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Visits to Moms for Thanksgiving and NAIT in Edmonton |
| Friday, November 25, 2005 |
It is late Thursday night November 24th, 2005. I am here in Edmonton (Canada) which is much warmer than Milwaukee. Earlier today, I was in Milwaukee to eat turkey dinner at my moms house for Thanksgiving. I went running in Milwaukee this morning where it was 12 degrees farenheit and I faced a brisk 40-50 mile per hour winds (you can look up the wind chill). I ran backwards at 9 am from my mother's house past my elementary school (Irving) and high school (West Allis Nathan Hale) and to a park my uncle used to supervise decades ago called Greenfield Park (running home was much much easier. I was out for an hour in that cold). Keep in mind, that I only go backwards about once every 5 or 10 years--that is how cold it was today. In comparison, it is balmy here in Edmonton which is much much further north. Go figure! They are rich with oil monies so perhaps they can control the temperature.
I am speaking at a technical institute (NAIT--Northern Alberta Institute of Technology) in the morning which is growing fast with 18,000 fulltime students and 30,000-40,000 additional ones taking continuing ed courses of some kind). About 150-200 people expected for 1 of my 2 talks. Then I have a couple of informal meetings and a reception. Will see folks like Terry Anderson from Athabasca. Terry has a free online book. He says 55,000 people havge downloaded it. You can find it at:
Anderson, Terry & Fathi Elloumi (Eds). (2004). Theory and practice of online learning (An edited collection of research and reflection on online learning by AU authors). Canada: Athabasca University. (Free Online Book). http://cde.athabascau.ca/online_book/
The people at NAIT are interested in blended learning--apparently it will be a knowledgeable audience. So I will talk on blended and also throw in my best of pedagogical strategies online type of talk using the perfect e-storm framework. These talks are partially sponsored by the folks at McGraw Hill. So that is cool.
On the plane coming over here, I read a story of woman from China who came to US in 1981 (after nearly being executed for university research she was asked to do--census stuff about the killing of young girls for population control). She also saved her sister from drowning when Chinese officials threw her in river a few years before that. She was deported to the US and she earned her English degree and then computer science degrees and became an excellent programmer and supervised the guy who started Netscape and then started her own company with husband. She is USA entrepreneur of the year. A wonderful story in Inc. magazine (http://www.inc.com/home/). Ping Fu is her name. She is just a little older than me so it struck home. There is more to this story so I recommend you buy the Inc Mag and read it.
We all have a lot to be thankful for here on Thanksgiving. May we all find good fortune like Ping Fu but without all the suffering. |
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