Peace Corps Experiences in the Congo

In celebration of the Peace Corps 50th anniversary I had the privilege of presenting my experiences as a Volunteer in the Congo to a group of Elmira College students and faculty. Below are the Slideshare slides followed by related links that I used for general research, reading, and preparation for the presentation.

RESOURCES

ABOUT THE PEACE CORPS

• Refer to links in Slideshare presentation
• Learn About Volunteering: http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=learn
• http://multimedia.peacecorps.gov/multimedia/pdf/about/pc_facts.pdf
• PBS and Peace Corps Global Café: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/globalcafe/peacecorps This collaboration site between Peace Corps and PBS provides resources, lesson plans, letters and photographs from students around the world, and a forum for students across the globe to engage in discussion.
• Learning Out of Africa: http://abpc21.org/outofafrica.html
• Peace Corps Welcome Manual (Mali 2008): http://www.peacecorps.gov/welcomebooks/mlwb688.pdf

ABOUT THE CONGO

• CIA World Fact Book
• BBC DR Congo Profile
• http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/democratic-republic-congo-facts/
• Interactive Timeline: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/pushing-the-elephant/timeline.html
• Voices on Genocide Podcast: Series on the Congo: http://blogs.ushmm.org/COC2 

BOOKS ON THE CONGO

• All Things Must Fight to Live: Stories of War and Deliverance in Congo by Bryan Mealer
• In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz by Michela Wrong
  
• King Leopold’s Ghostby Adam Hochschild
• King Leopold's Soliloquy by Mark Twain: http://diglib1.amnh.org/articles/kls/index.html
• A Thousand Sisters

DOCUMENTARIES AND WEB SITES - ABUSE OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN THE CONGO

• DVD Lumo: A documentary on one woman’s struggles and triumphs in Congo
  
• DVD The Greatest Silence http://www.thegreatestsilence.org/
  
• The HBO web site on the Greatest Silence http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/the-greatest-silence-rape-in-the-congo/index.html#/documentaries/the-greatest-silence-rape-in-the-congo/detail/resources.html
• DVD The Rape of a Nation
• The ENOUGH Project: Eastern Congo
• Women left for dead—and the man who’s saving them by Eve Ensler in Glamour Magazine (Eve Ensler is author of the Vagina Monologues)
• Covering the War in Eastern Congo: A special report (Child Soldiers)
• DVD Children of Congo: From War to Witches
• Run for Congo Women: http://www.runforcongowomen.org/
• Women for Women International: http://www.womenforwomen.org/global-initiatives-helping-women/help-women-congo.php
• Raise Hope for Congo: http://www.raisehopeforcongo.org/
• NPR Documentary Push the Elephant: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/pushing-the-elephant/film.html
• City of Joy - New hope for Congo's brutalised women: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/09/city-of-joy-congo-women-rape

What Can Be Done About Childhood Obesity?

The Twitter Exercise and Motivation Team is a fantastic resource that combines a dedicated blog and the clever use of the hashtag #temt to motivate hundreds of tweeps into getting fit and living healthier lives! I have been encouraged by the collaboration and kind words of support from team members, inspiring blogs, links to useful resources, and insightful tips such as this tweet from @cybraryman1: "Keep motivated to exercise by setting realistic goals & keeping an exercise journal #temt Make time to exercise in your busy schedules". BTW, you can keep track of the #temt exchange and some interesting statistics at the What Hashtag address:http://wthashtag.com/Temt .

As I read another of many disheartening articles on obesity, I thought how educators in the TEMT team could extend its collaborative model by taking steps to reduce childhood obesity through programs in schools. There is an abundance of information on obesity. For example, a Google exact search for "Obesity in America" for the past week brought up 14,300 results. The most significant findings on adult obesity were recently reported by the CDC. In brief the number of obese adults living in the United States increased by 2.4 millions in just two years (2007 to 2009) and in nine states more than 30% are obese. Flip through the pages of this Slideshare slideshow to see how the trend rapidly increased the past 25 years and in particular the increase from 5 to 9 states with rates greater than 30% for the past reporting year (2008 - 2009). The original PowerPoint is located at the CDC U.S. Obesity Trends page.

Obesity trends 2009

The news is even grimmer for children as described on the page Childhood Overweight and Obesity. All statistics stand out but perhaps this one is the most telling: "one study found that approximately 80% of children who were overweight at aged 10-15 years were obese adults at age 25 years".

So as educators and collaborators what can we do? What have some of us already accomplished in our schools or communities? One start is to share resources, ideas on how to get started, and stories of success (present or pending). I thought about steps such as having students create a healthy eating wiki as part of a class or school project. Students could learn much from such a project: collaboration to build something really useful that they can take pride and ownership in, the value of nutrition, comparing good and bad calories, family history (recipes), skills in technology (learning how to contribute to a Wiki, add comments, insert links and photos), and so on.

There is a lot of movement in taking steps to reduce the prevalence of obesity, which is encouraging. At the same time the trend is still upward and reversing it will take considerable patience and persistence. The section What Can Be Done lists educational resources for community, schools, and self: food and nutrition, physical activity, technology, success stories, and activities that provide opportunities to raise student awareness of the importance of a healthy lifestyle and empower them to to integrate physical activity as a way of life.

WHAT CAN BE DONE

• What Can Be Done - The CDC lists actions steps categorized under U.S Government, States, Communities, and All People.
• First Lady Michelle Obama recently launched the Let's Move program that includes resources on food and nutrition, physical activity, and simple steps to success.
• Edutopia Article Teaching Kids About Healthy Eating and Avoid Obesity
• Alliance for a healthier Generation mission is to "To reduce the nationwide prevalence of childhood obesity by 2015 and to empower kids nationwide to make healthy lifestyle choices" includes Healthcare Initiative, Healthy Schools Program, Industry Initiative, and Kids' Movement. See the video of a success story at one HS in Alabama.
• MyPyramid.gov for Kids - resources such as games, posters, family tips, worksheets, and classroom materials.
• The CDC has a site on Tips for Parents - Ideas to Help Children Maintain a Healthy Weight
• Using Technology to Combat Obesity by the Innovator Educator.

RELATED LINKS

• Obesity Rates Keep Climbing in the U.S.
• Obesity "often set before the age of two"
• CDC Vital Signs Report on Adult Obesity
• U.S. Obesity Trends

E-Portfolios with Google Sites EDU

It has been generally acknowledged that e-portfolios are primarily developed for ongoing learning, showcase, and assessment and that one e-portfolio system does not fit all purposes. Full abstract below slide presentation ...

E-portfolios for Learning with Google Sites EDU from Joe Fahs

Abstract

It has been generally acknowledged that e-portfolios are primarily developed for ongoing learning, showcase, and assessment and that one e-portfolio system does not fit all purposes. If we are interested in the academic success and co-curricular accomplishments of our students through self-motivation, engagement, reflection, and ownership, then a learning portfolio nurtured over time has significant potential in being developed for life after graduation.

There are many e-portfolio tools and systems available, none of which provides the perfect solution to all institutional assessment and student learning needs. Google Sites for Education has only recently been considered for portfolio development but offers promising solutions to effectively build learning and showcase portfolios including artifact storage, privacy control, collaboration, reflection, and ownership. Although orientation, training, and ongoing support is strongly recommended, Google Sites is easy-to-use and provides built-in tools to insert evidence of extended learning from sources such as social media sites.

SUNY CIT 2010: E-portfolios for Learning – Google Sites for Education

Where: SUNY Plattsburgh, Yokum 201

When: Friday, May 28 9:15- 9:45 am

Practical and Educational Uses of Wordle

Since Wordle was introduced in 2008, there has been no shortage of educational uses of creating word clouds. Below is a list of recent and popular blogs that have published their favorite uses of Wordle in the classroom. If you are new to Wordle, refer to the section below "What is Wordle?" and the useful frequently asked questions page maintained by creator Jonathan Feinberg.

• ProfHacker published an article on Using Wordle in the classroom to analyze poetic diction.
• The SlideShare slideshow Forty-Three Interesting Ways to use Wordle in the Classroom includes a wealth of ideas for teaching. One of my favorites is Guess the French fairytale.
• Rodd Lucier summarizes a few of his clever ideas in the Top 20 Uses for Wordle, including condensing survey response data into a word cloud.
• Jennifer Wagner hosts a Monday-Friday Daily Guess the Wordle.
• Bill Wolff's Teaching Students How to Write Meaningful Tags explains strategies that help students break down blog posts to write more descriptive tags.
• Jamie Keddie describes A Really Useful Wordle Trick on how to include phrases such as "once a upon a time".
• Author Scott Westerfeld's interesting blog on eliminating overused words includes a word cloud of his novel Leviathan after the first draft.
• Wordle creator Feinberg uses statistical analysis to generate word cloud visualizations comparing Presidential Inaugural Addresses.
• Keri-Lee Beasley describes a simple but clever use of Wordle in first-grade poetry writing with a summary of what students learned.
• I published a post on Wordling Conference and Chat Tweets.

Wordle Nonsense

Despite many possible educational uses, it is still important to ask why Wordle should be used in the classroom and what are the expected goals for students. Without carefully defining these expectations, Wordle can end up being a new technology toy, resulting in generating nonsensical data without a purpose. What better way to demonstrate Wordle nonsense than creating a word cloud of a passage generated with a Lorem Ipsum generator as shown below?!

Created with Wordle.net

What is Wordle?

With Wordle you can easily create a visual word-frequency cloud of any copied text, blog site, or tags from a Delicious site. In a matter of seconds your beautiful graph can provide information that is educational or useless, but regardless of the result it is fun and quite stunning to look at. Below is a Wordle of President Obama's speech on racism.

Created with http://wordle.net