ePortofolio conference

It is raining outside. I took a Bart to get to the downtown SFSU center for the CSU ePorofolio conference, Guess who was greeting at the registration table. Angie and Alex from ITEC 830 class they work for SFSU Academic Technology. Our ITEC program is trying to implement ePortofolio, and I noticed there were other department chairs came for the conference, so everyone is trying to implement.

I thought presentations that made by people from UK and other countries were interesting. Their approach for using a portofolio is more process oriented and student-centered than product-oriented.

During the day, I thought about several things that I want to remind myself often.

1. I don't want to call my student blog as a ePortofolio. Once we call it an ePortofolio or something like that, teachers expect students to showcase their work rather than using the tool to think with and to think about their learning process.

2. When a teacher gives more freedom to students to explore their own interest, they become more responsible learners. I experience this all the time in my class.

3. My job as a teacher is to empower my students, not manage their learning, they manage their own learning. I want them to learn more on their own than what we discuss in the class.

4. Modeling is important -- If I expect students to write their blog, I need to do it for myself too.


Alex and Angie are going to write about the conference in more detail in a wiki page.

Using Web 2.0 in Business.

My students and I have been discussing about the potential use of Web 2.0 in business last week. I thought this article is a good addition to our discussion with Eugene Lee.

Six ways to make Web 2.0 work in the McKinsey Quarterly, FEBRUARY 2009

Sense of Hope in Rwanda

I saw smiles on children's faces that made my heart to jump with joy. What I noticed the most during this visit was a "Sense of Hope" in the air in Rwanda. People are busy going places, with the sense of purpose. Children are becoming children again, they play silly to each other and they giggle all the time to mujungus. I saw more kids are carrying a book bag, in stead of carrying yellow plastic water jug on their head. I saw new buildings are going up everywhere; homes, hospitals, schools are built. The country of Rwanda turned the corner in recent years for better, in my earlier visits, the word I heard often was "We are poor", but I don't hear that word that often this time. I heard the words, "We can do" from the lips of my friends. I pulled out a few old pictures of children which I took in 2002 in Butare, and I put them in this slide show to see the changes in the children's faces. How good to see people's lives are getting better.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Prayers

I am so touched by my brothers and sisters in Africa. They pray, pray, pray. How do we know God's will in our lives? Here it is.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

At 5:30 in the morning, what do you do?

When I am in Africa, I attend the daily devotional meeting which happens at the CASA house where I stay. Around 5 am, still dark outside, I hear the CASA house gate opens, and see Jack takes white plastic chairs out from the living room to the yard. Then soon, mamas and kids enter the gate. These are poorest of poor people in Butare. Most of mamas are widows and some of these kids are orphans. These children often went to bed hungry the night before. And yet, they get up early, walk the dirt road in bare feet, in dark, to get here. They give thanks to God that they are alive for the day. They pray, they sing, they are grateful for each other. Whenever I see the way they express their gratitude to God, I am so humbled by them. I am reminded by them that true joy comes from grateful hearts, not from things we possess.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

NUR Faculty Seminar

Paul Kim from Stanford, Debbie from Multinomah University, and I taught faculty members at NUR. Paul shared mLearning (mobile learning), and Debbie shared cooperative learning and I taught different ways of using web 2.0 applications.

Professors are eager to learn, but the computers in the faculty lab didn't work well. As always, I am happy to share what I know with my friends in Africa. This year seminar was great, we had three excellent presenters who volunteered to go to Africa and provide this seminar. Each of us paid our own ways to get there, and put our hearts into the presentations.

Flock Browser

New Year's Eve and Lighthouse building site

I am back from from Rwanda. I will put photos and slides to share what we (nine volunteers from US) did in Rwanda from Dec. 30, 2008 to Jan 15th, 2009.

We attended an all night service at a local church. Hundreds people attended the service, and they stayed up all night, singing, giving testimonies, reading the words, more singing. Went on all night. We did many different project: construction, teaching, conference, playing with kids, visiting homes, etc.

Here is how we spent on New Year's Eve, and laying the foundation for the Lighthouse on Jan. 1st, 2009.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Almost Done

This is our third week in Butare. We completed Student Conference which is the main program for this year. Students from Uganda, Rwanda, Congo, and Burundi came. This year's conference theme was "Building your church, building your nation". Also, they gathered in the evening, and the evening theam was "The Call". Rob, Cody, Debbi, and Chris were main speakers for theThis is our third week in Butare. We completed Student Conference which is the main program for this year. Students from Uganda, Rwanda, Congo, and Burundi came. This year's conference theme was "Building your church, building your nation". Also, they gathered in the evening, and the evening theam was "The Call". Rob, Cody, Debbi, and Chris were main speakers for the evening session. Students met 8 am to 5 p.m for the main conference, Chris taught "Building your church and Building you nation", and Rob and Cody taught "Spiritual gifts", and African speakers encouraged students as well.

Debbi, Paul, and I conducted a four-day long seminar for NUR faculty members. Fifteen faculty members attended the seminar, they are so eager to learn about teaching and learning with technology. The evaluation of the seminar indicated that they learned a lot, and we motivated them.

Students from other countries really enjoyed the conference, and also visit to the National Museum.

Now, it is in our third week. There are two more seminars left for our team to conduct; one for the pastors, and another for the pastors’ wives. Paul Kim and Grace Kim are going back to US tomorrow and they will stay one night in Kigali. Amon will pick them up and show him his school and also introduces Paul to important people who make decisions for the country of Rwanda.

Chris and Cody went to Congo to encourage people there, and they will come back tonight. Debbi, Tabitha, and I visited morning devotion mamas' houses this morning.

In Butare, Rwanda

I am done with the NUR faculty seminar, and we are relaxing now. The seminar was successful, professors really like to learn about Web 2.0 applications and teaching strategies. Debbie presented "cooperative learning strategies", Paul presented "eportofolio", and I presented "emerging technologies in education". We had network problem all the time.

Chris went to Congo with Cody. At the last minute, we decide NOT to go to Congo because of the situation in Congo. The rest of the team is relaxing. I am teaching Joanne how to use computer, she created her first blog. Here is her blog site,

We are doning fine

We arrived in Butare Rwnada on Dec. 30th, and had a wonderful worship service at the Pastor Paul's church. It was an all night service; praising, giving testimonies, reading the Words, and preaching. I can't believe several hundreds came to the service, and they stayed up all night. Here are some photos of our activities so far. We, nine of us, are at the Pastor Paul's house for a dinner before the New Year's Eve service. We worked on the consturction site, the future Lighthouse. There are 44 holes for 44 pillars. We also worked with kids at the CASA house. Paul Kim broung little computer game device, and children are amazed with the little thing can do. Tabatha, Cody, and Grace worked with children; playing games, coloring, singing songs in English, playing tatter ball. You also will see what we eat. Jack, the CASA night watchman is holding a cute chicken which soon to be on our dinner table. Internet connection is really slow here.

Dancing at 2 am

Pastor Rob, Lelia, and Grace joined dancers on the stage. They are dancing at 2 am at the all night service on the New Year's Eve service.

 

Dream Team -- 2009

 

Nine of us are posing at the Pastor Paul's house after the dinner. The following activites will be taking place next two weeks.

1. Pan African International Student Conference -- Christian students from Uganda, Rwanda, Congo, Burundi will come and share their hearts for Jesus. The CASA is sponsoring the conference, and Chris, Cody, Rob will be involved with the conference

2. National Unversity of Rwanda Faculty Seminar -- Paul Kim, Debbie Miller, and I will be involved with the faculty development seminar. We will focus on technology and instructional strategies.

3. Children's Ministry -- Tabitha, Cody, and Grace are in charge of children's program.

4. Morning Devotion -- Children and widows come to the CASA house at 5:30 in the morning and start the day with praise and prayers.

5. Evening Rally -- Chris, Debbie, Rob, and Cody will preach and teach. The theme for this year is "The CAll"

6. Women's seminar -- Debbie is in charge of the women's seminar, and she will teach on "Prayers"
7 Pastors' seminar -- Rob and Cody will teach

8. Villiage ministry -- The team will visit country side churches, and encourage local pastors. We will also play with children.

9. Visitation ministry -- We will visit widows' homes and pray for them

10. Construction work -- We will work a few hours at the future Lighthouse construction site

Christmas Greetings

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Christmas Cantata

Rain was coming down pretty hard during the morning service. As I ushered people at the door, I kept looking up at the sky, hoping to see a sign that the rain might stop before the evening service. The rain never stopped. In spite of the rain, many peopled showed up for the annual Christmas cantata.

This year’s cantata theme was “How Great Our Joy”, and the congregation had an opportunity to sing along with the choir. This made for a much more enjoyable event. We had two youth from the Korean congregation join the cantata, making our choir more youthful and also more multicultural.

As Pastor Chris was reading the Christmas story from the Bible in English, Korean words were projected on the screen to accommodate the Korean audience. It was so nice to see different ages, different races and different language groups come together and be able to sing together such songs as “Joy to the World”, “O little town of Bethlehem”, and many more. After the cantata, we had a fellowship with delicious finger food. I probably ate half of 250 dumplings which the Korean pastor’s wife made.

What a joy to sing and fellowship with our brothers and sister in Christ. Gloria, in excelsis Deo!

I am enjoying my visit to CCC in Taiwan

I left home on Nov. 3, and arrived in Taipei on Nov. 4th at 6 am. After 14 hours of flight and 2 more hours of high speed rail ride, I arrived at National Chung Cheng University at noon, very tired. There was a reception dinner at a very fancy Japanese restaurant in the evening, food was beautifully arranged and equally delicious. You have to see their guest house. They give me a VIP room, there are two bedrooms, living room, dining room, and a bath. I wish my family is here to enjoy Taiwan with me.

I was told that there are 15 full time faculty members in the Communication Department. Most of them came out to see two scholars from the west, one is from Simon Fraser University in Canada, and one is from SFSU (you know who she is). I asked each faculty member what he/she teaches. I learned the department is composed of a very interesting mix of experts and here they are: Media Policies, Media Economics, Media psychology, Message design, Health Media, Media ethics, etc. Interesting and very rich.


Here is my first impression about Taiwan.
1. Mountains and hills are so beautiful and so green. I love it!
2. Gentle and respectful people.
3. Great food and presentation is a work of art.
4. Hot Spring
5. A fire which is burning right out of pool of water. It is an awesome sight.

But most of all, I was strucked by the way the Communication department colleagues are treating each other. With gentleness and with respect. I am not accustom to this kind of academic culture in America, at least where I work. As I think about this, I just realize that how Americans are treating each other very harshly. I am not even sure how I could describe this harshness, I can't even find a right word to describe what I see in my colleagues and even in me that we brush off people. On the surface, we may smile with cursory greetings, but there is harshness there or no concern for others. Is this harshness comes from hardness of heart? Is our stress seeping from our everyday actions? We are so disconnected and distrustful. I am sure my Taiwanese colleagues too have academic politics and they too sometimes don't get along. But they still keep coolness and kindness and treat each other with dignity. Something that I can't explain with words, but I recognize that sense of empathy is well cultivated and developed in them, thus they are calm, cool, and yet confident.

What is it that people from the West are so quick to judge others. Is this L-brain driven society makes us to behave this way? Perhaps.

This quiet gentleness and kindness that are demonstrated by these bright professors left a great impression on me. I must note that I didn't see this wonderful quality in Korean colleagues when I visited Korea, I wonder Koreans are more like Americans in this aspect of our life. We are quick to judge others, me included.

I need to find out this unique characteristics in Chinese people. Some may say that Chines don't show their emotion quickly, they keep their emotion in their sleeves, whereas Koreans show their temper quickly. Whatever it is, I am curious to know what makes these people different. I noticed that many young, beautiful, accomplished, second generation Korean-American Women marry Chinese-American men. I asked to my young Korean friend. She said, "Chinese men respect their wives. They do house chores where Korean men don't".


The person from Canada presented something about Media politics. I made my presentation on teaching for future with technology. After the presentation, the department chair, Dr Lo and Peter, took us to a hot spring. I saw a most amazing thing; fire is burning from the water, the water looks like oil that gives fuel to burn. Here is the awesome sight I saw.



After a mud spa, I am relaxed and happy. Also food makes me happy too. I ate this big hot pot beef soup all by myself.

I will be leaving for Taiwan today. I am still working on my PowerPoint -- I don't know I will use it or not. I don't like PowerPoint, but I will have them just in case. I am planning to show up for my ITEC 830 class on Thursday via online. I hope I will have an Internet connection at 9 a.m in Taipei time, which it is 7 p.m, my class time in California. Peter Hsu who graduated from ITEC department in 2001, then went on for his doctorate in Instructional Technology at University of Idaho invited me to Taiwan. He is now a professor at National Cheng Chi University. It will be fun to see him again, and also speak about the topics that I am passionate about: Technology and Learning. I will speak at two different universities and also two different topics. Here is my itinerary which Peter sent to me:

11/3 (Monday) 00:15 from SFO

11/4 (Tuesday) 06:05 arrive TPE, I will go to the airport, and we will go to our school first and check in. Later in the evening, we will have a reception for you and the other scholar from Canada, Dr. Hackett.

11/5 (Wednesday) You and Dr. Hackett will give speech in the morning at CCU. His topic will be about mobilizing for media reform in Canada: Opportunities, challenges and lessons; after lunch, we will go together to one of the famous hot spring vista point near our school.

11/6 (Thursday) It will be your second speech at CCU; after that, we will go Taipei. (Taipei 101 and the forbidden city)

11/7 (Friday) Your speech will be held at NCCU in Taipei, the College of Communication; then, after a short rest, we will go to the east part of Taiwan, the back garden. We will stay in one of the best hotel there.

11/8 (Saturday) We will go one of the most famous travel spot in Taiwan, Tarroko; and go back To Taipei at 2:30pm. We will arrive Taipei after 4:30pm. Your flight back to SFO will be 23:15 pm.

Would you please reconfirm the topics you are going to give speech to?

at CCU
1. Teaching for Future with Instructional Technology
2. The Impact of Emerging Technology in Education

at NCCU
3. The Impact of Emerging Technology in Education (chosen by their Dean)

We are looking forward to seeing you and with you have a good time with us in Taiwan :-)

Peter

November Newsletter for my church

Attitude of Gratitude

At the October Women’s meeting, Diana, Betty, Shirley, Lillian, Eldora, Caryl, Linda, and I had a great time of fellowship. Our church is pretty famous for fellowship and eating. Once I heard Linda’s 3 year old grandson called our church, “The Restaurant Church”. Every time he came to church, he saw us eating. This time was no exception. Lots of donuts, breakfast cakes, deviled eggs, quiches, and all the sweet stuff that would cling to my waist were there. After we ate, we talked about business items such as collecting food for Golden Gate Seminary students, collecting winter coats for the homeless, and collecting children’s Christmas gifts for the Women’s Crisis Center.

We then had a time of sharing what God is doing in our lives. These were some of the reports: “I thank God for giving me patience to deal with family responsibilities”, “ I thank God for giving me a peace of mind”, “giving me wisdom to choose the right thing to do”, “giving me energy to do things I need to do”, “giving me insight to adjust my expectations”, “giving me an opportunity to help my grown daughter”, “I thank God for having a family and working with a good boss”.

As I listened to each person’s praise, I realized the power of gratitude. Our attitude of gratitude was like a sweet fragrance spreading in our midst and rising to the throne of God. We became tender toward one another. Is it my imagination or my wish? When we ask for prayer requests, we tend to focus on our own problems and disappointments, but when we share what God is doing in our lives, we tend to focus on God and His work in our lives. My point is this: Let’s praise God more and talk about ourselves less. Then a sweet fragrance will fill our life, an aroma that can transform our home and our church.

Eugene Lee, CEO of Socialtext

Eugene Lee, the CEO of Socialtext came to my class, and inspired us with so many great stories. He captured our attention, almost 2 hour without any break, I am talking about late night, 10 p.m. I can see he is passionate about what he is doing, and he made great points for being connected with others in the business world. Also his experience with Twitter convinced me to use Twitter, which I often thought why anybody in the world wants to know what I am doing, such as I am grading papers or I am eating my lunch. Out of all those Web 2.0 tools, Twitter was the least useful for me as a teacher. But Eugene inspired me to try to use it again. So I shall follow those who are having fun working, and you can follow me if you want to know what I am doing.

When Eugene came to the class last year, he was the new CEO to the Socialtext and he just got off from Adobe as a VP. By the way, when I met him when Adobe invited educational leaders to the conference from all over the world, everyone wanted to make a connection with him including myself, people were lining up to introduce themselves to Eugene. He looked little uncomfortable, at least to my eyes. He was little stiff. But boy, this time, he looked happy and relaxed, and he made jokes. He is actually very funny. I sense that he found the right work to use his talents, creativity, and his personality. Eugene is having way too much fun.

You have to watch this movie!

In my class, students are telling a story without words to demonstrate six senses of Danial Pinks book. Brian who is a movie producer did an excellent job to demonstrate six senses which we are discussing in ITEC 830. I think that a good piece of art brings out different emotions, evoking empathy, harmonizing different elements thus create a great symphony. I watched this movie several times, and my response to it was different each time (meaning). If he used words, it would not have the same effects on me. Also don't forget about "playfulness" of this piece. This movie got a five star rating from me. Here is Brian's blog site for more info. http://jipclass.blogspot.com/

Daniel Pink's book and video

We, ITEC 830, are reading A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink this week. The key points of the book is about using both sides of the brain to make successful living in the 21st century global economy. I found his commencement speech at MCAD is interesting and is a good summary of his book. I also think he is a great speaker whom I wish to learn from.

part I


The following video really describes the importance of design, story, empathy, symphony, play, and meaning.