Commitment, Dedication, Passion

On Friday evening I had the honor of attending a Bonsai (Dwarf) Tree exhibit put on by the Father of our MS Secretary Ms Joni Cho. Before becoming Superintendent of Suwon Schools, Mr Cho taught high school students the art of raising Bonsai trees, and some of his former students had trees on display as well.

This was a great opportunity to not only view these works of art, but to also ask questions and find out more about what it takes to raise a Bonsai tree. Mr Cho showed us one particular tree that he has raised from a seed and has been nurturing for 19 years! I was extremely impressed by the amount of commitment, dedication, and passion that Mr Cho demonstrated through talking about his trees, and the trees themselves. These are precisely the kinds of characteristics that we want our students to develop with regard to life-long learning and their pursuit of excellence.

Does it make phone calls?

When it comes to using my cell/mobile phone I must admit that I am a bit of a Luddite. I still see my cell phone as a tool for simply making phone calls, often forgetting that I can access web applications, listen to music, watch video, take photos and record video, and a list of other things that I am probably not aware it can do. Our students however are fully aware that they have access to their world of entertainment and their friends (their social network) in their pocket at all times.

The question is, do cell phones have potential for educational purposes? According to this article, "iPhone to replace register at Japan university" the answer is yes. http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE54R1NE20090528

Using the cell phone to take attendance is not a powerful use of this technology, but it is a practical way to utilize some of the services that cell phones now offer. Having the ability to download a podcast of the lecture, or even watch a video of a class opens up a world of possibilities and opportunities for educators to take learning outside the walls of the classroom. I have also seen students access English dictionaries, calculators, and world time zones, all through their cell phones. In these instances this little device has enhanced learning and has not distracted the students in the process.

It is certainly time for me to open up my mind and start seeing the cell phone as more than just a device for making phone calls. It appears that we may have a tool with untapped educational possibilities sitting in our students' pockets.

What are your priorities?

On Tuesday afternoon I had the opportunity to attend a parenting seminar with Dr Soo Woong Park, and ex-anesthetist who now travels the world as an evangelical minister sharing his experience and advice on parenting and creating happy families. Dr Park shared some of his memories of growing up in Korea under Japanese rule and through the Korean war, as well his determination to get to America so he could help and serve people. It was very interesting to hear that his initial motivation for becoming a doctor was so that he could be rich and famous. After he developed a relationship with Jesus Christ he said that his motivation changed - he no longer cared about being rich and famous, he simply wanted to help others.

Dr Park also spoke about priorities and asked the parents what was their number one priority for their children. In Korean society being well educated often takes the number one spot, but Dr Park believes while being well educated is important, it isn't the number one priority. The number one priority is knowing God. Through this our children will begin to understand the reason and motivation for being well educated and parents will no longer need to push their children to study because the reasons for studying hard will become clear to the students.

Dr Park's seminar was both thought provoking and entertaining. I know that the parents who attended enjoyed the afternoon and walked away with some new insights into their children and how to help them become all they can be.

Dr Park will host another session at 7pm on Thursday May 21st - this session will be delivered in Korean.

Tech-savvy teens 'adopt' teachers

Article taken from: http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/article/628451 accessed May 11, 2009

Students help instructors navigate computer techniques, blogging, multimediaMay 4, 2009
Kristin Rushowy EDUCATION REPORTER

The teachers at Don Mills Collegiate Institute are now the students.
Faced with teens who know more than they do about technology, the Toronto high school began an "adopt-a-teacher" program where students teach the adults how to create blogs or interactive graphics, edit video, or even just improve their PowerPoint presentations.
Half the school's teachers signed up for the tutoring, says Sharron Forrest, program director of the Toronto high school's renowned CyberARTS program, from which the student experts were drawn.
"First, we were going to limit (training) to eight people on staff, that's all (fellow teacher) Blake McAlister and I could do," said Forrest. "Then, when we saw how many teachers were interested, that's when I came up with the idea to put them up for adoption.
"We work so well with our students, and they are our best resource, it just made perfect, practical sense."
Students and teachers meet once a month for two hours, and this month, teachers will make presentations during a staff meeting, explaining what they've learned.
"It's such a neat concept because it breaks down the walls and it's so logical, that we get to play and learn along with our students," said Forrest.
A report released last week by the Ontario Public School Boards' Association warned that schools need to embrace technology or risk losing students' interest.
It noted today's youth "have no memory of a world without the Internet, without instant access to information, without an array of media at their fingertips.
"Many students feel that when they come into school they have to `power down' to fit into an environment that offers fewer options for learning than are available in the life they live outside of the school."
The association has said technology is the key to boosting student engagement as well as the province's graduation rate, which sits at 77 per cent of students.
The report also noted technology has created an "inversion," where teens know more than teachers, who need support and training.
"I'd done PowerPoint before, but I wanted to fine-tune it a bit," said Don Mills teacher Yvonne Nunes, who has taught for 23 years.
In the last decade, Nunes says she's noticed how students' technological knowledge has surpassed that of adults.
"It's something we know, that they know more than us in some areas," she said.
"It's a different generation, and we try to keep up but they are doing it 24/7."
David Yu, 18, taught Don Mills teachers how to blog and even gave them assignments.
"I had to breathe down their necks to get them to finish," he said, laughing. He had to remind them to update their blogs regularly, or what's the point?
Student Carl Ren, 17, explained wikis (collaborative websites) and websites; Jovana Randjelovic, 18, worked on iMovie.
The program also presents a learning curve for students, Randjelovic said, as they create lessons and develop presentation skills.
Even tech-savvy CyberARTS teacher Amrit K. Dhillon learned something – how to make interactive presentations and animation.
High school students in the CyberARTS program take a few "cyber" courses a year, in fine arts and communication technology, or geography, history or civics.
The regular curriculum is enriched through creativity and technology. In cyber-history, for example, students who learned about World War II put old photographs into Photoshop, exported them to Adobe Illustrator, turned them into paper cut-outs, which they printed, framed and mounted.
Toronto Star

Building Emotional Intelligence

Life is made up of many different experiences - some are joyous wonderful experiences while others are not so pleasant and may even leave us feeling a little worse for wear. From all experiences though comes the opportunity for growth; an opportunity to learn and to do things differently next time.

As I stated in a previous post, we had 15 students vying for 6 SCA officer positions, meaning that 9 of these candidates would not be fulfilling officer roles in the SCA next year. This was undoubtedly upsetting news for those 9 candidates when they first heard it, but what of the experience of putting together their campaign? We hope to help our students see that sometimes more can be learned and gained from the traveling then actually reaching the destination.

Dealing with setbacks is a fact of life and it is important that we help our students and children build up their resilience so they have the emotional intelligence to use these setbacks as experiences that make them stronger and wiser.

We all have a role to play in the ongoing improvement of our MS and we can all make a difference, as long as we use our emotional intelligence to assist our thoughts and help us to use experiences, both positive and negative, as opportunities for growth.

Building Relationships

I read with great interest the article on the ASCD blog - "Reform at the Expense of Relationships" (http://ascd.typepad.com/blog/2009/05/reform-at-the-expense-of-relationships.html). This was very timely due to the fact that the MS faculty has been busy meeting in various committees to propose some changes to procedures within the MS for next year. We have been working on our Academic Integrity procedures, Co-curricular Eligibility procedures, Language Use procedures, Discipline procedures, and Tech procedures as well. These procedures all directly affect the students and their daily lives at GSIS, but how much input have the students (and parents) had in the development and review of these procedures. The disappointing answer at this stage is 'none'.

One of goals must be to move from a scenario of administrators and teachers adminstering policy and procedure 'to' students, to one where we collectively create a culture of administrators, teachers, students, and parents working together to uphold the school policies. We can take a giant forward leap in this direction by including ideas and suggestions from all stakeholders; a process that we hope to begin in the early part of the 09/10 academic year.