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Educating and Parenting the Net and Next Generation

Yesterday, I attended the annual parent orientation at Xavier School. Unlike past years, there was something different about this year, I realized. I would be attending activities in this school for only one boy (my other boy already graduated high school and is facing a new life as a college freshie).

Ever since Fr. Johnny Go, S.J. took over the helm as School Director, I have seen vast improvements in terms of facilities, quality of faculty, curriculum, use of technology in academe and so many other aspects.  In a previous post, I described how the school turned virtual during Typhoon Ondoy when school was suspended for 10 days. While many schools lost school days, Xavier students continued to study and do assigned homework via the net.

At the orientation, I eagerly awaited Fr. Johnny’s presentation to the parents. His part is always something I look forward to. After all, when the School Director blogs, uses multimedia in his presentations, has a Facebook account and maintains his own YouTube channel, you can be sure his talk would be a very interesting one. I was not disappointed.

Fr. Johnny talked about how important it is for schools (and parents) to learn how to educate and parent this generation of tech-savvy kids.

He described the TV Generation I belong to (the age when baby boomers first encountered a television set and whose free time was spent in front of the boob tube watching episodes of popular shows). He also described the next younger set called Generation X (that age group between mid 30s to mid 40s that were schooled in classrooms where passive learning was the norm: teacher lectures and student “vomits back” what he absorbed during exams).

He next described the 2 generations that students belong to now: The Net Generation (kids from 13 yrs old and up) and the Next Generation (those below 12 years old). These two generations have absolutely no fear for technology; in fact they embrace it wholeheartedly. But with such wide access to information at the tips of their fingertips, schools face a new challenge in teaching them, something that Xavier is moving briskly into. Unlike the generations of parents where  a student WAITS for content before ASSIMILATING it, learning for 21st century kids must entail what Fr. Johnny calls the 5 “-ate’s”:

* LOCATE content (e.g., how to use search engines to find information)

* INTERROGATE the results (learning not to just accept search results as truth but to interrogate which is true, half-true, or false)

* CREATE and COMMUNICATE content

* COLLABORATE with others

At the same time, kids must learn 3 things that go along with ease of technology access and information:

Continue reading “Educating and Parenting the Net and Next Generation”

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How to Survive the Boy Band Phase

Sorry, sorry, sorry…

That’s the most popular song of the equally popular boy band, Super Junior (Suju), which held a Super Show concert here in Manila last Saturday, April 10. Preteens, teens, young adults and not-so-young-anymore adults have been going gaga over them. My daughter C2 is no exception. She has their CDs, follows them intensely on Twitter, joined an Asian fan club, reads fan fiction, and many more things that get her excited when she talks about them.

Now this post is NOT about the Super Junior boys although I will get to them in a while. This is a tale of how I am surviving the boy band phase.

Flashback to several years ago.

It was the Taiwanese boy band, F4, and Meteor Garden then. I think all of you still remember that. Everyone was swooning over Jerry Yan, Vanness Wu, Ken Chu and Vic Chou. Meteor Garden was THE soap opera to follow then and I myself was caught up in its love story and drama. We even have the entire series in Mandarin with English subtitles (which the children claim is a whole lot better than the dubbed versions – I agree).

(from www.chinatownconnection.com)

Continue reading “How to Survive the Boy Band Phase”

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Life Comes Full Circle: A Serendipitous Lunch

Many summers ago, I spent 10 years of my childhood in Davao City.

We were moved from Iloilo City, where I was born, to Davao as my Dad was made General Manager of a stevedoring company. As the transfer was midway through a school year, my Mom had no option but to homeschool me till the next school year came round. I was 5 years old then so the school (Stella Maris Academy) gave me the Nursery entrance exams. I passed with flying colors. Maybe it was fate but they decided to let me take the Grade One entrance test. I passed it too. At the age of 5, I was enrolled in the first grade — the youngest of the batch.

There is something about being the youngest in your batch forever and ever. You have this insecurity about not being old enough to “know” things that your classmates know, or not being in on secrets because you were still “too young”. When a school year came to an end, I’d secretly hope that when I enter the next school year, I’d find somebody younger than me.  But every time I moved up one grade level, I’d find myself still being the youngest. The only thing that held up for me, who was then quite shy as a child, was my being nerdy and brainy. I found myself being elected to key officer positions in class and holding leadership positions even if I was, at times, reluctant to be the head when everyone else was older than me and, in height, towered over me.

Continue reading “Life Comes Full Circle: A Serendipitous Lunch”

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Jesuit Online Lenten Recollection

Fr. Johnny Go, S.J. is doing it again this Lent 2010.

If you feel like you want to do a Lenten recollection but are having difficulty finding a good one, or too busy to go to one, you can spend time with our Lord from your computer desk or even with your laptop anywhere you are telecommuting. If you have a mobile phone which is browser-capable, you can likewise attend a recollection. If you are not in the Philippines, it does not matter. You can be anywhere around the world as long as you have internet access.

Fr. Johnny has prepared an ONLINE recollection where he effectively merges multimedia technology to make your Lenten journey with the Lord interesting and meaningful.

Titled “God in the Dungeons”, this is how Fr. Johnny describes the theme:

Dungeons are not exactly the first place we go to when we want to look for God.
We expect to find Him in churches and the other “holier” places of our lives.
But that’s exactly what Lent does not teach us about God.
In the mysteries of Lent, God enters precisely the “dungeons of our lives”
—the deepest, darkest experiences of human pain and suffering—because He wants us to find Him there.

Let’s find time this Holy Week and allow God to enter the dungeons of our lives and quiet down to hear Him speak to us.

The online recollection begins April 1 (Holy Thursday) till April 3 (Black Saturday) but you can already do a pre-recollection preparation even now by clicking HERE.

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Earth Hour 2010

Earth Hour 2010 happens on March 27, 2010.

On this day, people all over the world will turn off their appliances and lights for one hour starting at 8:30 PM.

This will be the third year that my family will be joining this endeavor. Here are my 2008 and 2009 posts on it.

We can no longer ignore the effects of climate change. Just see the frequency and intensity of earthquakes happening around the world. In my own country, the Philippines, we are now experiencing a very harsh El Nino with very little rain and drought in many agricultural places. Last year, we were hit by Typhoon Ondoy which brought floods to Metro Manila in places that have never experienced floods. Many other countries are experiencing freak weather activities as well.

Rather than leave it up to the different governments around the world to do something about it, we should act as individuals, living on this one and only home planet of ours, to make changes and adapt greener and more eco-friendly lifestyles.

You can support Earth Hour by:

1. Turning off your lights at 8.30PM on March 27
2. Showing your support and adding yourself to the Earth Hour world map
3. Adding Earth Hour widgets, logos and banners to your blog or website to help us spread the word
4. Talking about Earth Hour in your social network by updating your Facebook status, grabbing a Twibbon, tweeting about your support, and more
5. Get together with your friends and family, by hosting an Earth Hour party or holding your own candlelit affair
6. Rally your local council or community group to run an Earth Hour event for your community
7. Encourage your employer and workmates to take part in Earth Hour and make energy savings every day
8. Make an Earth Hour Lantern as a symbol of hope for the future
9. Be creative! Find a new way to mark Earth Hour and let Earth Hour know all about it!

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Today is International Women’s Day 2010

International Women’s Day (8 March) is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.

In my world, there are many women achievers that I see, some of whom I personally know — women of all ages who are moving in different spheres of influence trying to make this world better for others, women climbing the corporate ladder just as fast as their male counterparts, women making marks in the fields of arts, science, government, industry, medicine and in many more areas.

But today, I want to honor the women who are not as visible to the world as we know it. These are the women in many countries who continue to be discriminated against; abused by their own culture, family and husbands; tortured as political prisoners; forced into heavy labor under abject conditions; and many other women who suffer in silence despite domestic violence for the sake of their children.

I truly feel blessed to be born a free woman — free to grow up under the care of a loving family, free to be educated as much as i wish to, free to choose who I love and marry, free to travel, free to express myself in any form (within reasonable bounds), free to be recognized for my God-given talents in a society that treats men and women equally.

How sad it is to see that even in world that has gone through centuries witnessing slavery, discrimination, abuse and the like, these have not been totally eradicated till now despite the technological and educational advancement that people living in this century have access to.

I fervently hope that it will not be long before women are accorded the dignity, respect and equality that we have a right to as  human beings and children of a God that sees all men and women as equals. Equality not in the sense that men and women should have the same roles all the time (as women definitely have roles that are best served by our nurturing nature) but equality in the sense that a woman who chooses to stay home to take care of children should be accorded the same respect as one who chooses to pursue a career. After all, careers have office hours. Full-time mothers work 24/7.

I wish I live to see the day when societies with castes and social classes break these barriers down and afford women the same rights to dignity, education and work as men. I hope that I or my children will be able to witness a world where women are free to be the best they can be as citizens of this world with the same opportunity to make a contribution to mankind.

To all my women family and friends, here’s wishing ourselves a HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY!