Juan's Cadre 12 Reflections - Master of Arts Learning Technologies, Pepperdine University

1st Day of School - Leading the Charge

2010-08-25T18:06:00.000-04:00

Checking in...

The song "Welcome Back...Welcome Back...Welcome Back!" from Welcome Back Kotter! comes to mind as I reflect on the 1st day of school at Phillip O. Berry Academy. This is my 2nd year teaching at my school and I have been given the opportunity to teach two classes this semester: Digital Video Production and Web Design. Both classes are fun to teach and I am looking forward to them.

I met my students today and they seem to be very excited about returning back to school to see their friends and for the Senior Class of 2011: Graduation in Sights. My homeroom is a senior homeroom and it was great to meet them. They will be a great group and I will do my best to help them as much as possible to accomplish many of their goals this year.

On average, I have 23+ students per class and it will be interesting to make sure all students learn/master the materials that will be provided to my classes this year. Most importantly, I want to continue to make my classes engaging and fun!

The highlight of the day happened in my 2nd period where I was going over my rules and procedures with my students to set the tone for the year. During this time, I noticed that a student (a senior) had his cellphone out and he "secretly" tried to text someone during this time. So, I had to get the phone from him and hold it for the remaining of the day. I thanked him for serving as an example for things not to do for class for this year. I guessed I was a bit shocked because it was the 1st day of school and this student tried to "test" me and you know I had to get him. Otherwise, the students observing would have thought I would be a "push over" for the remainder of the year. You know that is not the case and that won't fly! (smile)

Other than that, the 1st day of school was great and I'm looking forward to the next day to share knowledge and inspiring students to learn.

Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts.

Checking out...

Fine: It's Done and Official!!!

2010-08-10T21:16:00.001-04:00

Hello all and I'm checking in!

"It's hard to say goodbye to yesterday..." - Boyz II Men

It seems like yesterday when I reflected on the moment of thinking about applying to graduate school, flying to LA to attend VirtCamp, and going to through a condensed 1 year hybrid graduate program at Pepperdine University. All I can say is, "I'm so glad I did!" My classmates and I from Cadre 12 journeyed into another adventure and got along so well that other MALT Alumni and Faculty members thought this couldn't be real. Pepperdine University MALT Cadre 12 is the Real Deal and I am so glad this is my Crew aka La Familia! I miss them a bunch and it feels odd not being in classes/meetings Monday-Wednesday with them. Trust me! We had a bunch of fun!

I wrote this to say that I am grateful for Cadre 12 and those MALT/OMET Alumni who have paved the way! Most importantly, thank you God for my wife and family who supported me during this challenging but rewarding journey! I look forward to the many "Learning Adventures" that lie ahead for me as an educator and technology steward.

In closing, Cadre 13 is next on deck and I look forward to the great things that will come about from this group. I ask that they lean and learn from each other to make it through. Your journey will involve us all.

Take care and I'm checking out!

Peace and Blessings...

EDC 668 Portfolio Postings (May 10th - July 5th)

2010-07-16T18:00:00.006-04:00

+Post a brief paragraph that summarizes who you are in the Edtech community and what you are passionate about.

In the EdTech community, I serve as an Information Technology Educator at Phillip O. Berry Academy of Technology in Charlotte, NC. Within my distinguished career, I have worked for the Microsoft Corporation for about 16+ years before departing in 2008 to pursue my passion for educating and mentoring youth. As far as my previous roles with the Microsoft Corporation, I have served as a Content Project Manager (2002-2008), Technical Writer (2002), Partner Technical Lead & Training Specialist for Microsoft Windows XP (2001-2002), Lead Program Supportability Manager for Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 & Microsoft Office 2000 (1996-1999), and a Product Support Engineer (1992-1995 & 1999-2001). In my role as a Content Project Manager, I was responsible for the online content support strategy, readiness, and releases of technical documentation for key Microsoft products: Windows Internet Explorer, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Silverlight, and Windows Media Player which can be accessed via the Microsoft Help and Support Centers at http://support.microsoft.com. I have served as a key representative and speaker for Microsoft Corporation at numerous career fairs, national conferences, and workshops. Among my many accomplishments, I have been awarded the Carolina Computer Access Center (CCAC) Volunteer of the Year (2004), completed the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE), Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), and Microsoft Desktop Support Technician (MCDST) Certifications (2002-current), and I co-founded the Juan J. Flowers and Marion E. Robinson Endowed Scholarship Fund at Johnson C. Smith University for Computer Science & Engineering students (1998 - current).

+Identify the key organizations you should participate in (or already are) and list in your portfolio. Each should have a brief, one sentence description and/or link to organization website.

National Society of Black Engineers - The National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), with more than 33,000 members, is one of the largest student-governed organizations in the country.

Black Data Processors Association (BDPA) - BDPA (Black Data Processing Associates) was founded in 1975 by Earl A. Pace, Jr. and the late David Wimberly after the two met in Philadelphia to discuss their concerns about minorities in the data processing field.

Phi Delta Kappa Professional Educational Association - Phi Delta Kappa International is the premier professional association for educators.

+Post links to previous classwork that best exemplifies your interests, passions or skills.

EDC 633 - Educating Today's Learner

EDC 664 - Learning and Technology

EDC 665 - Curriculum and Technology

+Begin developing a resource section, with links to key resources, sites, etc you find useful to share with other. Post at least three resources.

Key Web Resources:

Free Technology For Teachers

Center of Collaborative Action Research

Wikipedia

Go2Web20.net

+Begin developing a favorite technologies section, with brief annotations. Post at least three resources.

Favorite Technologies:

Acrobat ConnectNow - Adobe® ConnectNow, one of the Acrobat.com services, is a great way to share ideas, discuss details, and complete work with others — all online. Reduce travel costs, save time, and increase productivity with a web conferencing solution that's easy to access and simple to use.

Diigo - Provides the best cloud-based information management service that enables users to collect, highlight, access and share a variety of information, on a variety of devices.

Prezi - The Zooming Presentation Editor: Create astonishing presentations live and on the web.

GreenPrint - GreenPrint makes it easy to print only the pages you want saving you around $100 a year on paper and ink, as well as helping to save millions of trees.

XtraNormal - If you can type, you can make movies. Xtranormal’s mission is to bring movie-making to the people.

+Post a link to your CV or resume, for public consumption

Resume of Juan J. Flowers

EDC 668 Blog Post - Week #9

2010-07-05T15:01:00.003-04:00

Reflect on a successful experience you had managing someone else? What made this successful? What could you have done differently?

In my career, my roles didn't require me to manage another person. I managed projects and made sure that each person involved with the project was on task and provided a status update of activities that were occurring per the milestones. The key thing that was successful was that I made sure that a project charter (plan) was provided to each of the key stakeholders to help provide the strategic plans for the project from day 0 to completion. In other words, the communication had to be clear and concise when I had to work with Vice-Presidents and General Managers who were sponsoring my projects.

The only thing that I would have done differently is difficult to think about. The reason why this is the case is that I had to make sure that I was on point because I was a key orchestrator of the project. If I didn't know the resources, scope, or the time it was going to take, I would be out of the project. So, I never wanted my sponsors and key stakeholders to not know what was going on. Furthermore, I would provide enough feedback from my immediate teams to allow various points of view to be provided to show a more collaborative effort. Again, I was not perfect but, I did strive for excellence in all that I did as a project manager.

EDC 668 Blog Post - Week #8

2010-06-28T11:40:00.005-04:00

Reflect on a great manager- what made he/she great? What does this tell you about yourself?

One of the best managers that I can recall working for was John LaTour. John was a straight-up, no-nonsense manager that was about empowering his team members to do there best in all they can do.

What made John great?

1. John supported me for advancing in the company and he allowed me to take any class to help my professional development.

2. John put his trust in me to make key decisions that were best for the team and not just for my own merit.

3. John would express his expectations up front so, there were no surprises that would blindside you when it came to review time or during 1-on-1 meetings to discuss performance.

4. Lastly, John was a true and genuine person who would look out for his team members when an issue would affect his team.

It made it really easy to work for John since he allowed me "free reign" to do what needed to be done to be successful and to allow our team to be great, too. Again, John understood that he was successful when his team was successful. Great managers are made when they allow their team to be great and not restricted "in a box."

At Microsoft, I had a pleasure to work for/with some of the brightest people in the world. I have seen some great management and some challenging management that allowed me to focus on what great, successful managers are like. Again, I am about business but, I realize that being compassionate about your people and empowering them to do their best is most rewarding as a manager beyond just getting paid monetarily.

EDC 668 Blog Post - Week #6 & Week #7

2010-06-21T14:17:00.003-04:00

How can management be innovative? Does it then become leadership? Where do the lines intersect between management and leadership?

Management can be innovative when they allow their team members to be empowered to make changes and accomplish tasks towards creativity and improvements of processes. Stirring away from managing it all has to go. When you empower people, you can generally expect great results and the best creativity of work.

Empowerment ties into the fact that management choosing to allow this to happen demonstrates the flexibility and trust he/she has for their team. The key thing that management needs to remember is that allowing your team to shine will allow them to shine, as well. "TEAM - Together Each Accomplishes More"

Management and Leadership intersect when integrity and trust of the team are put in place to ensure that objectives and expected outcomes are accomplished. Leadership is a trait that can be demonstrated by any member on the team to drive a project to completion and each member on the team reaps the reward. Management is in place to serve as an entity for approval and sponsorship of a project. You do have leaders in this group but, the driving force of success doesn't have to be driven from them.

EDC 668 Blog Post - Week #5

2010-06-07T11:52:00.004-04:00

How does motivation translate into technology design and success? Think of an example successful technology, and share how motivation was a factor in its success.

Motivation can be translated into technology towards the design and success by witnessing a problem/flaw in a product and making significant changes to show mass improvements compared to a previous version. One of the best, personal examples that I can give to describe how the technology and motivation were meshed to become successful was when I was a Lead Supportability Program Manager for Internet Explorer 5.0 back in the mid-90s. Imagine browsing on the Internet with only Netscape 3.0/4.0 and competing (playing catch-up to compete in the browser space). Being on this team was great because I was able to obtain feedback from customers on a regular basis to provide this feedback to the product group (key developers) and make changes within a matter of hours/days ahead of our scheduled release dates announced to the public. IE 4.0 was okay and it placed a small dent into the share of the browser wars with Netscape but it wasn't acceptable. As the IE team, we realized that our user experience had to better and that we had to be able to browse at least 95 to 100% of the web pages that were available faster than Netscape without crashing as well as make sure that the browser setup was smaller than our previous version (IE 4.0).

To make a long story short, our reviews for IE 5.0 were very promising and positive compared to Netscape because we were motivated to fix the issues that we saw with the previous version that were just "not good" for our customers. The key feature that was requested by many users was to incorporate Print Preview and WYSIWYG support for web pages to print as it appeared on the screen. Once this was incorporated for IE 5.0, we were "golden" and our customers and investors showed us a lot of love. Again, the IE 5.0 team was motivated by making our customers happy by providing a great product and not worrying too much about just putting something out there to compete. We actually fixed 98.9 percent of the issues that were reported/duplicated by our customers and we had lesser phone calls than any previously released web browser. The key to success is to provide clear communication and goals to motivate others to do their best work. Hey, the general manager providing us dinner and snacks helped alot on those long days/nights helped to motivate us, too. (smile)

EDC 668 Blog Post - Week #4

2010-05-31T10:46:00.000-04:00

What tools in the Drive Toolkit most interested you? How would you use these tools to motivate those around you? To be personally motivated?

"Understanding my sentence or purpose" and "My performance review" were a few tools that mostly interested me towards being a Type I. Using these tools allows me to help motivate others by providing suggestions to do things differently to enhance my learning environment.

Personally, I honestly feel that we all can make improvements on the way we live our lives. On a daily basis, I strive to be the best father for my sons, better husband for my wife, and better servant for God who has blessed me tremendously beyond finances. I can only get better by asking for feedback from my peers and from making a self-assessment about my aspirations, goals, and purpose in life. In my younger years in life, money drove me but, I now feel that being of service for others to help them succeed is more rewarding than self-promotion.

Senior Awards Day Presenter...

2010-05-28T17:22:00.001-04:00

On Friday, May 28, 2010, I was asked to fill-in as the awards presenter for our Academy of Information Technology. It was more of an honor than just a task to do for the 2010 graduating class of Phillip O. Berry Academy of Technology.

Funny moment: As a fill-in, you're not going to be on the program and they are going to call out a name of the individual to present but you have to introduce yourself instead. I wasn't nervous and I had fun presenting the awards for the top seniors in the National Technical Honor Society (NTHS), IT Courses, and Cardinal Connection broadcast team.

At first, I thought I had to present once but, I had to present 3 times. So, imagine yours truly getting up in front of the audience once as someone else and 2 more times as myself. I'm so glad that I wore my GQ tailored suit to look presentable regardless if I would have fumbled on my words or not. (smile)

Overall, it was a great program and it was great to see that my students that I had an opportunity to teach were receiving awards and scholarships. This graduation class had been awarded a total amount of $4.5 million dollars of scholarship monies. Again, I am very proud of them and I am honored to be one of their teachers.

"Best Teacher Award" goes to...

2010-05-27T18:06:00.006-04:00

It's Thursday, May 27, 2010 and this is the day that I planned to provide refreshments for my students for working very hard and making my 1st year at Phillip O. Berry a memorable one. This is one of my rewards for my students who work hard and play hard. Again, each of my class periods had refreshments and each of the students had took a moment to express their experiences in my class(es) and what they learned. Let me just say they were very thankful for me being their teacher this year and some were saddened to the fact that they couldn't take the same class again for credit. (smile) The kicker to this day was when my students presented me with a small token of appreciation in a form of a certificate and a huge carnival lollipop. The certificate says "Best Teacher Award" goes to Mr. Flowers.

Here's a picture of me showing how happy I was to receive this award:

This let me know that I don't teach for the $$$$ nor for the decision makers in our district. I truly serve as an educator to help our students learn and prepare them to be future leaders in technology. My students will always have a special place in my heart for their gratitude.

Thank you God for allowing me this opportunity to serve as an educator.

EDC 668 Blog Post - Week #3

2010-05-24T17:16:00.003-04:00

Who is impacted by change? What are their characteristics and how do we use our understanding of them to best implement change?

Change impacts everyone. Changes affect the way we think about laws, the voting of a new President of the United States, a decision to make healthcare more affordable, or even as simple as rules of a game. These are some examples of a few things that are impacted by change.

Some key characteristics on why change occurs:

Consistency: Your message (communication) has to be clear
Expectations with Evaluations: Objectives/Goals are given and proper assessment is available to provide the results
Affirmation: People want to feel wanted or more so rewarded. Compensation is a way to help confirm this.
Timing: Timing is everything. You have to make sure that you have strategically planned for a change to occur in a timely fashion that is given through clear communication upon it being put in place.
Assumptions: Please make sure people affected by a change(s) are aware of it occurring. No one wants to be blind-sided by something that is going to cause major ripples in their livelihood.

Overall, we have to make sure that our communication is clear and our objectives of the change are clear. Most importantly, it makes sense that all parties involved are informed in a timely manner to provide feedback and different perspectives.

NASCAR and My AR...

2010-05-22T23:11:00.399-04:00

Each year around the week before the Memorial Day Weekend, Charlotte, NC becomes the centerpiece of racing for NASCAR fans from around the world to support their favorite drivers. The two key races that Charlotte is host of within this two-week span are the Sprint All-Star Race and the Coca-Cola 600. As a kid, I remember that I would always watch NASCAR on television but, I never been to a race in person. My father would take me to the car shows and to a few drag strip races but, I never been to a NASCAR race. I owned a Tyco race track and I would act as if I was a driver in NASCAR for hours. WooHoo!!!

Now it's 2010 and I have 3 sons who seem to enjoy watching NASCAR on Fox whenever there is a televised race. Three years ago, I decided to go to my first NASCAR race with my oldest son Jaden and my brother Marcus. The race we went to happened to be the Sprint All-Star race which is only 100 laps and the drivers race at night. The cool thing about NASCAR in person is that everyone was having a great time with family and friends. Before we could get out of our car good, we were greeted by some fans of Dale Earnhardt, Jr and Jimmy Johnson. They invite us to their tailgate area and we had a great time before we stepped into the Charlotte Motor Speedway (Lowe's Motor Speedway was the previous name). Again, we had too much fun for a 1st time experience. Jaden and I have attended 2 more Sprint All-Star Races since our 1st race in 2008 and each one gets better and better.

At this year's race with Fantasia singing the National Anthem and Michael Jordan waving the Green Flag to start the race, I was sitting there with my son Jaden with the excitement of stock cars going around a 1.5 mile track at speeds up to 190 mph @ 700 hp. It is such an adrenaline rush as a fan particularly if you can imagine sitting in the cars with the drivers. In addition to my focus on the cars, I had a few thoughts about how NASCAR is a metaphoric subject that I can speak about towards my action research project. I know I mentioned to my Learning Circle Team (Mike and Nick) that I was going to compare my AR to Gears and this idea led to my thinking of NASCAR as my metaphor to use in my elevator speech for my AR instead.

Here's a draft of my Action Research Elevator Pitch with my metaphor of NASCAR:

Come take a ride with me to Charlotte, Daytona, and Talladega. These are the famous places where I have been. Within a year, 23 of us from around the country have gone through multiple races for the ultimate win. By following a pace car 3 times around, this helped me to get a good grasp of an action and start from the ground. My crew chief Margaret R. provided advice and feedback of my turns. My Cadre 12 crew assisted me with any changes needed and supplied fuel to help me understand several theories on how everyone learns. In my community of practice, I was sponsored from A to Z to put a logo or seal of approval on my work. From those sponsors who helped in the process, the truth was told and no feelings were hurt. Establishing a legacy like those of Earnhardt, Petty, and Waltrip have come to mind. Through this season, I shifted gears from gaining the trust of others in a PLC to incorporating a technology framework for others to use over time. The stock car that I drove has been touched by many with a different hue. The waving of green was not the driving force for starting my work but, the black & white in the checkered flag did let me know that I am finishing through. This is not about NASCAR! It's all about my AR!

Hello ladies and gentlemen. My name is Juan Flowers and my action research as a 1st year teacher at Phillip O. Berry Academy of Technology in Charlotte, NC consisted of 3 cycles to help me bring "Educational Technology Tools into the Classroom to Help Students Learn." The 1st cycle involved me meeting new and seasoned teachers in my PLC and other PLCs to introduce myself and gain their trust while learning about their experience with technology. My 2nd cycle involved introducing different Web 2.0 tools and resources to teachers within and outside my PLC and for them to provide their feedback. My final cycle involved developing a framework of the tools approved of/used by the teachers and their students to help them enhance the learning of different subjects being taught through the use of technology.

EDC 668 Blog Post - Week #2

2010-05-17T10:30:00.004-04:00

How do we know what learning is necessary within ourselves and those impacted by the change?

The learning necessary for us to obtain is:

Understanding what actions need to take place
Knowing how much time is needed
Obtaining the resources available for implementation to occur

Learning is further obtained after setting a goal(s) and having a firm list of objectives to solidify that what is being taught is being assessed to ensure the learning. For example, a teacher can have a goal for his/her students but, if the objectives aren't given, the teacher may not know how to navigate through his lesson to reach the goal. Furthermore, the assessment given should "flow" with a consistent check alongside the objectives that should have been given to the students to ensure that they have learned.

Throughout the country, we are hearing more and more about teacher layoffs. This has to be the most challenging time to be a teacher. Let's say that the standards have increased to potentially keep the best ones around to help students improve student achievement. It just seems that the evaluations of teachers have changed to have them show proof based on artifacts than just facts. If you aren't used to documenting all that you have done as a teacher, it's a great time to refine your documentation to demonstrate your competency in this role as a teacher.

Change can either motivate or demoralize an individual from doing their best work.

EDC 668 Blog Post - Week #1

2010-05-10T04:32:00.009-04:00

Identifying opportunities for change. How do you know when change is needed? How do people become passionate about change?

When I think about change, it seems that it can apply to many entities. In the sense of making a change in society, I am always asking myself "How am I going to be the best servant to make this world a better place?" Making this world a better place requires quite of bit of "change."

In order to make change in this world, we have to change ourselves which may require several minutes, hours, days, months, years of deep thoughts and reflection. How I am today is not always what I will be tomorrow or the near future but, I honestly feel that my past decisions that I didn't like help guide me now as a reminder of things not to do going forward. Each day of living is another way of looking at another blessing that God has given me to make a difference within myself, family, friends, and the world.

Change is needed when a repetitive action is ongoing and the results are the same whereas you're expecting something different. In the business world, processes may require change when productivity is down or overwhelming due to a demand that is greater than expected. When you want to lose weight, you may change your habits (i.e., eating, sleeping, exercising, etc.,) so you can work for a more healthier lifestyle and legacy.

People become passionate about change when they support an idea that may affect many moreso themselves. Change is inevitable and you always have to expect it to occur. Again, people are passionate about it more when they have a support system to rely on from others who believe in the same change. We can only hope that the change(s) made are positive and support wise, thought-out decisions for the best of all.

Checking on my father (DAD)

2010-03-07T22:29:00.009-05:00

As I type this, I just had to take a moment of my time to reflect on how great God is...! Two days ago, my father was in the hospital (ER) at Womack Army Hospital on Ft. Bragg, NC. He told my mother that he felt that he was having a lost of breath and he was having chest pains for weeks but, he didn't want my mother to worry. He allowed my brother to take him to the hospital to get these symptoms checked out. He's left the hospital several hours later after the EKG showed no alarming issues. So, my brother took him home.

Quick background: My father is a retired CW3 Army Officer who has always been a hard worker. He served in the US Army for 22 years. Currently, he is a lead welder at an employer that he has been working for at least 16 years. Over the years, he has been commuting back and forth 60+ miles roundtrip on a daily basis. He's dedicated to his faith, family, and friends.

I went to Fayetteville, NC to surprise my father this weekend and it gave us a great time to spend some time to just catch up and chit-chat about old times and present times. There was a great amount of laughter to share and I'm so glad that I chose to go see my father rather than having someone ask if I was coming home. Regardless, it was a no-brainer for me to go and check on my DAD.

I can assure you that it was well worth my trip to see my father, mother, and brother this weekend. I got a chance to hang out with DAD, see a few of my classmates from high school, and watch UNC vs "UMAKEMEPUKE" DUKE. Although UNC didn't win, I had a great time hanging out with my friends.

Lastly, my dad and I had a great chat about our health and how important it is to take care of ourselves going forward. I am participating in a Health Challenge at my school to live a healthy lifestyle and I suggested to my dad to just take it easy as instructed by the doctor. Again, my father is doing fine and I'm thankful that all is well with him. Thank God for grace and wisdom.

Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts...

EDC 633 - Learning Theorist Final Project

2009-12-16T00:23:00.013-05:00

Assignment Prompt:

Ok, the SL project is off (unless you really wanted to do it - then go ahead)

Here is the alternate:

1. Choose something that people learn how to do. Could be anything, from baking a cake to snow skiing. Something you know how to do, to something you know little about.

2. Create a lesson or lesson plan for learning to do the thing from #1 that represents how your theorist would teach someone to do it.

3. You will be graded on the following:

How well does it reflect the theory?

How creative is it?

How cool is it?

Does it represent your best effort for a class at this level, given the number of days you have to invest?

4. I'll leave it to you as to how to present to everyone. Please let me know how I can be of assistance.

This lesson plan is structured with the situated learning philosophy of Etienne Wenger in mind. One of the critical aspects of successful learning is its practical focus that can be maintained through situated learning model.

My Response:

Lesson Plan Presentation Tool: Prezi (http://www.prezi.com/)

URL of Lesson Plan: http://prezi.com/4mmpzsm1_sat

Reflection: While composing my lesson plan for this final project, I reflected back to my undergraduate years where I learned about PC Components and Operating Systems for the 1st time. My professor allowed us to "dig" in with hardware and software. He wanted us not to worry about breaking something. This type of learning made it easy for my classmates and I to maintain interest.

My initial look at Prezi: I was introduced to Prezi by one of my co-workers and she stated that this Web 2.0 tool was very dynamic and simple to use. To get started, I viewed the tutorials to become more familiar with this tool. Shortly afterwards, I just started adding text and pictures.

Woolah! Again, this tool is great! I felt like "a kid in a candy store" and so will you. ;-)

Have fun and be a contributor through your community of practice (CoP).

Again, thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts about this project.

EDC 664 - Learning Adventure #7 - 3N Mathematical Adventure

2009-12-07T17:42:00.047-05:00

When I made an attempt to work on this learning adventure, I was thinking like this should be fun since I like Mathematics and it would seem only fair to leverage this type of "adventure" after reading Pappert talking about the "language called Mathematics" can shape the way we think about the world and life around us.

For the most part, I leveraged my cadremates to help come up with a way to track the numbering scheme. This information was recorded by Nick in a spreadsheet over a matter of 2-3 days trying to count the "number." The other thing that stuck out was trying to understand the formula on how to capture the number of times of seeing the "number" and documenting the output. What made it fun was that we all had a bit of a challenge at first but, we all came together to talk about how each of us was trying to record and document this exercise.

After all the work that was applied, Cramer came up a C# program to tally it up. The other way we could've possibly worked this out was by slowing the program down in MicroWorlds EX. (just a thought). Nevertheless, it was a great opportunity to brainstorm and to come up with an approach to grasp the concept that was presented to us.

Later on, I found out that this was part of a long-time algorithm called "The Collatz conjecture" which is an unsolved conjecture in mathematics named after Lothar Collatz, who proposed this in 1937. Again, thank you for this learning adventure. It had us stumped for a little bit but, we survived it by thinking and working together.

Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts.

EDC 664 - Learning Adventure #6 - Comedian (Jerry Seinfield) & Google Wave

2009-11-28T16:56:00.046-05:00

My Reflection about Google Wave: As many of my cadremates have stated earlier and I agree. In Google Wave, it seemed like the thread that you were contributing to may or may not be on the "major" thread of discussion as it would appear to you as a user "riding the wave." This tool will be great for an asynchronous session to use the threads as a transcript for later reading. The vision behind the concept of using Google Wave is great. The implementation and learning process of using Google Wave can be a bit of a challenge. I'm going to go back and look at the "Google Wave" User Guide that my cadremate Nick sent out to see how I can navigate better with this tool. (smile)

My Reflection on Comedian: It was interesting to see the comparison/contrast of a new comic (Orny) and more seasoned comics (Seinfield) going through the process of learning their craft as well as their audiences even when "an audience is dead." It was great to see respect/"love" of other comedians from the likes of Chris Rock/Jay Leno/Bill Cosby just to name a few to just dialogue about what they have witnessed as great comedy and to complement the work that Seinfield and others hav done for this era of time on the comedy scene. Orny seemed like he was placing too much pressure on himself to be great in a "microwavable" way. Patience wasn't his virtue in his learning to be a comic in the business. Respect is earned and not given. He could've learned a thing or two from Pappert in his philosophy of understanding that patience and time can lead to excellence in an area that you are not too familar with.

The quote that helped me reflect upon for this course and our experience so far in MALT is: "To have fun" while doing what you like to do. In this documentary as well as our program, the CoP that the comedians are a part of allowed each person to give and take away best practices on how to "move the crowd." As students, we have to continue to have "fun" and "play" as we learn to be better in our craft, too. Each adventure/skit is a dress rehearsal for each of us to see if we can face the challenges head-on and apply the knowledge learned/shared from others to make each of our steps closer to fulfilling goals.

Overall, I enjoyed watching Comedian after getting past my own thoughts of watching the intial 20+ minutes of Orny ranting and being "full" of himself. ;-)

EDC 664 - Learning Adventure #5 - MicroWorlds EX

2009-11-16T11:52:00.113-05:00

My initial thoughts about Learning Adventure #5: This learning adventure seemed like it was going to be one that I would be drawn to. Programming wasn't something new to me but, I've never learned how to program in LOGO unless I programmed in this language without knowing I programmed in LOGO. (smile) After reading the directions given from our professor, it seemed that this "adventure" couldn't be that hard of a task to create a 100 x 100 patch with a turtle. So, I was willing to try this out and complete this task with "ease." Again, I was optimistic about learning more about MicroWorlds EX and the introduction to LOGO using the turtle. Thank you Seymour Papert for keeping us entertained while we learn.

What did I learn while using MicroWorlds EX: This software was fairly easy to use but, that's after reading the information and experimenting with several tries of coming up with a patch that would make some sense to me. Talking with my other cadremates, I found out that some of us had programming experience and some of us did not. For those of us who had the programming experience, it was like "a walk in the park." For those of us who had little to no programming experience, it was a bit challenging. To make a long story short, this adventure was a success through the help of Fabiola, Dillon, and Mike T. The strength of knowledge shared among many can accomplish a multitude of challenges that we face daily. Again, the hatching of the turtle and understanding the "lingo" in LOGO programming helped me to accomplish this task with ease.

Here's a screenshot of my patch for the quilt as demonstrated via Wink 2.0:

My reflection: As I reflect my thoughts about this "adventure," I was thinking about my experiences as a child learning BASIC for the first time and how much easier it would've been to learn how to program if MicroWorlds EX was available in the early 80s. The very 1st program that I wrote was about 50 to 100 lines just to make Mr. Bojangles dance left and right in one specific location. This adventure made me think more like a child going through MicroWorlds EX as Pappert would've wanted us to do so. Another programming software that comes to mind is Python (which seems to be another variation of MicroWorlds EX). Again, my patch included the Pepperdine University colors of Royal Blue and Orange. Renaming the turtle and adding the commands were very simple to do. If all programming languages were like LOGO and introduced to all of us at an early age, how much more advanced would our programming skills be to take on the challenges of C#. The learning curve would be a lot less challenging and it would probably inspire more of us to pursue this skillset. By taking my time with this exercise, it has inspired me to invest into learning my programming languages again to become proficient in this area. This will help me share information and expose this type of technology to other students and future programmers.

Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts.

EDC 664 - Learning Adventure #4 - Inspiration with Webspiration

2009-11-08T00:15:00.006-05:00

My initial thoughts about Learning Adventure #4: When asked to do this “adventure,” I was like why are we doing mind mapping? What does mind mapping has to do with learning? As always, I am willing to try a new tool to assist towards my learning. Furthermore, I cannot like using a tool without trying it. So, I am going to try it and see if this beta product (tool) will come handy beyond using it for this Learning Adventure.

What did I learn while using Webspiration: This tool was fairly simple to use without a huge learning curve. When reading Papert’s book, “The Children's Machine - Chapter 3: School: Change and Resistance to Change,” it allowed me to gather my thoughts about education from a new teacher’s point of view. I actually recorded the key points from this chapter and placed them first in Microsoft OneNote 2007 and then I pasted them into Webspiration via its Outline View. The Outline View allowed me to paste my outline in without any problems but, it still didn’t format my notes correctly when I switch over to Diagram View. In the Diagram View, it shows a “nifty” map of graphics from the highlights that I had listed in my outline. My cadremate Jamie showed us a tool he uses called Mead Map (aka Comapping) which is very similar which seems to have a bit more structure with its “Diagram View.” If I had to compare the two programs, Mead Map would be an ideal tool to use for this exercise than Webspiration. Again, Webspiration is free and its still in beta so, I didn’t expect too much from it other than allowing me to collaborate with others to compare “notes” on the assigned chapter.

http://www.mywebspiration.com/view/294150a778f is the URL location of the mindmap created in Webspiration.

My reflection: As I reflect back on this learning adventure, it reminds me of the times I would use Microsoft Visio to create flowcharts and diagrams to make textual thoughts more vivid through the use of graphics. I’ve used several different note taking software programs and one of my favorite would have to be Microsoft OneNote 2007 and a close second would be Evernote. I’ve used Adobe Connectnow, Elluminate, and Microsoft LiveMeeting to collaborate with other team members, colleagues, business partners, etc., online. The low light of them all is that most of them are not free of charge and they require a fairly high price tag to subscribe for use. Also, they require quite a bit of bandwidth over the network (Internet) to have real-time collaboration work effectively. The highlight of these software tools would be that you can use them anywhere without any restrictions other than not having an Internet connection. Over the time of using these software tools, the learning curve became minimal upon having more times to practice delivering my presentations and prepping for meetings. Practice makes perfect more so excellence. Webspiration is actually pretty good and I’m pretty sure that I will use it for future use to help me gather my thoughts for future presentations/projects. Lastly, this seems to be an easy to use, straightforward Web 2.0 application that will continue to be used for my learning.

Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts.

EDC 664 - Learning Adventure #3 - Celestia

2009-11-01T19:51:00.006-05:00

Learning Adventure #3: Celestia
“To infinity...and beyond!” from Buzz Lightyear of Toy Story

My initial thoughts about Learning Adventure #3: When it comes to exploring space, I thought this would be a pretty cool exercise to do with Celestia. I was new to using this program and I never heard of it until we were asked to partake in this adventure. Out of curiosity, I wanted to see if there was a meaning behind the name of the program and I found out that the origin of the word is Latin which means “heavenly.” If you are going to have a program that involves space exploration and stars, this name fits very well.

What did I learn while using Celestia: The first thing that I noticed about this program was that there was a slew of keyboard/mouse commands to learn if you wanted to delve into the program. My first stake of learning was to just “jump in” and play around a bit to see if I could view the whole solar system beyond just the demo. As I “flew” around the program, I was noticing the flight path of Haley’s Comet, the orbital of the International Space Station, and the Earth and the Moon as our satellite in real-time. The coolest thing that I thought was a bonus was that you could download and explore science fictional worlds from the likes of Star Wars, Star Trek, and Babylon 5 (just to name a few). Growing up as kid, I was and still am a fan of Star Wars. The introduction of the light saber and how a Jedi would learn how to master its use was just phenomenal to see on the screen as a kid and the science behind the scenes for using this “tool” in the movies were very interesting to know from the documentary of STAR WARS™: THE LEGACY REVEALED which re-aired on the History Channel and from commentary from George Lucas himself in the 6-Disc DVD movie collection. The key lesson that I explored was the History of the Zodiac Constellations. As a kid, I knew a few of them based on reading from World Book Encyclopedias, taking a look into the sky at night, and by asking my science teacher to help me confirm what I thought I may have seen. The key constellations that I learned about as a kid were Ursa Major (Big Dipper), Ursa Minor (Little Dipper) - North Star (Polaris) and Orion (based on the 3 stars in the belt). The Zodiac Constellations were not part of the initial program so; I downloaded the script and installed it into the program. This script was developed by Marco Klunder and it was a 3 part lesson that was a bit interesting to understand about the Heliocentric theory (Galileo) and the concepts of understanding the origins of the characters based on Animals, Persons, and Mythical Objects.

Overall, I learned to just have fun with this program and explore what’s out there. Note: When I tried to install the add-ons for Star Wars, I was able to download them but, it wouldn’t run and that had me stumped for hours. I looked through a lot of forums and I didn’t seem to find a solution to just look at The Death Star or the X-Wing/Tie Fighters in Celestia. The culprit of the problem ended up being the way the add-on was authored and Celestia didn’t want to load them.

Hypothesis of my Celestia question: NASA and ESA, and Chris Laurel would validate/authorize what would be added and/or modified in the Celestia program.

My Celestia Question/Problem that I wanted to find an answer to: Who validates that the information provided in the Celestia program is accurate and how is this program updated to provide newer stars/galaxies/explorations?

Answer: Through my findings, it seems that Celestia is updated/validated by the general public of enthusiasts who provide the explorations/adventures/modifications based on copyrighted and information that is free of use. The users in the Celestia community forums provide the mast majority of updates on a monthly basis and final approvals are granted to include updates by Chris Laurel, other developers, and advisors of the Celestia program. This free program gives us a great example of having a virtual field trip on your computer in space without going to an actual planetarium or buying a telescope.

My reflection: As I was exploring with the Celestia program, I reflected back to the time when I was about 7 years of age. I was the type of kid who was had a knack for science and especially space exploration. I could tell you the planets of the solar system as well as their moons. Also, I could tell you the different constellations of the stars and could provide a comparison between a lunar and solar eclipse. I was into this space exploration thing so much that my father bought me a black and white Tasco telescope with the solar filter which allowed me to look at sun spots during the day and magnified images of Saturn. Saturn seemed to be so cool and unique to me because of its spectacular rings. Later on, I would find out that Neptune would have a fainted ring around it, as well. The other thing that I could remember is that they would stop the scheduled program you were watching to display the launch of one of the many missions. The Space Shuttle program was so interesting to me and to understand how fast the shuttles would launch into space was remarkable. After the launch was complete, the stations would resume back to the previous program. Thanks to cable and DTV everything is now shown on the NASA channel instead of public television. As an adult, I still get excited when I know that a space shuttle launch is about to happen and I am able to watch it as if I was there. It just seems that the interests of students to see launches are not too popular these days. As you may have guessed it by now, I was very interested in becoming an aeronautical or computer engineer. I haven’t travelled physically in space yet but, there’s no harm in dreaming and continuing to reach for the stars. My exploration so far has been via my telescope as child and now through Celestia as an adult. This program allowed my inner child to appear like I was watching Interplanet Janet in Schoolhouse Rock while having fun through Celestia. This adventure was right down my alley. Lastly, my inspirations growing up who paved the way for me and other children who dared to dream are: Benjamin Banneker, Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr., Guy Bluford, and Dr. Ronald McNair. Even though I didn’t mention Dr. Mae Jamison earlier, she is an inspiration of mine, too. I attended a NSBE conference where she was the keynote speaker and she “blew the roof off.” In other words, she was very impressive.

Thank you for allowing me to explore and express my thoughts.

EDC 633 - Community of Practice Ethnography: Dancing

2009-10-11T20:50:00.005-04:00

Reflection of working on this project:

On October 10, 2009, we hosted a 30th birthday party celebration for my sister-in-law at the Omni Hotel in Charlotte, NC. All of our family and friends dressed very nice to make this event stellar and rememorable. The party had a DJ who played a wide array of music from Pop, R&B, Jazz, Rock, etc. This guy was great and he kept the party going all night long. As you'll notice from this video project, this event had attendees that included family and friends from all over the country to help my sister-in-law celebrate her night to the fullest.

Based on the theory of Wenger, this video project will include the characteristics of the CoP: 1) The domain - The gathering of friends and family, 2) The community - The participation of the joint activity: Dancing, and 3) The practice - Each person invited to this event has a connection to my sister-in-law to where they can share similar and different stories to express good and challenging times. These stories shared today will be added to another set of stories for years to come.

I chose this event for my project because I wanted to 1) Observe the interaction of guests dancing, 2) Observe which songs seemed more favorable for more people to dance based on the expertise of the DJ crossfading (mixing) songs to keep the party going, and 3) Observe attendees who just wanted to sit/not participate in the activity of dancing.

As the observer, it was a challenge for me to not be a participant in this event because I like to dance and have a great time, too. This event was a success and my sister-in-law truly enjoyed herself for her 30th birthday celebration. Overall, this project allowed me to further understand what a Community of Practice (CoP) is and have fun when composing the footage covered for this grand event to help celebrate 30 as the new 20.

Again, thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts.

Challenge faced while composing this project:

I was having a difficult time finding a media converter to convert *.3GP files to *.AVI. Thank God for Prism Video Converter. It's free and it works a whole lot better than other programs claiming to do the same thing. I'm just thankful for being able to get this completed.

EDC 664 - Learning Adventure #2: Music makes me loose control...Not when I'm learning it.

2009-10-05T21:54:00.006-04:00

As I type this entry, I am reflecting on my experience in using Sibelius First (version 5) and Sibelius 6 Demo.

Reflection on music project:

I had trouble with Sibelius First (version 5) because it wouldn't load for me in Microsoft Windows 7 (64-bit) no matter which shim I would use to trick it in thinking I was running Windows Vista, Windows XP, etc., So, I ended up using Sibelius 6 Demo which supported running Microsoft Windows 7 (64-bit) and it would load with ease. One caveat was that after you compose your piece, you couldn't save it. I had to be creative for saving my work and to have evidence of using the software. The other caveat was I had to find another way to save the song and export it into an MP3. Thank goodness for Audacity. It's free and it works like a champ to convert your raw song data into MP3s.

Past Background with Music:

Music is something that I have truly enjoyed all throughout my life. I started to learn music theory early on in 7th grade (Middle School) when you had to learn how to play the recorder and "master" it. The first song that I learned to play on the Recorder was "Mary Had a Little Lamb." It seems so simple to me to play this children's song in my head over the years. After moving from the recorder, I chose the trumpet to see if I could be the next Dizzy G. or Wynton M. The trumpet is a magnificant instrument to play and it was a bit of a challenge for me to learn it as well. The key thing that I had challenges with was my embrosure when playing. Although, I would eventually learn how to play the trumpet, I would only be a 1st/2nd chair fighting for the top spot with another kid that was better than me at the time. Overall, we would challenge each other and switch back and forth every week (friendly competition). As the dust settled, I ended being the 2nd chair (the next highest seed in my section of 10) for trumpet but, it still allowed me to learn from others as well as try out other instruments in class. The bottom line: I played the trumpet from 7th grade to 9th grade (Junior High). In high school, I was in the marching band my sophomore year and I switched from trumpet to the Baritone as suggested by my Band director Mr. Pierce (Best Band Director in NC). He noticed that I could play the trumpet but, my embrosure was a problem more so now in high school than my earlier years in middle school and junior high. So, I switch and I even liked it more since the mouthpiece was more comfortable for me to play the Baritone. Again, I played the Baritone for the next two years in band class but, not on the field after my sophomore year. I wanted to play football my Jr and Sr years and I did.

Present environment:

I am using Audacity to help finalize some of my student's video projects so, it helped me alot to use this tool for this Learning Adventure. In the past, I just used the simple Sound Recorder which is very effective except it usually saves in wave format which can be very large files. Sibelius is not difficult to use. It's just hard to load after you install it. (smile) Thank goodness for from my past on knowning what 4/4 means and remembering music theory from my childhood.

What I learned:

Have fun and expect to have some challenges when you are working with new software/tools. Overall, you have to be tenacious in your efforts to accomplish tasks. Again, have fun while you're doing it.

Conclusion:

At first, I was just tinkering around adding different notes like a child would do and I had fun. Second, I later realized that I remembered two different songs that I could play on the keyboard interface to add to my composition: "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and the hook from "I Need Love" by LL Cool J to add a remix of sorts. Later on, I was exploring the different tools and I started to add "Ideas" to the composition which allowed me to get more structure with the beats and rhythms which concluded my piece. Again, this was a fun but challenging adventure working with Sibelius. Furthermore, it gave me an opportunity to demonstrate competence and critical thinking skills to solve problems I was having early on. It gave me an opportunity to understand what I was learning and a chance to reflect upon my experience with music as a child and as an adult. "Let the music play!"

Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts.

EDC 664 - It's Good To Be King article discussion

2009-09-27T17:19:00.007-04:00

My initial thought about this was like, "Whoa!" This is a "grown man" playing make believe where it was a reality in his (Madison) eyes. His following was invited to join via word of mouth/technology later on and his mother died in the process where he couldn't think of any words to say for her but, could break down Taloosa's by-laws to keep "his world" ongoing. Unbelievable! I don't disagree about having an imagination. It's a bit sad to hear that family and friends separated themselves from him and others that followed this world of Talossa. While reading this story, it made me think about the challenges that many people are facing by being laid off from work and trying to find work these days to take care of their family or themselves. Some people just don't have the time to play and disgregard responsibility.

Years ago, I can remember a few of my co-workers not coming to work/sleeping at the desk and soon to get fired by taking the online game EverQuest to serious. EverQuest became an addiction that they couldn't shake off. It's unfortunate that it costs these co-workers their jobs but, they were negating their obligations in real life. Also, there has been one well-publicized suicide of an EverQuest user named Shawn Woolley that resulted in his mother, Liz, founding Online Gamers Anonymous.

Cramer - Thanks for bringing up D&D. The game and cartoon were fun to play and watch. I can remember all the kids wanting to be Merlin since he was one of the more popular characters. Every year in October thru November here, they have the Renaissance Festival (http://www.royalfaires.com/carolina/) to celebrate medieval times and perform several role plays. The participants really go all out for this event.

Mary, Mike T., and all: I have to agree that Fraternities and Sororities are valuable assets to each individual that joins them as well the sense of community that each brings on a global scale and daily basis. I can assure you that I joined my fraternity because I felt my "talents" could be an asset to the organization, as a whole. Most of these organizations were created to uphold a sense of community and scholarship. Although you may have not agreed with all members in your organization, you do establish friendships for a lifetime. The challenge that all these organizations need to be mindful of is how can we continue to be relevant and resourceful to "reach back" and uplift those in need.

Overall, this article reminded me that the world as we see it may not be the world we live in. Some people are living behind their online personas through technology and trying to make it the reality of this world beyond it really being virtual. We need to tell people to be mindful of their extra-activities by shuting down "Mafia Wars," for instance, before someone really feels that they are part of something bigger than what is actually happening in their real lives. "They are not of the world, as I am not of the world." - John 17:16

EDC 664 - Thoughts on Silverman Maze article discussion

2009-09-26T15:35:00.000-04:00

My initial questions while reading this were, "Why are they cheating to get through a maze? and What are they going to gain for solving this?" My thoughts were "Just get through the maze, keep it moving, and be appreciative for completing the maze like everyone else." Ok, it took them about 1.5 hours to get through the maze the first time.

After 2 years of developing rules and utilizing their system/technology, they thought of different ways to complete the maze with a faster time for the 2nd and 3rd runs. I would think this to be the outcome after working this hard for a game and to finally overcome the challenge of completing the maze in record time (11 minues).

The other part of this story that I agree with is that they found an easier way to solve a problem by utilizing technology. It made me think back to our first experiences of solving the LEGOMAN problem at VirtCamp where we collectively had to develop 4 robots to carry the LEGOMAN from one robot to the next. As simple as playing with LEGOs was, we had to leverage each other to program the BLOCKS, build the robot, and synchronize our time.

Futhermore, their team placed alot of emphasis on getting the card stamped while going through to complete the maze, as well as, placing their name on the "Winner's List!" This made me think more about "bragging rights" rather than geniunely completing the maze like others may have. It was very clear to see that Silverman and his family were shocked to see the Winner's List removed after they completed the maze the 3rd time and to see that the one of the worker's accuse them of cheating. Again, we wouldn't know if they were cheating unless there were rules stating that you couldn't utilize technology to diagram the "maze." Overall, I see that Silverman was being very creative to solve a problem with technology

that could've been thought of before but, no one else may have cared to have this information/story documented on how to complete the maze for others. This was very interesting to read although I just knew I wouldn't agree with this story at first and after they were planning how they would accomplish the tasks for a quicker time through.

Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts.

EDC 664 - Steven Levy interview of Stephen Wolfram article discussion

2009-09-24T02:14:00.001-04:00

My initial thoughts about reading the Wolfram interview:

1) Wolfram being so "intelligent" had lost touch with being a real with himself and his feelings towards others. He didn't seem to be appreciative of the "legacy of knowledge" that he came from being the son of a novelist and philosophy educator. He knew (moreso told) he was a genius and a whole lot smarter than others in the areas of physics and complex systems than those who would be in his prescence.

2) I truly admired his "confidence" which seemed to be arrogance from the writer (Levy) on how the universe was no more than 4-5 lines of code that could be calculated in Mathematica (a much smaller codebase) than that of Microsoft Windows (which had to be Windows 95 aka "codenamed Chicago") which contained ~ 30,000+ lines of code to discover how the cosmos work together. Those lines of code in Wolfram's mind had to be the abridged version on how he looked at the universe without telling Levy what he was really thinking.

3) Wolfram's story reminds me of my former Distinguished Physics professor Dr. Peter Hall who was considered a prodigy finishing MIT at age 18 with degrees in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Physics. He would later have over 25+ patents with Bell Laboratories (now AT&T). The differences between Wolfram's story and the story of my former professor would seem to be that Wolfram isolated himself from the world whereas my professor would always have a limmerick to share that would get us started to learn Physics and how we can change the world.

4) It was interesting to see that Wolfram saw the computer being a primary research tool early on. It enlighted me to see that how his story as well as many others have been overshadowed by Gates, Jobs, and Edison to name a few. This story was actually interesting to read and to see how he didn't let Caltech deter him from developing and keeping his intellectual property per se. He just picked up and went elsewhere to maintain control and develop his own "empire" which made millions.

5) My last thought about this article was that it was interesting to see the reflection of the timeline when Levy met Wolfram back in the 80s where he seemed to be ambitious and a bit of a "hot head" and to see how he was 10 years later as the "family guy" with a appreciation of his lifelong, ongoing work captured in his book, "A New Kind of Science." Personally, I can relate to being a bit adventureous 10 years ago before being the family guy. I didn't play life for keeps but, I worked long hours to accomplish much and to be rewarded for it. Fast forward to the present and I now see each day as an opportunity to make a difference in this world for my family, community, and the world. Life is no longer a game of checkers as it was 10 years ago for me. I have to be a bit more strategic (i.e., like chess) and plan ahead a lot more for the future of the legacy that I will leave for generations to come. Again, I'm not agreeing that the universe is only 5 lines of code. It just makes me wonder about Wolfram's faith towards God since saying this because this would be a bit of a contridiction of what has been passed down about the creation of the earth, heavens, and life as we know it since the beginning of time.

This was an interesting read for us to be introduced to.

Again, thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts.

EDC 664 - Learning Adventure #1b: "The Chicago 7 Were Martyrs"

2009-09-21T02:41:00.040-04:00

The Chicago Seven were martyrs in their own rights as US Citizens. They were opposing policy and they accused of using their right to speak on. It's unfortunate how you are asked to be quiet or don't be a whistleblower when you have information to share with masses of people but, it has the potential to do more harm than good for the people that you are "fighting" for.

During this time, The Black Pathers were doing the same exact thing by opposing a problem in America that involved the "people." To be accused of picketting/riotting for a cause is disrespectful to those who are standing in the gap for those who choose not to do anything about it.

To a degree, this group caused political conventions to "step up" their game for candidates to speak on issues and they might have opposed. I could only imagine the impact behind the coverage of this headline story. The downside of understanding the question whether they were martyrs or not. Again, the Chicago Seven seem to be martyrs by their actions to communicate what needed to answered pertaining to the stigmas that developed from this occurance.

The only major question to ask is: "Would the outcome be any diifferent if the Chicago 7 were of a different race (i.e., African-American, Native American, Hispanic, etc.,)?

Again, thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts.

EDC 664 - Learning Adventure #1a: "Is Ned Kelly a Hero?"

2009-09-20T13:31:00.002-04:00

"Is Ned Kelly a hero?"

After reading about Ned Kelly on the web and using my "wetware" (brain) to share some thoughts, I have come to the conclusion that Ned Kelly is not a hero. He was a person of influence and his leadership led him down a wrong path of committing crime and murder. Although his father was a convict, Ned had to make choices in life whether he was going to do right by abiding to the laws or wrong by following his father's lead to commit a crime.

I truly believe in doing what is best for your family or community although, it should not be done through an act of crime or murder. A hero understands that his decisions in life will dictate the possible outcomes of his family and community. The decisions made are to be done for establishing a legacy for the good of order (not of disfunction).

By Ned Kelly committing the act of murder of 3 policemen, it made him look like a criminal when he and his "gang" went into hiding away from the law. Another thought would be that this act made him look like a hero to his peers and people who may have wanted each of the policemen gone or they were hoping for a person to step up and take charge of the community. There's no telling what could have went on that day for Ned of being accused of taking a horse ride. (smile) Nevertheless, we all have to be responsible for our actions.

Why go into hiding if you consider yourself innocent? A hero does not run away from something they believe in or challenges ahead. They stand in the mist of things despite the circumstances and they walk with rightgeousness in their heart. A hero lives with honor and nobility which allow him to surpass standards and it exemplifies his qualities that can last a lifetime. Regardless of his actions, Ned's life was "on the line" for his family and community the wrong way. It just seems that his decisions went down an unfortunate path that I nor other people would chose to jeopardize the existence of their family legacy.

Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts.

It's a new day...It's a new daaaaaaaaaaaay!!!

2009-08-03T18:14:00.000-04:00

As I'm sitting here typing this entry, reflecting, and reading articles/books about "Action Research," I'm just happy to announce that God is great and he continually needs to be praised. This is my faith talking and it's proven to me again how I need to keep this strong.

To make a long story short, I did receive the phone call from HR last Thursday (7/30) to congratuate me about my employment for the school year (2009-10) with the same school that I taught at previously. The principal stepped in on my behalf to get me back to his school and I'm truly thankful for the opportunity to help inspire new leaders in areas of Education and Information Technology.

This moves us ahead to today, I met with my HR Recruiter and signed my contract to solidify my start date and FT employment. My role will be a CTE - Computer Engineering Technology Educator and I'm looking forward to this opportunity. It brings joy to my heart to know that I have been given another chance to make a difference in young people's lives in the classroom. My start date is two weeks from now (8/18/2009) and the 1st day of school is (8/25/2009). Again, I'm looking forward to it and I'm amped right now just thinking about the opportunities that I plan to bring to students and faculty to enhance their experiences at the school.

While I was in the Education Building today, I visited some of my colleagues to share with them the good news. With the good news, I may have stumbled upon a great idea for an Action Research project that will involve "Digital Citizenship" within my school district. Again, I've been talking to a few key persons about an idea of what I want to do and I'm gathering data as I go along to solidify my "AR Outline."

Lastly, I'm very ecstatic as you can see. I'm overjoyed and I truly feel blessed with the opportunities that have "panned" out thus far and I'm only looking towards greater things to come. Keep me in your prayers to stay focused and humble through it all.

"It's a new day...It's a new daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!" Thank you Wyclef for this song because it flowed so well with my events and thoughts for today.

Thank you for allowing me to express my thoughts.

Signing off...

JF

Oh, what a great first class...

2009-07-31T02:06:00.000-04:00

All I can say is, "Oh, what a great first class." As many times we test chatted on Skype as a cadre for two nights straight to make sure all is going to be well for our first class with our professor, Murphy's Law generally comes in mind here in a humorous sense. Usually, Skype allows users to use a voice chat feature to verbally speak and hear from others clearly without any echos or disruptions. As a class, we learned that technology can have a "mind of its own." We expect it to work. When it doesn't, it can be a very interesting time trying to troubleshoot a problem(s) that occur. After 10-15 minutes of class, we put our minds together and figured out that the version numbers of Skype had to be 2.8 for MAC users and 4.1 for PC users.

To move things along, we had a text chat class that became the "brainchild" of cognition greatness and Texting Olympics to see who could type the fastest to get points across. It was a great experience. The topics of discussion were about 1) Distributed learning, 2) Distributed cognition/Cognition, and 3) the differences between them. The dialogue and questions asked by the class and our professor brought out some very interesting thoughts.

To reflect my thoughts in this blog about technology, it reminds me of the many of years that I have helped 1000s of customers resolve problems over the phone in the mid to late 90s as a support engineer. I would know what our technology was supposed to do but you wouldn't know what you would expect from the customers calling in with their problem(s). Some of the problems would be new without a known solution and others would be known issues with document solutions in the knowledge base. At the end of the day, it would be all worth it because you became more knowledgeable about issues and you were able to "ramp" up and collaborate with others about these issues to make everyone better prepared based on feedback given from other engineers.

My reflection about learning about the key concepts/topics talked about in class reminded me of my freshman year as an undergrad sitting in my Humanities class and my professor would question the class what was considered a competency and what was an assessment. This question would push me to read, read, and read more about what these were. Our professor was a bit challenging and I see this being very similar to what we will have to do as a Cadre to come up with our Action Research projects and do a lot of reading.

Again, I'm still excited about this class and the potential of greatness that will be shared to the world after this is all said and done. I'm reading the assigned reading again to make sure I am comprehending what has been documented for us to help us gather our thoughts about what action research and learning is all about.

Again, thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts.

Signing off...

JF

Be happy...Never satisfied!

2009-07-21T16:43:00.000-04:00

Today is my 8th wedding anniversary and I am happy to celebrate it with my wife. It's an honor to be with her and I can only do my part as a husband and a dad to keep it going for more years to come. Through God, I know it will since he ordained it from the beginning. I thank my wife for putting up with my flaws. No one is perfect but, we should all strive for excellence in our lives daily. I can only ask God to help me stay focused on the "prize" and to give Him the glory.

I reflect on this day as a new beginning. I wouldn't have thought after 8 years of marriage and 3 children later that I would be pursuing a Master's degree nor would I think about transitioning into my calling as an educator. I got a phone call today from the Principal of my school and he mentioned to me that he wanted to know if I was interested in coming back to teach in a different academy. Of course, I said, "Yes!" Later that day, HR called me to confirm my decision. So, I'm waiting on the final confirmation.

Bottom Line: "God has the ultimate say-so!"

Again, I say, "Be happy...Never satisified." You cannot limit God and His Righteousness. When we think small, He will show up big make our hard work and determination worth it all.

Signing off...

JF

What I am Going To Do...? Pray!!!

2009-07-20T16:24:00.000-04:00

Today is a moment for me to check off my list of things to do to make sure I'm ready to start my graduate program with my Cadre. I received my financial assistance and I'm thankful for it. Assistance is good but, more assistance is better when it comes to paying for your education.

I can only hope for a miracle to help my family and I pursue this grand opportunity. I can recall that my undergraduate education being "paid for" without any worries. Now, that I'm pursuing a graduate degree, it seems that I can't find a scholarship or grant to supplement the awarded financial aid to ease the frustration that I'm feeling today. I can only pray, ask God what's next, and tune in.

Signing off...

JF

Last Day @ VirtCamp (Cadre Camp) and Heading Home...

2009-07-19T12:33:00.000-04:00

After all the hard work earlier this week, we finally are to the last day (7/18). As I type this up, I'm reflecting on my grand experience of meeting new people and a great week of camp in Malibu, CA. As Cadre 12, we have alot of talent that was displayed through our final LEGO Robot projects and team videos.

Our LEGO robot named, "StageCoach" which started leg #1 to transport LEGOman to the next robot without any user intervention. All the hard work paid off once we saw the action in motion. Hi-Fives everywhere and smiles from everyone was a great sight to see. It reminded me of a party moreso than a project final. It was fun and rewarding after it was all said and done.

All of our teams' videos were great. My immediate team's video was titled, "Way of the Ninjahh!!!" All of our hard work came to life on the "silver screen" and I have to thank Fabiola and Nick for being great partners this week. They were very professional and fun to work with. I look forward to working with them in the near future.

After the videos, we ate lunch and took plenty of photos to capture our "great moments" as Cadre 12. Again, we have a great group and I couldn't ask for a better team to go through this program with. Everyone has a unique gift to bring to this program and I'm glad to be a part of it.

Lastly, we had the opportunity to "check in" and say our final words to summarize our week and what we look forward to for the months ahead. It felt like a family reunion that came to an end for the week before everyone had to go home to their destinations.

After turning keys in, a few of us headed out to Dukes Grill and Bar
on the Malibu Coast to enjoy the scenery of the Pacific Coast. What a nice
view!!! All I can say is "Wow!!!"

Fabiola took me to the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, CA since she lived on that side of town. I was thankful for her taking me there and not to worry about a shuttle fare (~$49). She looked out for me and got me there in great time.

As I sat in my seat on the plane and it had me thinking; "Now the work begins!!!" I had plenty of time to reflect on what's next en route to Phoenix. Note: Phoenix had dust storms that were causing all types of delays going there but, we landed safe and sound. Thank God!!! My layover in Phoenix was 3 hours so, I just relaxed and took it all in: The Pepperdine Experience. Got back in Charlotte, NC at 6:30 am EST/3:30 am PST and saw my family. I was glad to see them and we went to our 7:00 am Worship Service to praise God for all that He does daily. It feels great to be home.

Signing off...

Day Four - LEGO Robot Practice and Celebrations...

2009-07-18T05:50:00.000-04:00

As I write to express about how I am feeling, it gives me a great pleasure to reflect on the importance of this graduate program to-date. Each day this week, I have woke up and looked outside the condo to see another great view of the Pacific Ocean and Pepperdine University. The view constantly reminds me on how great life is. There has been been an ocean to see but, there seems to be a different vista every morning. With the Pacific giving me a new look to see each morning, it reminded me that life comes at you differently on a`daily basis no matter who you are.

Today was pretty cool. We mainly performed test runs on our Lego Robot (Stagecoat) time after time to sync it up with our teammates that are responsible of parts 2-4). Since my team is responsible for part 1, we have to make sure that we have programmed our LEGO Robot to start it and it worked off/on. During this process, it allowed me to reflect on the time where I had to practice playing my trumpet in order to get better and ready for a class concert. Playing trumpet was not easy for me but, I gave it my all to learn the song prepared for us. Wouldn't you know that I overcame a huge fear of mine which was playing in front of hundreds of people because I've always strived for excellence. So, there are building blocks in life that help us become more involved to enhance our personal and professional development.

The moral of this posting is to remember to live your life with what you have to offer and not to let an obstacle stay in your way from reaching your goal(s) to become successful. Imagine that it took Thomas Edison approximately 1000 times before the light bulb worked.

Thank you for allowing me to share.

Signing off...

Dia Tres with the Cadre

2009-07-17T04:01:00.000-04:00

As I sit here thinking, I must say that is was very informative. It was very interesting to see all the tools/websites that we are going to use to help assist for our learning circle, cohort, and cadre. The information that we were given pertaining to the syllabus, book list, web tools/sites reminded me of my 1st year in college sitting in Freshman Orientation for quite sometime. You're just thankful for the day to move along and for it to progress forward.

Today's activities were fun and productive. We were assigned time to build our student web site which will be used to serve as a portal of learning but, to uniquely design your site with some flair. This exercise reminded me on when I first developed my 1st website with Notepad back in 1995. Oh, there was challenges with HTML web editor and we worked through those challenges. I am so proud for my learning circle and cohort team members. We all stepped it up today. In my previous years, I was introduced to FrontPage 1.0 which allowed users to choose this tool and design websites via WYSIWYG. Oh, what fun it is to recall imagery to reflect self-reflection . I've had fun designing websites for others but, I would not know how to begin about designing the websites locally until they can pbe posted later.

The next activity was to transfer information for the Lego Robot. Our Lego Robot is called StageCoach since it will serve as the catalyst for the whole representation of people, money, etc., Once we were able to get everything set, we assisted other teams to help towards completing the tasks. Through it was for the W, I still found it interesting. The bottom line is to: Plan, Plan, and Plan for your education and careers. Keep Art and Music in education. Again, we had to test, test, and test our model by compiling the code and the code to transfer to the "yellow brick".

Overall, we had a great day and I look forward to what God blesses me with to be a great student and leader here at Pepperdine as well as the world.

Thank you for your time.

Signing Off...

Oh What a Day 2...

2009-07-15T22:18:00.000-04:00

All I can say is that today has been a very busy but, fun day!!! From the start, we have been busy working on team lego robots for our learning circle and partnering up with our cohort team to verify that each of our robots will pass along LegoMan to the finish line. Again, this exercise is part of our Ninja Warrior theme, too. Our Lego Robot's name is called StageCoach 1.0. It will be the catalyst of our journey.

As much as I watch the TV Show Iron Chef America, we actually had to design a dish with "surprise" ingredients that reflected the sense of Community. My team designed a Community Garden which reflected the center of pride and progress of success. Although, we didn't win this challenge, our team was very proud of our dish.

Lastly, we had to design our web banner that will reflect and represent who we are. This is usually an easy task for me but, it seemed that I had some minor challenges with what would be an ideal web banner that would represent me as well as reflect my experience as a graduate student at Pepperdine. I can assure you that I am pleased with my efforts for today.

I am truly enjoying my experience here with my learning circle group and Cadre (class). It's been challenging today but, it will be well worth it in the end.

Oh what a blessing to wake up and be "vertical" again. Thank you God for another day to make a difference. I'm looking forward to our next challenges...

Signing off...

1st Day @ MALT Cadre Camp

2009-07-14T22:08:00.000-04:00

After a long day of flying starting at 6:45 EST/3:45 PST and settling in on campus at 4:00 pm EST/1:00 pm PST, I am now sitting in my first session with my classmates from Cadre 12. I am very excited about this program and I'm glad that I made the choice to pursuit this graduate program.

The campus is astonishing. They don't call this place the "most beautiful campus in the United States" for nothing. The ocean view from my condo is phenomenal. Imagine that you are on top of a "world" and all you see is the campus and panoramic ocean views.

So far, I have met at least 24 out of 25 students in my class and my group comes from all across the United States. My two classmates that are in my assigned learning circle are: Nicholas Mattos and Fabiola Torres. Both of them are from Los Angeles, CA. We did our 1st introduction videos around the theme of the TV show Ninja Warrior. Very interesting to say the least but, it was fun and memorable.

As I type this, I am thankful for this opportunity that God has presented before me. I understand that pursuing this graduate program at Pepperdine University is not only for my own benefit. It will definitely help me grow and help me explore new opportunities to develop future leaders in education and technology.

Lastly, I look forward to the opportunities to meet/greet my classmates more to establish a great rapport with them and to knowledge share ideas that supporting each other to be successful in this program and beyond.

Signing off...