I am sorting things out, packing, transporting belongs in my spare time I have. On top of my regular work of teaching, interviewing new students for Fall 2009, supervising thesis projects, giving workshops, attending conferences, we are in the process of moving. So, I need two of me. Every time I move, I promise myself I will not accumulate more things. But I don't keep my promise. Since we moved to the parsonage in San Lorenzo about two years ago, I bought more things to fill the house. Now we have to move them. My husband begged me not to buy these heavy, big rosewood buffet table and a wardrobe cabinet that are imported from Vietnam. But they are so pretty, I said, and insisted that we need to buy more pieces to complete the sets. Our house now looks like a Chinese furniture warehouse. I have to find a way to move them and find space to put them.

Keep my eyes on the path I am on

Last week I had an early morning meeting in San Francisco, so I rushed into my car and drove off. On a stretch of Highway 101, near the SF airport, my mind wandered off. I found myself on an unfamiliar street. Instead of exiting onto highway 280, I went straight on 101. I tried to get off at the next exit and reverse my route. “Simple”, I thought to myself, but it wasn’t. I couldn’t see the highway entrance. The more turns I made to find my way out, the deeper I got into strange corners where I had a harder time getting out. Eventually, I found my way to the university, feeling stupid and anxious about missing an important meeting at work.

Afterward, I considered my getting lost experience. It happened in a split second. My mind was not on where I was going. As a matter of fact, I was replaying in my mind an unpleasant incident that happened the day before at work. The more I replayed the incident, the angrier I became. Instead of giving it to the Lord and forgiving the person, I was trying to figure out the person’s motive. My mind [and my car] ran off in a wrong direction.

During our Christian walk, we often lose our way, if we are not careful. Just as I knew my destination perfectly, most Christians know where we are going. And yet, if we are not aware every minute during our walk, we could miss our exit and turn in a wrong direction. As soon as I learned of my mistake, I turned around. It still cost me an hour to get back on track and I missed an important meeting. I caused other people to wait for me and several meetings had to be rescheduled. If we take our eyes off from the path we travel, we may end up in a wrong place and bring grief to ourselves and cause problems for others.

Web 2.0 conference

I had a great time at the conference. I attended sessions from 9 am to 5 p.m, and yet I had to miss many interesting sessions. Also, I enjoyed observing behaviors of people. There were so many young, bright people on stage and off stage. I met two Korean women, one from Canada and one from SF area, we hung around for three days together. This year's theme was "Power of Less", and more people talked about humanity than technology, which made the conference more interesting. I even heard Lev Vigotsky was mentioned in a presentation. One person based his presentation on Pink's book, and noticed many of these innovators are artists. Almost every presentation started out with a story, and they used well designed PP to tell their stories. The most often used words were like "relationship", "community", so Facebook won over Flash this year.

When my relatives who never used e-mail are now on the Facebook, and they update several times a day. One smart person saw the power of Facebook, and wrote a book. Her name is Clare Shih who made an excellent points about doing business utilizing Facebook power in her presentation.
There were many interesting presentations, if you are in itec 830, check out presentation files and video from the conference in this site.

The president of RISD talk was very inspiring and also interesting, so I am posting a video of his talk here.

David Weekly's PBwiki Web 2.0 Expo Talk

View more presentations from David Weekly.

W3C Geolocation API - Making Websites Location-aware

View more presentations from rsarver.

WWCMD?

View more presentations from Mickipedia.

Long Obedience In The Same Direction

A Long Obedience In The Same Direction

Today is our 35th wedding anniversary and our marriage is strong. At first our union was so fragile that many friends and family members advised us not to get married at all. Many predicted that we would not even celebrate our first wedding anniversary. Chris and I faced so many barriers: cultural barriers, language barriers, and racial barriers. I look back on our marriage, and I see God’s hand all over us. Without God in our marriage I know that I would not have seen today, a wonderful day when I am happily packing to go to New York to see my first grandchild.

The road to this point has not been smooth. I encountered big boulders crashing down on me that almost killed me. Big rocks blocked the road; gravel made the journey tiresome and difficult. Sometimes, I wanted to give up, and take the easy road out, but God was with me. He carried me when I was exhausted and lifted me up when big burdens fell on my shoulders. With his help, I was able to run the marathon, which requires a long obedience in the same direction.

Chris and I have been going to Africa for nine years, to the same place to the same people, year after year. One Rwandan pastor shared publicly this summer, “Many missionaries come and help, but they don’t come back. There are only two groups come back again and again to us. They are Foremans and Rick Warren”. I took this as a complement because we are running a race that requires a long obedience in the same direction. When God called me to go to Africa, I answered that call. The first few years were exciting. I appreciated meeting new people, learning new languages, and experiencing a new culture. However, establishing an on-going mission requires more than excitement. It requires commitment and perseverance – just like a marriage. God calls us to be faithful in all we do. Faithful means that our actions are worthy, dependable, and enduring.

Women's retreat

I had a great time at Mt. Hermon last weekend. Some brave women walked on a rope (30 feet high from the ground) and ate bugs (edible, chocolate covered) in order to take points to win. I was not one of those brave ones. I took lots of pictures for their walks. There were 15 small groups, and we challenged each other with different activities, counting lamp posts in the camp ground, or counting the number of bleachers. My team didn't win for the easy tasks, but we won rope walks and bug eating activities. At the end, we were all winners.

This year's theme was "The Amazing Race: God's Way". I had a time to reflect my life, I can say how grateful I am for His mercy and blessings for my life. I also got to meet ladies from a Nigerian church in Oakland, when they sang, I missed my Rwandan friends so much. Here is a slide show from the weekend. I put a music to spice up the slide show, it is little loud.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

What a great time to be a teacher

It is so good to work with roomful of bright students. I read their learning blog, and learn so much from their learning. Here is what Alex shared with us, and I am sharing with you. We are living in an exciting time-- Look at what we are going to use soon. I don't have to squint my eyes to find keys on my phone. Here is a talk about MIT media lab work: http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html




Also, Alex found this great site for us:

"NEWSFLASH: My favorite blog, information aesthetics, just posted about Sixth Sense. Here's a four-minute video. Imagine the implications! This is soooo cool, and it's very much what Dr. Wagner was discussing in class about Web 3.o (3D).
http://www.kwfdn.org/map/map.aspx"

This can happen to your grandmother

I don't have digital TV conversion problem since I don't own a TV. But most of our church people (there are more than half of our congregation members are over 70) have to convert their TV. I didn't even think about asking how they are managing this conversion problem.

I got this wonderfully funny video from Dr. Ellen Wagner's site. I have to ask her if the lady is her mother whom she talked about in our class. I thought this Youtube video is so funny. But it is not so funny when it is a reality that our seniors have to deal with. As we use more technology tools to connect with each other, we need to think about accessibility issues.

Video story

Since I asked my students to create a less than one minute story using a web 2.0 tool, I should do it too. I asked them to create a video story to highlight the points which were made by my friend, Curt, who came as an online guest speaker from IU. I confess, I didn't do "WE ALL CAN LEARN" thing. Here is my story about my grandson.

I will be going to Brooklyn in a few weeks, during my spring break, I can't wait to squeeze this bundle of joy. Till then I squeeze pixels of Lorenzo.

Make a Smilebox postcard

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