”.

I truly miss the morning devotion that gathered at 5:30 every morning in our Christian Fellowship House in Butare, Rwanda. For the two weeks I lived there, I grew accustomed to waking up at the sound of the steel gate opening, followed by the footsteps of children, then their mothers entering into “the sitting room”. In this 15 by 20 foot room, children sat in the center on floor mats while their mothers sat on benches near the walls. After early morning praise, the mothers hurried off to the fields and the children went to school.

Even though it is called “morning devotion”, it seemed like a full service to me. Our African sisters praised and worshiped God with passion. The early hour didn’t make any difference. I joined in with the singing and dancing. What a great way to start the day.

Can you believe that this many people fit in our living room?