Create and share

Here is a video about Creative Commons

He was a great artist - RIP

MJ was the first American singer I liked because of this song.

 

Books for Children of Rwanda

I am proud of my sister-in-law, Lelia. She went to Rwanda with Come and See Africa a few years ago, she saw the needs for books for schools. Lelia loves to read, and she wanted to share joys of reading books with kids in Rwanda. Her dream was to put books in the hands of kids in Rwanda where most kids never have an opportunity to hold a story book in their hand. Lelia collected thousands of children's books, many of these were bought from Ebay, then last summer she packaged them and shipped these books to Rwanda. All these works were done by herself with her own resources.

Those books arrived in Rwanda a few months ago, and now they are being distributed to schools. As Rwanda is changing from French speaking to English speaking, these books are going to be more valuable to schools.

We can dream, but the dream can be realized when we take an action. I know, Lelia opened doors to so many students in Rwanda with her heroic effort.

Please read about this activity in the NEWTIMES of Rwanda.

My grandson - How precious he is!

First day of instruction

Today is the first class for Teaching with Technology (ITEC712), and I came to the lab to check the condition of computers. I am pleasantly surprised that we have brand new computers, and they work. I miss teaching teacher training courses. I have been teaching ITEC core courses such as Advanced Multimedia (ITEC 830) and Learning Theory (ITEC 800) as well as serving the department as the chair. Now that I am stepping down as the chair, I can do more teaching.

Teaching with Techology (ITEC 712) is the first course I taught at SFSU when I came to SFSU in 1988. In fact, this is the very room that I taught. I taught this course almost 15 years, then I took on a extra duties for the department. The last time I taught this course was in 2003, at the time my students in that course learned Microsoft Office applications. Here is the old ITEC 711 course site, here is the course site for this summer. Quiet a change! Students in the past used to spend hours to learn the software, thus less time to learn about integration ideas. Now, tools are much easier to learn and better yet, most tools are free. Teachers can organize resource matrials and share with other teachers using online tools, and they can provide their students with an opportunity to be engaged in learning in a rich learning environement.

It is a truely an exciting time to be a teacher. I am so excited about my own teaching lately. I can now do so many interesting things in my course with Web 2.0 tools. My students are using blog, wiki, Youtube, Google apps, and many more Web 2.0 tools, and more importantly they get excited about their own learning, thus they become better teachers. When students learn to express what they learned, they become empowred learners. When students communicate their ideas to the world, they are empowered. When they collaborate with others, they learn to value others.