Merry Xmas

As technology becomes more and more predominant in the world , x'mas cards are disappearing from the world.  What a surprise to receive two lovely cards from the students today! Just to share with you my joy!

How to motivate students

This has long been a topic in education and a challenge for teachers. I have heard a very inspiring talk on Friday. Much appreciated if you can share your findings or suggestions or attempts in handling this issue.

ipad or not?

Everyone talks about ipad or ipod touch now. Should we buy some in the school? How are we going to use that in the classrooms?
http://thejournal.com/Articles/2010/10/13/Ushering-iPad-Into-the-Classroom.aspx?Page=1

Khan Academy

Anyone has any comments on the exercises/ questions posted on Khan Academy webpage?

http://www.khanacademy.org/

Will students in Hong Kong benefit from doing these exercises?

Teaching 21st century skills

gorgeous video to share!

Teaching 21st century skills

Welcome back to the school!

Time flies and it is September again! I'm not sure whether the students would feel really happy and excited at starting the school term ( most students love holidays!)  but I bet they would be really excited  at seeing the renovation done in the school over the holidays.

We have a new school hall, newly furnished with electronic curtain, and 'steps' that can come out just on a 'click'! Imagine having performance and presentation there! How nice!
We have resurfaced playground and two big chessboards on the ground! Imagine students playing chess on the playground! How entertaining!
We have lots of tiny little changes all around the campus! Just too many to list!
With such a happy campus, I hope students can enjoy learning here and have lovely memories to share with their classmates and teachers!

I myself have been very happy this week as I received a good news. Guess what? Andrew Matthews, a famous Australian writer has promised to come to our school and give a talk to my students on 'Happiness'! Wow, Andrew has written a series of books on Happiness, namely, 'FOLLOW YOUR HEART', 'BEING A HAPPY TEEN!' and 'HAPPINESS NOW' which have sold over 6 million copies.
He is in Hong Kong this time to launch his latest bestseller "HAPPINESS IN HARD TIMES'. I'm sure our students would benefit a lot from his talk, not to say from reading his books!

I look forward to seeing him in our school on 17/9/2010. All parents are welcome! Do come and share our 'Happy' philosophy and help cultivate a 'Happy' culture in the school!

                                                      DON'T WORRY! BE HAPPY!

virtual learning

During the whole trip, I got in contact with lots of teachers and scholars. In the last two days, I had the luck to go on some school visits with another two representatives from Scholastic and a Malaysian teacher. We talked a lot during the trip and at one point, Juliet, from Scholastic showed us this:



http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/expert21/virtual.htm


This is what virtual learning really means. It not only offers a big pool of resources and guidelines for teachers to ‘guide’ and students to ‘learn’, but also addresses the problem in Hong Kong- cater for diversity. The web package was designed in a way that it offered materials for learners of various abilities. That’s what e-learning really means. It allows the learners o explore further at their own pace and their ability.


Shouldn’t we in Hong Kong do similar things?

Conference day

I am excited. I am inspired, very much so and I cant wait to have this happening in the school with all the students and teachers. I hope they could share the same excitement with me, if not more.

I also got the chance to meet Big heads from UK and big heads from Malaysia. One big head is Lord Sutherland. He told me he’s good friend of our former governor, Sir David Wilson! He gave a very interesting keynote speech and he used an analogy of buying tickets to illustrate that computer is already a part of life. He used to buy tickets by telephone order and yet he had to press few buttons before he got on to the right channel and could eventually end up with someone saying, ‘the waiting queue is very long at the moment…’. It might be 30 mins before he could really place an order. But now, everyone could do it by few clicks online. So why stick to the old way of doing things? What a nice analogy telling people that our students are living with the technology and we just have to teach them in the way they are learning.


There is a big team of Malaysian officials from the Ministry of Education. They are now planning to use the new platform in ALL the schools in Malaysia. They are talking about hundreds and thousands of schools! What an innovative attempt. So we people in Hong Kong should catch up. We have been boasting ourselves as the most forward looking people and we can lag behind, still using talk and chalk!


There are really lots of things to talk about the conference. Let me just drop in few lines from my notes. They are spoken by different people, some are educationalists, some are just teachers in the school. Each of them is enough for me to write a paper on it. Whoever is reading this blog, do ‘think’ after reading each line and apply that to our teaching and learning context in the schools. I hope you get as inspired as I am now!


…………………….


Using IT in school - Ordinary people doing extraordinary things? Or just ordinary people doing ordinary things?


A learning platform should be fun, interactive, cool, flexible and socially involved.


Schools should reflect what the society is. Schools should then help students to fit in society. We should equip them with 21st Century skills.


Education is an engine for change in society; education should prepare students for change.


Information technology is no longer an add-on. It is the way we live now! We should take the young folk’s hands and head them to the future.


WE should transform the school so the students can use the platform to interact with people.


Professional development therefore comes during and after CHANGES.


…………


A goal in education - independence in learning but abundance in culture. There should be something for everyone. Allow and promote creativity! Teachers have to teach with creativity and students could then develop their creativity.


Examples of creativity learning:


Ask students to do a project: What can you do with the content in your waste bin?


Use the idea of a card game, think of a way to learn periodic tables


Get a Physics teacher in and tell students how to take pics of ‘motion’- a blend of Physics and photography


………….


Learning and teaching should be done in a mixed mode- bit of lecturing and bit of technology


Intellectual abilities are developed through socially/ culturally authentic tasks. Learning through making!


Learners construct, rather than passively receive pre-digested knowledge and understanding. ( I love this very much! That points out straight away the difference between instructional teaching and student-centered learning)


Teachers are ironically, very good risk managers. They avoid too much risk too soon. ( So brave, dear! School is already a very safe place!)


Intranet and eclass are different from a good learning platform. It is sort of like separating learning from life. We have to make learning and life together for our students. We then need a platform which is our students’ home page, the very first page they browse. So it should include all the social networking sites, like Facebooks, twitter, youTube etc. We should adopt a ‘one shop for all’ model. It is more like a blurring of social network and learning network.


Engage is the word. We have to engage our students in learning. We should then grasp the good timing- when students are heavily involved online- to sustain the momentum and fine tune their direction.


OH, teachers, are you excited? Let’s work together to create a real learning scenario that would excite our students too!

If you want to know more about the conference, here it is:
http://www.frogtrade.com/index.phtml?d=1308460

My trip in UK

I arrived at Manchester on Saturday night after leaving home for 20 hours. I was dead tired by then. Luckily, I could pick up some sleep and was quite myself the next day. I decided to grab some time before the conference to have a quick glimpse of the city.

My first destination was the museum of Science and Industry. Only then I realized or better say remember that Manchester is an industrial town. The museum is huge, something like the Universal studio but hardly charge a penny! Great job! It has altogether 5 towers, each having a focus, like 1830 warehouse, station building, power hall, air and space hall and the main building which is basically on textile industry. I went into the main building first.


The way the narrator talked about the development of textile industry in Manchester was sobering. The condition there at that time was so poor. The noise level was so high and the cotton was everywhere in the air, bad enough to cause you lung diseases, if not cancer. The factories at that time got child labour, getting children who were only 5 yrs old to work. It was because the factory was so cramped that only kids would save space in working. OH my god, imagine the kids now! They even complain of having not enough entertainment, life being boring. Words that come out from their mouth would be like, Why should I? Oh, consider those in the 19th Century please- why should they suffer?

When we were in school, we were always shown the living condition in Hong Kong of 1960s. But compared to the situation of Manchester in the early 18th century, things were far worse. We really have to count our blessing for what we have now!


What interested me after walking through the halls would be the cross subject learning envisaged in the exhibition and the display. It’s not only History; it could be English literature as we are shown ‘Hard times’ by Charles Dickens which narrated the hard time in Manchester. When the display is about the sewage system in Manchester (History again and Physics: motor system of how to pump the water), we have boards and displays about how we should treasure the use of water (Water cycle in Biology and Geography). Then we have global warming at the end of the corridor which is a big issue to discuss and be alert of!


You know what’s on my mind? I’m thinking we should grasp a theme and then do cross curricular projects like these for our 20th School Anniversary celebration! The museum director must be one having worked in education, if not a teacher! Well done!


The weather here is beautiful, cool and breezy. I look forward to the coming conference. I hope the conference can give me inspiration on how to develop e-learning in the school. ‘The world is flat! ‘ So if other people in other parts of the world are doing something good and innovative for their students, I see no reason why in the same time zone, we should not do the same!

Are you happy?

Just want to share with you all this piece of news. We always meet people telling us how upset and frustrated they are. Well, read the news below! Being happy can be very simple. When you decide that you want to lead a happy life, you would start searching for a reason to be happy. Sooner or later, you would find that it can be very very simple.

A cup of coffee can make us happy. A smile can make others smile and so will make us happy!

Happiness brings energy and would bring even more happiness!
So happy quest for your happiness!

快樂大使尋港快樂之源 1年訪206國家地區 信港人最快樂


(明報)2010年5月3日 星期一 05:10

【明報專訊】快樂是什麼？每人都有不同答案。Antonio Santiago、Kelly Ferris 和Tony Martin三名年輕人，肩負起「快樂大使」的重任，365日內走訪206個國家及地區，了解和記錄世界的快樂人與事，找出「快樂之源」。走了4個月，來到第75站香港，在他們眼中，香港人快樂嗎？3人異口同聲說：「當然，香港人最快樂！」

Antonio、Kelly 和Tony從過百萬人中脫穎而出成為「快樂大使」，今年1月1日由西班牙 馬德里出發，到全球206個國家和地區，參加為期1年的「快樂長征206」（Expedition 206），每地方只逗留1至2日，至今已在南美、非洲 等多個國家留下足印（見下圖）。他們上周四晚抵達香港，翌日在中區展開快樂之旅：到中環 嘉咸街街市與檔主閒談，感受香港濕街市文化之餘，更大唱《半斤八両》鼓勵香港人，下午歇腳在茶餐廳吃奶油豬、飲凍奶茶，晚上再入蘇豪看著人來人往的中環夜景。

難忘港人樂於助人

不少調查指香港人不快樂，生活壓力大。來香港逛了一日，「快樂大使」竟認為香港人「最快樂」。Tony 解釋，香港人心地很好，因當他們剛抵港後，拿著地圖停下來找路時，立即有香港人主動幫忙。「大家好像很趕時間，想不到香港人如此樂於助人！」助人為快樂之本，他看出了香港人的熱心，所以認為香港人心中是快樂的。

快樂是從心而發，每個地方都有自己的快樂價值，Antonio 說，曾與無數人交談，他發現亞洲人的快樂在乎健康，而其他歐美及非洲人則大多會認為，快樂來自家人、朋友；金錢、財富並非快樂的主因，「就算去到一些窮困的國家，他們無iPhone，什麼也沒有，無擔心就快樂」。Kelly覺得，香港人雖然忙，但不會只顧自己，其內心一定有快樂；至於哪國人最不快樂，她苦思後回答：「芬蘭 人，可能較怕羞」。

「亞洲人重健康 歐非人重親友」

New Pedagogical DNA

I have been doing quite a bit recently in the school to bring in more technology into students' learning. I am still convinced that if students get hooked on computers all the time, we should make best use of computers  to make students become passionate learners.

However, during the process, I realise the biggest enabling factor would be a team of staff which share the same vision and have that particular new 'pedagogical' DNA- allow me to borrow this term from a video. Yes, teachers all need a new DNA, as fundamental as that. And we have to reproduce this DNA so that the message can be spread to a larger audience.

Just want to share with you this video. Rather inspiring! When we complain about the students being not motivated, not interested in learning, whose responsibility is it?

Technology and Terrified teachers

Wedding & Information Technology

I attended the wedding ceremony of my ex student on Sat. A very touching ceremony. I couldnt believe that the handsome groom before me was the student with me in the Geogaphy room 10 years ago, having UE lessons.

I remember clearly how the students sat in groups and had activities with me in the afternoon. 10 years ago, technology wasn't that advanced as it is today. There is no blogging, no wikis etc. But we managed to have powerpoint for teaching and learning. I still could recall the sound and animation I added to the powerpoint to motivate them and keep them awake in the hot afternoon. After my presentation, the students would go to the desktops at the back of the room and did their exercises. Their computers were not linked to the internet and so we used a network system to retrieve their work and showed them before the class.

That was ten years ago. Now we have web2.0 and wireless network all around. We can see people browsing the web in the cafe, or even in the sports ground. We have people emailing and sending each other msgs on the MTR. But in the classrooms, do we have lots of changes?
I reckon teachers are more used to using powerpoint but talking about interaction and self-directed learning, how much technology has been applied?

I cant help once again quoting my experience in Singapore. Students in the floor were sitting on the floor making conversations to each other, holding the laptops with them and searching for information. On their eplatform, I could see the student- blogs with reflections and comments here and there.

Oh, when can this scenario be a common one in Hong Kong schools? Why after promoting more than 10 years of IT in education, situations in Hong Kong are still similar, if not the same? How come the computers that students have at home are more advanced than those in the schools? How can we talk about motivation and sustained learning? When we talk about mobile learning, the machines in the school are in no way mobile!

Should something be done in Hong Kong?

珍惜眼前人

Just read this from the web and would like to share with everyone. Very meaningful.
Count your blessing and treasure what you have at the moment. Be expressive! Dont wait till the last minute and regret!

旅程接近終結，也是與親友話別之時。人生旅程終結，不代表一切曲終人散， 我們還可為身邊人留下生活智慧及祝福，好讓他們細味與你的生活點滴…不需要等待臨終的一刻，我們每一天都可向身邊人表達自己的心聲，與親人作情感交流及冰釋前嫌，珍惜彼此共處的時刻。即使死亡來臨，也可以無悔無憾。 常言道：珍惜眼前人。

中國人很重視人倫關係，但卻往往不懂表達自己的感受。當我們明白生命有限，便更懂得珍惜大家共處的時間，以及冰釋關係中的嫌隙。多點與家人和朋友作情感交流，能使我們生命沒有遺憾。

「請原諒我」、「我已寬恕你」、「多謝」、「我愛你」、「再見」- 五句簡單的說話1，帶著無窮的力量。五句說話 – 寬恕、欣賞、關愛 – 讓我們與人建立更深的關係。在日常生活中向至親表達至情至性的說話，可釋放人與人之間可見或可不見的舊怨新仇，拉近人與人之間的距離，讓人可以輕鬆及喜樂地生活。

Eightfold Path of Righteousness

A friend sent me this

Eightfold Path of Righteousness -or- Noble Eightfold Path 八正道(八條崇高的道路).

Ethical discipline includes

(1) perfect speech 正語which is true, kind and appropriate speech,

(2) perfect action 正業 which are actions which do not harm others,

(3) perfect livelihood 正命 which is obtaining our sustenance by non-harmful and honest means. Meditative Stabilization includes

(4) perfect effort 正精進 which is effort to counteract the disturbing attitudes and negative emotions by mediating on the path,

(5) perfect mindfulness 正念 which is counteracting laxity and excitement in our meditation and

(6) perfect concentration 正定 where the mind can remain fixed one-pointedly on virtuous objects. Wisdom includes

(7) perfect understanding 正見 that allows us to realize emptiness, and

(8) perfect thought 正思which is the mind that can explain the path clearly to others and is motivated by the wish for them to be free from suffering.

People nowadays are all looking for happiness in life. Would the above give you some insights?

Be Happy

No worries! Be happy!

'Being happy' is the key to success. When you're happy, you have the motivation to learn.When you're happy, you have the energy to work.When you're happy, you can face any challenges with ease!
...................................................................................................

Let me give you some tips on how you can be a happy individual:

When you view your glass, say to yourself that it is half-filled, and not half-empty!
Count your blessing every day and be thankful!
Think of what people (e.g. your teachers, your classmates, your family, your friends) have done for you every day and say ‘thank you!’
Think of something you have done during the day (e.g. having finished a piece of writing, having done a Maths exercise correctly or even having answered a question in class) and give yourself a thumb up.
Tell your friend or your parents that they look smart or pretty and watch their smiles!
.....................................................................................................

Being happy can be as simple as that. Having worked in education for more than 20 years, I realize that the most important thing in school is a happy culture! My dad has cultivated in me a positive attitude towards everything in life. That works really well. And all through my years working in different schools, I have been trying to tell my students that learning is in no way difficult. If we have the passion for study, the way to study would be simple and smooth. I studied English Language and Literature in the university and I love it till now! It was that passion that kept me studying all the time even after school. It was the passion for the subject that urged me to teach with commitment. It is the passion for study that sustains my life- long learning! Just to share with you, even at my age now, I have piles of books beside my bed and I can’t afford not to read before I go to sleep.

So my passion now is to create a happy environment in the school where our students can be nurtured in a happy atmosphere on their way to becoming successful 21st century world citizens! Do come and join me so that my passion can be a common vision for you all!

My singapore trip

If you are interested to see what I have done and what I have seen during my singapore trip, click this:

http://www.ltpss.edu.hk/v3/render.php?content=newsandevents_highlights&lang=en#935

This was a really enriching experience and I can't wait to adopt some of the strategies in my own school!