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PacificRim Exchange

The Last Lecture – Randy Pausch

January 9, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Over a year ago I was at our local Costco and the book “The Last Lecture” caught my eye. This book was written by Randy Pausch from Carnegie Mellon University after giving his “Last Lecture”. The Last Lecture is a tradition at the University of giving a speech on the things that matter the most to you. Unfortunately, as he was developing this last lecture he was diagnosed and started his fight with pancreatic cancer and did not have long to live.

For anyone who has read it, this book was all about how to achieve your life’s dreams (and how to enable others to achieve theirs). It is an autobiography of Randy’s life including his childhood, adult professional life as a professor, his marriage and fatherhood. It is an amazing book, one that I’ve shared with many of my friends over the past year. I actually don’t have a copy of this book at the moment because I gave my last copy away.

One thing I never did was watch the video of that last lecture. Today I finally saw the video on TED Talks (my number one choice for web videos that matter). The video can be viewed from here. Watch at the end of this video (the video is an hour and eighteen minutes long) to see what it was really about (the head fakes).

The one thing that Randy will always be known for is Alice, a graphical system for learning object oriented programming. Randy was the founder of the Alice Project. I’ve written about Alice before, both on this blog and over on Virtued. Randy also started the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at Carnegie Mellon. My youngest son was cracking up today while I was watching this video about half way through (at 37:32) when he shows a student video of a virtual reality project. You have to see it to appreciate it. It would have been a blast to be one of his students.

I like to have fun, it’s a prerequisite of anything that I do. I try to make everything that I do fun, and I find that attitude is very contagious when around other people (especially students). I think I would have definitely gotten along with Randy. He is the kind of person I would have gravitated towards and found a way to be involved in his projects.

With education being hit hard by the current downturn in the economy it’s sometimes hard to find the fun among all the bad news. But it’s out there, there are those who are not only finding it but promoting it in everything they do. If you are not one of these people you need to watch this video. This guy was having fun telling people that he was going to die, and how he spent his life achieving his dreams while having fun. Everyone can learn something from Randy Pausch’s last lecture. We can all learn how to help others to achieve their life dreams, and in the meantime achieve our own.

Take a look, spend an hour watching a reality show that’s actually worth your time. And then pick up a copy of his book, not for you, but to pass along to others who can learn from this professor’s amazing life and advice. Unfortunately Randy Pausch lost his battle with cancer in July of 2008. Good Morning America did a story on his life when he died. Here’s the page with this story. Watch this first and decide if you want to spend 90 minutes watching the full video of the Last Lecture.

And the brick walls that he references several times during his lecture are very real. We’ve all had to break through many of those brick walls with the PacRimX project (both here and in Japan), and we are already hitting some for next year’s (2011’s) exchange. We’ve got the sledge hammers out already and are chipping away at that wall early.

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Life (and education) Changing Experience

January 4, 2010 · 2 Comments

I apologize for the length of this post in advance. I’ve spent the night updating the blog and doing some reflection on the past few years of the PacRimX project. With the way everything has gone I felt the need to put this all in writing after being off on vacation (and furlough days) for the past two weeks. I hope you find it interesting, enlightening, and if you are involved in education possibly motivating and life changing.

Almost four years ago I was asked by two of the Modesto City Schools Administrators who had long run the exchange program between Modesto and Kyoto to go to dinner with the visiting Japanese. It was a simple request. They wanted to discuss technologies that could assist with building closer relationships between the students of our two countries. At the time I figured what the heck, it would be fun to talk tech with the visiting Japanese and to share a dinner together. But that’s about as far as I saw it going at the time.

At this dinner they gave me a one page outline of ideas that they had for putting our students face to face prior to the exchanges. The exchange program had been running for over twenty years, and they wanted to ease the tension of the first few days of an exchange by having a series of video conferences leading up to each of the trips. Towards the end of the dinner I discovered (never knew this before) that there was a 17 hour time difference between our two countries and not a lot of overlap (none for class time).

Chris Flesuras (left, MCS Deputy Superintendent and past coordinator of Kyoto Foreign Exchange) and Chris Flesuras (right, KG English Teacher and co-founder of PacRimX Project). Picture taken in Kyoto during Spring Exchange 2009

As a parting comment at the end of the night I suggested that we incorporate Second Life into our technology solutions to build these relationships. I had long been involved with virtual worlds and this seemed like a great idea to supplement the exchange program. By the end of dinner I had the strange feeling that I was getting pulled into something more than just a dinner with the visiting Japanese. One of the Modesto administrators (Rodney Owen) told me on the way to our cars after dinner that there was no way they would jump at this virtual world suggestion without a lot of discussion back in Japan on the subject.

The next day the visiting Japanese administrators came back very excited and wanted to pursue this idea and the video conferences to supplement the exchange program. I agreed to help get this off the ground with Chris Flesuras, a teacher from Modesto that was now teaching at Kyoto Gakuen High School and was part of this fateful dinner. His father Chris Flesuras was also at the dinner, and was the one who had started this foreign exchange program with Kyoto Gakuen back when he was a principal at one of our high schools. Both of his sons were now teaching English in Kyoto after first visiting while high school students in Modesto City Schools.  I figured a few months of helping to get this off the ground would be both  challenging and fun.

The original team (my four sons in center) from Modesto on a visit to Linden Lab in December 2006. I am second from the left and that’s Claudia ‘Linden” third from the left who was very helpful in getting this project off the ground on the Teen Grid of Second Life.

As I got involved with this project my own children, specifically my then sophomores in high school triplets volunteered to help. They all had several year’s experience with Second Life and specifically with time on the Teen Grid (restricted to 13 – 17 year olds). They were the first to introduce me to Global Kids, a very large cultural education project on the Teen Grid. As it turned out, we were the second K-12 project to officially start up on the Teen Grid of Second Life, and we only missed being the first by a few months (Peggy Sheehy holds that honor with her Rampo Islands).

Our first PacRimX Shared Campus with Kyoto Gakuen on the Teen Grid of Second Life

That first year was amazing. We built an entire virtual campus shared by our two schools on private islands on the Teen Grid. I helped to organize the first activities to be held between our students with Chris Flesuras in Kyoto (co-founder of PacRimX). And my kids were named “founding students” of the project and contributed a lot of time building and training both teachers and students. My boss at the time asked me if I knew what I was getting myself into. I told her that I did not, but that I had always wanted to be a teacher and that this project gave me a little taste of what a teacher experiences working with students (both the rewards and frustrations). She said as long as I knew, and that I was going in with my eyes wide open, she would support my participation in this project.  I thank her for that (thanks Debbe!).  She also helped come up with the name PacRimX.

My son Mark teaching teachers how to use Second Life early in the development of the project

Almost two years ago I was asked by the two people who had coordinated the exchange trips to Kyoto in the past if I wanted to take over for them (Rodney Owen, then Director of ROP and Chris Flesuras, then Associate Superintendent of Human Resources). Rodney was retiring and Chris wanted to pass the baton to someone new and younger that could keep up the pace required for this type of project. Rodney told me that he no longer had it in him to make that trip to Kyoto (I did not know what he meant at the time, but now understand after surviving one exchange trip to Kyoto). Thankfully both of these people are very good friends and have imparted much of their wisdom, experience and advice to me over the past four years. I could not have done what I’ve done to date with this project without their support and input. They are truly my mentors and friends.

My son Mark and Rodney Owen (early supporter of PacRimX and Partner in prior Kyoto Exchange program)

Somewhere along the way I fell completely into this program. I became fascinated with Japan and the Japanese culture. I don’t know when my temporary outlook on this project flipped to being long term, but it was definitely in the first year. I don’t know when the feeling of being a visitor or outsider turned to being deeply immersed in everything Japan, but my first visit to Kyoto this past year definitely cemented my love of  Japan and the Japanese people. And I don’t know when it was that I ditched most of my hobbies and had this project take over a large percentage of my free time outside of work. But somewhere along the way it happened, and I am the better for it.

The first teacher to assist me with PacRimX from Modesto only lasted a year. Mr. Cornwell has been with this project for the past few years. He is an awesome teacher that fully engages his students in learning about computers and multimedia. He has a background in programming and gaming from college.  His enthusiasm with students has been brought fully into this project. We both bring unique experience and skills to the mix and complement each other’s contributions. Neither of us could do this alone. And the partners we have in Kyoto now are a vital and critical component that makes everything work smoothly. This is important as this project now runs year round with the planning and execution of the various trips and activities between our schools.

Brad Cornwell, partner in PacRimX Exchange and Summer School Program

And I can’t leave out my own kids involvement in this project, and how that has fueled my enthusiasm. My entire family has been involved, even including my now sixth grader following in his brothers footsteps (although starting at a much earlier age). Since we merged our PacRimX project with Skoolaborate, two of my kids have been very involved and continue to contribute to that community, even forging close friendships with many students from around the globe who participate in the Skoolaborate project. One of my sons is currently doing his Senior project for high school on virtual worlds and education. Mr. Cornwell is his advisor for this project, even though they are not students in our district. And all of them have expanded their life views on education and careers beyond California, beyond the US, and out to a global range of possibilities.  It is quite normal for them to interact with and collaborate with students from Australia, Canada, Europe and other countries several times a week now on the Skoolaborate islands.

My son Corey and me in the Kyoto Computer Lab Spring Break Exchange 2009

This year I made the decision that if I am going to be doing this for any length of time that I really need to learn Japanese (I have probably 15 years left until I retire, if I am lucky to retire that early). All of the Kyoto students and teachers know English to some degree. Kyoto Gakuen is a private English learning High School. I was so lost last year while in Kyoto (away from the school on my own) not being able to read the signs or communicate on even a basic level. I am motivated to at least learn basic Japanese before this year’s exchange. I tried to teach myself Japanese from books without much success. I then tried Rosetta Stone, but quickly found I could easily fool the program without really learning (or being called on it). I now have a private teacher who I see every Tuesday after work for an hour and a half (sometimes we go longer) who is working with me on my Japanese. I know this will be a long path to truly learn Japanese, but I am an eager student and have nothing but enthusiasm for the effort. And I have a great teacher who is also becoming a friend.

Last year I was told by an administrator in Kyoto that I was too old to learn Japanese. I am 46 years old and I’ve never taken a foreign language in my life (outside of a month of Spanish in high school that I eventually dropped). I figure it’s high time that I check off learning another language from my life list of todo’s. And what better way to keep the brain young and elastic than forming new neural pathways learning Japanese (especially at my age)?

Over the past few months I’ve been learning how to cook Japanese. I’ve found several places in the Bay Area and in my local area where I can buy Japanese goods (I absolutely love Peach Gokuri). Someone asked me why I was learning how to cook Japanese. I told them that I wanted to be able to cook for my host families in Japan on future trips. Their reply was “Why would they want you to cook bad Japanese food when you could cook them American dishes?“, I laughed (and realized they were right) and replied that I was learning for myself and my family’s enjoyment.

Dave Menshew (left) and Scott Kuykendall (Director ROP and Rodney Owen’s replacement and PacRimX supporter)

I decided to write this blog post as I sat here at 12:30am the night before returning to work after a two week Christmas vacation. Three of the days off were mandatory furlough days. The funny thing is I went to Modesto with three of my sons to meet with Chris Flesuras (whose home in Modesto for the holidays from Kyoto) and Dave Menshew (the Biotechnology Academy teacher from Enochs High School and another teacher involved in the PacRimX project) about upcoming changes at Skoolaborate, events planned for PacRimX, the upcoming exchanges, and new projects that might be integrated into our regular curriculum in Modesto utilizing virtual world technologies. Scott Kuykendall (Chaperone for this next Kyoto exchange) asked why I was going into work when I was out on furlough days? I replied “Because this isn’t work“.

I have had so many experiences as part of this project over the past few years. I have made new professional relationships with people from around the world involved with education and virtual worlds. I’ve been given the honor of speaking at many different conferences and being published in many journals, magazines and newspapers as part of this project (an honor I share with my partners in this expanding project). Chris Flesuras has had as many opportunities in Japan, and withi their media.  Most recently the project was featured on a national TV show in Japan (blog post and video here).  Just before Christmas I had the opportunity to be one of four participants in the final podcast of Rezed before they handed the project over to the RezEd community (and my friend Peggy Sheehy was one of the others participating). You can join the RezEd community for free at their website. Once you have a login you can listen to podcast #45 to hear what we discussed with respect to the future of RezEd and virtual worlds in education.

My son Corey in Japan with his host family (Japanese teacher at KG)

One of those “Wow” moments of my life was when I got invited to speak to a small group of 50 at NASA about our project with Japan and was able to take one of my sons (Corey) to also participate in the event. The group included NASA officials, high ranking military officers, people from various government and educational institutions, and people working in virtual worlds. NASA has taken notice of virtual worlds and their educational potential (as has the military). The dinner conversation that first night was one of the most eclectic I’ve ever had on virtual worlds and education.  The NASA report from this event can be downloaded from here)

The experiences my sons have gained from their participation in this project, the way their future plans for careers and college have changed because of this involvement, and the fact that one son (Corey) visited Kyoto last year and another (Mark) is going this year (the third, Bryan, decided to go to Germany this summer instead of Kyoto) makes this all the more valuable and rewarding as a father. And the fact that my youngest son already has plans to go to Kyoto when he is older (he’s in sixth grade now) shows how the enthusiasm is contagious in my household (he’s been the elf at the past two Kyoto Christmas Gift Exchanges, and has come to the past two joint summer schools with the KG students).

Friends from NASA Workshop (from left: Ron Creel, Bruce Damer, Cathy Arreguin who copresented with me, Cory Trevena, me, and John Patten from Sylvan School District in Modesto)

With discussions that have been going on in my own district over the past few years, and conversations I’ve had with educators from all around the world on the direction and future of virtual world technologies and education, this may even eventually become a major part of my career and in education on a larger scale. I made the decision to enter education many years ago to help make a significant change before retirement. I had children and hoped that I could help to affect change in their lifetimes (and hopefully their school years) in the way students engage in learning. I’ve partially done that with my older sons, but only to the extent of this project and virtual worlds. Now I have another six years to try to take it to the next level with my youngest son. And I hopefully have another 15+ years to do it in a much bigger way in education in general before I retire.  One of my other passions right now centers on textbooks and ebook devices.  My Virtued blog will get back on track after the new Apple Tablet launches later this month.  This technology shift will start in a big way in the next two years, more on that later.

My hope is with the current economic crisis in US schools that these technologies are given more attention and consideration as alternatives to physical schools, physical classrooms and printed textbooks, and that others in education embrace these technologies to supplement curriculum, enhance education and engage students in their learning. I love this stuff and count myself very lucky to be alive at this time and to have this job, and to be involved in these types of projects. It’s definitely something to wake up and go to work for every morning (and to sit up late at night working on into the wee hours of the morning, as I log off now at 3:30am).

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October Kyoto Gakuen Entire Class Exchange

January 4, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Every year in October we have the entire Junior class from Kyoto Gakuen visit the Modesto area. This exchange predates the start of the PacRimX project, but since the start we’ve been able to fold in meetings and trips with the visiting administrators, teachers and students to compliment the PacRimX exchanges. It’s a great time to maintain our ties with our Kyoto friends and partners, and a time to squeeze in some planning meetings.

This past October the teacher (Rob) bringing out the delayed summer school exchange students was part of the trip, as was the administrator who coordinates all exchanges (Daniel). They are only here for a week (bordered by two weekends). I spent a Saturday driving around with them while discussing the February exchange (see below for a detailed blog post about the delayed summer school class). We also had a lot of time to talk to talk to all the teachers and administrators who were visiting at a BBQ held at the Flesuras’ household. And final plans and discussions were had between Rob and I on a field trip with the students to Yosemite (a favorite of theirs).

We were so fortunate with our group and their visit to Yosemite. There was a typhoon in Japan when they left for Modesto. The storm followed them and we had horrible rain for the first part of their visit. This rain was from the remnants of the typhoon that reached California. The Sierra’s had a freak storm that dumped snow at the higher elevations, and heavy rain at the lower. Normally this time the year there are drops of water where the falls usually are. This year, due to the odd weather, the falls were gushing like they usually do in the Spring during the winter runoff/melt.

We were also very lucky to be in Yosemite with the late start of the Fall colors in the trees. Everything was bright orange and yellow throughout the valley floor.

We had lunch at the Yosemite Lodge under some amazingly colorful trees. The Kyoto students and teachers had Japanese Bento lunches (cold fish and rice). I got Rob’s attention when I went into the food center and came out with a hot turkey lunch (Thanksgiving in October). You see, they don’t have turkey in Japan. As soon as I took the cover off my plate, and I saw Rob look at his lunch then at mine, I had to give him half of my lunch. There was way too much, so it was easy to share with him. I heard after Thanksgiving that Rob’s girlfriend went out at Thanksgiving to try to get Rob turkey without success. I will have to find out why they don’t have turkey in Japan.

And what’s a trip to Yosemite without a stop at the famous tunnel view made famous by the Ansel Adams photograph of the valley? Here the students are milling around while the teachers try to get them to line up for a group photo. As you can see, it was literally a picture perfect day in Yosemite.

And here’s a picture of Rob (left), me (to his right), and several of the Kyoto teachers at the Tunnel View.

The last stop of the day was at the south grove of big trees. The Mariposa grove is famous for its redwoods and the tunnel tree. We had two large charter buses of students on this trip. We were group three. Each of the three groups flew on a different plane, on staggered days, and took the trips separately. Being the last group, we had the best weather. In total there were around 250 students on this trip.

What was really great was that they had audio programs for the tour of the grove in both English and Japanese. We filled two full flatbed trailers with our students alone.

Unfortunately, this area had already been sealed up for winter, so the museum halfway through the grove was closed already (as were the bathrooms). But the students did get the opportunity to pose with some of the local wildlife.

And our final stop in the grove was the famous tunnel tree. By this time the sun was dipping below the tree tops and the temperature was falling very quickly (everyone was cold). It was a long (but warm) drive back to Modesto. The Kyoto students always love visiting Yosemite. It is one of the top California destinations.

Rob and I were able to finalize the itinerary for our Spring Break Modesto exchange to Kyoto during this trip. We had a travel book and comments from last year’s students. We made significant changes to the schedule from last year based on the input of the students. This year’s students are in for a much wider variety of Japanese cultural sites and attractions.

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Delayed Kyoto (Summer School) Exchange to Modesto Just Around the Corner

January 3, 2010 · Leave a Comment

The Kyoto Gakuen students who were supposed to come to Modesto for summer school six months ago are due in the last week of February. They will be here before we know it. This visit is long overdue, and just in under the wire (or their graduation). Their summer school plans had to be scratched due to their government’s ban on student travel to the United States this past year due to the Swine Flu outbreak (the ban was put in place prior to any cases of swine flu hitting Japan).

I never got to post the pictures from their administrator’s visit to Modesto this past May to apologize for the cancelling of their trip. This blog post will now cover that visit and the rescheduled exchange for these KG students.

Both the Principal and Director of the ICT Program flew out to personally deliver their apology to our district after the summer exchange was cancelled. They spent a full day travelling to schools, the district office and meeting with students and parents from last year’s exchange to Kyoto (as several of them were going to host students from Kyoto). Amazingly they flew all the way out and back inside of three days.

Here Principal Sasai gives a formal speech explaining the reasons for the cancellation of the summer school exchange of Kyoto students to Modesto due to the Government ban on travel to the United States by student groups.

Mr. Cornwell looks on in disappointment as Principal Sasai delivers his address to the assembled students and parents. We were all very disappointed with this news, and feared that these students may not be able to visit Modesto before their senior year finished in March 2010 if the ban was not lifted. This was a serious set-back to our third summer school exchange as part of the PacRimX program.

After the Principal spoke, Mr. Kuromiya (Director of ICT Program) showed the students and parents a newspaper from Japan covering the Swine Flu outbreak and how Japan was attempting to keep the infection out of their country.

My Kuromiya has been personally involved with the exchange program between our two schools for over twenty years, and has been very closely involved with getting both Kyoto and our Modesto student exchanges restarted after years of no travel after the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks on the US. After Mr. Kuromiya’s address to the students and parents it was very clear to everyone that they had no choice in this matter, and that their government was taking actions that impacted the planned summer school exchange that were far out of any of our control. It was also very clear that everyone involved was very sad about this development.

Unfortunately, the first cases of Swine Flu to enter Japan came from a student group that had stayed in the Michigan area and passed through Canada on their way back to Japan. These students were quarantined and the news broke that Japan had their first cases. This did not however change the fate of the summer school exchange as the ban was kept in place.

Because of a strong desire from both schools to get these Kyoto Gakuen students to Modesto for a three week exchange and joint multimedia class, alternate plans were made for a late February and early March visit. Joint multimedia classes with both Kyoto and Modesto students will be held in the afternoons after regular school is out. The program will be run by Mr. Cornwell and the Kyoto teachers travelling with the students to Modesto. And, as with the summer school exchange, we will be conducting three field trips during their visit. They produce a multimedia DVD in teams to take home from their trip.

One trip will be to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The Aquarium has always been very generous and have always provided us with complementary tickets to visit their amazing aquarium. We can only spend a few hours at the aquarium because we have a tight schedule of locations to visit in the Monterey area, but the aquarium is always a favorite of the students (as are the souvenirs they take home with them).

As we did this past October, we will be going to Yosemite. We are hopeful that snow will not prevent our visit to Yosemite, as snow is the only thing that will keep this group from a winter visit to Yosemite. They’ve been warned how cold it will be and to bring winter clothing. All of the valley floor businesses are open year round.

And new to this year’s schedule we will be going to the San Francisco Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. I was just there this past week visiting the King Tut Exhibit at the De Young Museum (just across from the Academy) and snapped this picture of the Academy.

You may not be able to see it, but a very long line winds its way out of the museum and all the way off the left edge of this photo. It is still a very popular attraction in Golden Gate Park a year after reopening after a major remodel. Also visible in this picture is the living roof of the Academy with skylights on the right that open up to the rain forest area of the museum just below.

Here’s a picture that was taken last April, the day before we left Kyoto to come back to Modesto. At this time we thought we would be seeing our friends from Kyoto in Modesto for Summer school a short three months later. Little did we know it wouldn’t be until ten months later that they would finally be visiting Modesto.

This picture shows last year’s exchange students with the Kyoto students and teachers coming here in February. This visit is long overdue and we are thankful that they will finally get their exchange. They graduate weeks after returning to Kyoto, and will be gone before our April exchange to Kyoto. The new school year kicks off the day after we arrive in Kyoto this April (we will be participating in both the welcoming and opening ceremonies for the new school year.

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Christmas Gift Exchange

January 3, 2010 · Leave a Comment

We recently had our Christmas Gift Exchange between the Modesto and Kyoto students involved in the PacRimX project this year. This gift exchange was conducted over video conference link. We cross shipped boxes with student gifts a month prior to the exchange.

Modesto students put their names on slips of paper and we had an elf drawing names. The Modesto student would then call out to the Kyoto student whose gift they selected and they would open their gifts together over the video link.

The students had a lot of fun and laughs as they opened each other’s gifts. It was amazing how many of the Modesto student gifts were candy (specifically chocolates).

There was a lot of food, drinks and sweets brought to the party. We overestimated how many pizzas were going to be eaten and several students happily took home whole pizzas after the party.

Several parents stuck around to participate in the festivities. All were very engaged and the party suddenly ended when our scheduled time on the K12Video.org system expired. We at least had completed the gift exchange before this happened. The video conference went just over two hours (or two class periods in Kyoto).

This was a great way to give the students face to face time in a fun setting. I noticed that now that we’ve had three video conferences individual students are starting to be recognized and everyone on both sides of the camera are more at ease and comfortable with the other students.

Our next joint activity will be online in Skoolaborate either in late January or early February. This will be the Festival of Ages event sponsored by the Kyoto students. Here is the blog post from last year’s Festival of Ages, and here are links to two videos produced by Chris Flesuras (teacher at Kyoto Gakuen) on last year’s event; Jidaimatsuri (Part 1) and Jidaimatsuri (Part 2).

We are currently getting student profiles completed to send to Kyoto to facilitate the matching of student’s to host familes.  Hopefully these will be completed by February so they can start communicating with their host families prior to the April exchnage.

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Kyoto Gakuen on Japanese National TV Show

December 6, 2009 · 1 Comment

Kyoto Gakuen was recently featured on a news show on the national Japan Broadcasting Corp network. This show features stories on education and technology. Click on the screen shot above to load the video. It’s all in Japanese, but still worth watching if you don’t speak the language.

This bridge building event was highlighted in an earlier post here on the blog. The segment on Kyoto Gakuen and Skoolaborate/PacRimX starts at about 14:40 and finishes around 21:10. They really cover the perspective of the Japanese students well during the bridge building event.

The students featured in this broadcast are coming to Modesto for three weeks in late February through early March. They were supposed to have come to Modesto for summer school, but that trip was postponed due to their government banning student travel to the US due to the swine flu outbreak.

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Kyoto Exchange – Spring Break 2010

October 11, 2009 · Leave a Comment

It’s official, the Kyoto Exchange Spring Break 2010 has been approved by the Modesto City Schools School Board on October 5th, 2009. We are now actively recruiting students in our district for this year’s exchange, and participation in the PacRimX Project.

We have been asked to bring 30 students this year (we took 20 last year). Informational flyers went out last Tuesday, and word from the sites give us a count quickly approaching 30 students actively interested. We will be having an informational meeting for students and parents at the end of October. All students who sign up will be registered with Skoolaborate and online joint activities will start with Halloween and continue through the year with the Kyoto students until their visit from the last week of February through the second week of March.

Our trip to Kyoto is in early April 2010. It’s going to be a busy year!

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Bridge Building Reality Show

September 17, 2009 · 1 Comment

Here in Modesto we have been back to school for just over three weeks. In Kyoto they are four months into their school year. Our Spring Break Exchange for 2010 was due to go to the School Board this past Monday, but was bumped out to October 5th. We were waiting for approval to distribute the information packets for the Spring Break Exchange and the permission slips for Skoolaborate/PacRimX at the same time. In Modesto, none of our new students have their Skoolaborate accounts yet.

So imagine our surprise when we got an email from Kyoto the other day explaining that a National TV News Crew in Japan wanted to film a bridge building exercise for a documentary series they are doing on innovation and technology in education. Being that PacRimX is now part of a much larger project, Skoolaborate, we were able to pull off this event in only a few days, much to the relief of the Kyoto Gakuen administration.

Native English Speakers Get Set for Event

To match up pairs of students from Kyoto with native English speaking students we pulled from several sources. My three sons, who helped get PacRimX off the ground almost three years ago (and are now High School seniors) volunteered to help out. We ended up setting up four computers at our house to run this event due to the short window between when they got out of school and when they had to be logged into Second Life (I live almost an hour’s drive away from Modesto). One of my sons went to Kyoto last year and the other two will be going this year as a reward for all their hard work over the past three years with the PacRimX project.

Bryan Waiting for His Partner

Some students from Australia also volunteered to fill in some spots. And both Brad Cornwell (lead teacher from Modesto for both the physical and virtual exchanges) and I also took up the challenge. Two areas were set up on different islands for this event by Chris Flesuras in Kyoto. Unfortunately, since I was participating as a builder, I only got to take screenshots of the area where I was located.

A Teacher Meeting an Hour Before the Event

The request to do this for the TV crew only came this past weekend. This left only enough time to pull together our groups of students to match up with the Kyoto students. There was little time to test out the new Skoolaborate setup, or to do a dry run to make sure everything was stable and that the new expanded rules for this event would flow smoothly. Where in the past we only had the students clone the base platforms via chat, and then they were free to decorate their side of the bridge. This time the entire bridge would have to be built one segment at a time via voice chat, and be symmetrical and identical on both sides. We hoped this would not be too challenging.

A Japanese Student Arriving at the Construction Area

We got our first segments of the bridges set up before any Japanese students arrived. Above is one of the first Kyoto Gakuen students to arrive at her post ready to build. In the past we’ve had to rely on text IM to communicate because of sporadic voice issues with SL (Murphy’s Law). A few hours before this event we thought we were going to have to do that again this time. But a full hour and a half before the event the voice issues cleared up, and Murphy ran away in fear. The SL Gods were definitely smiling on us today.

Bridges Nearing Completion

To our relief, it ended up that the expanded bridge building exercise was not too difficult, the Kyoto students this year have a much better grasp of the English language, and the students were ALL eager to engage in voice chat with each other. The building phase of this exercise went on for close to 45 minutes. In the end we had a nice variety of bridges that all used less than 20 prims each.

Finished Bridges After the Students Moved on to a Video Conference

With the TV crews there, the students quickly exited when the bridges were completed. They had to wrap up the filming and then move on to a video conference with Brad Cornwell (Modesto Teacher). Before logging out, Brad sat atop his flag pole with the Johansen High School Flag and surveyed the view of the completed bridges and exhaled a sigh of relief, as nothing went down during the event and everything went very smoothly.

Brad Cornwell, Teacher, Surveying the Bridges

I was lucky enough to get paired up with a student who was very active last year, and who I met while in Kyoto on the exchange. The first thing he asked me when he opened private voice chat was “Do you remember me?” I said “Of course, you were one of the first accounts I set up last year, and how could I forget your name?” (his avatar’s first name is ‘Crazy’). We would see this question repeated many times later during the video conference between Brad and all of the students in Japan.

Posing with Crazy While Building Our Bridge

Only Text Chat, The Rest All Voice

The Japanese avatars are almost always very different and unique from the American ones. Crazy’s was a mix of geometric shapes, symbols, tweaked body parts, and a skull for a head. I always love seeing the creativity the Japanese students pour into their avatars. Sometimes they are very abstract while at other times they are ultra realistic and sometimes historic in their look.


Variety of Avatars

The first group of students to get on the video conference were alumi from last year’s program. They wanted to say “Hi” to Mr. Cornwell, and most wanted to know if he remembered them from our trip.

Alumni Kyoto Students Went First

It was so good to see these students again after a long summer. We first met these students a year ago last April. They visited in the Summer of 2008, and then went through all of the activities this past year with our students online. And we went and visited them in Kyoto during this past Spring Break. A question asked of each was where they were planning to go to college this year, and if they were ready for their entrance exams.

Next Up Are This Year’s Teachers

After all of the alumni students had their chance to say “Hi”, this year’s teachers got to introduce the new students that will be visiting us in the Summer of 2010. That’s Nick Flesuras, younger brother of Chris Flesuras (co-founder of PacRimX), on the right.

New Students for 2009/10 Year

The new students were very eager to introduce themselves. Each year the students get a little more comfortable and a lot less shy. These guys had us laughing right off the bat by asking if Brad “remembered them”.

Girl’s Turn

After all of the new male students introduced themselves the girls got their turn. They were also not shy and jumped right in asking Mr. Cornwell questions about California, his school, and sharing their eagerness to participate in the program this year.

Last Group of Girl Students

Not wanting to go solo, the last group of girls had three students in it. The girl in the middle spoke very fluent English and finally revealed to us that she had recently returned from living in Texas for three years. She had moved there because of her father’s job, and she very much enjoyed her time in the US and was looking forward to visiting again this next Summer.

This is our third year of the PacRimX program. Every year the students take large leaps in their openness and very few are as shy as many who were in the first program two years ago.

Brad Cornwell Showing Off The New Lab and Equipment

Because of the success of the PacRimX Project, Brad’s classes were moved to new facilities at Johansen High School over the summer. The new classroom has a series of adjoining labs and rooms. This used to be a photo class with darkrooms and labs attached to the main room, now they will all support the video classes. The students will even get to use a “green room” to shoot some amazing video and transport themselves to anywhere in the world (or off world) using green screen video techniques.

Brad and Nick Discussing Upcoming Events

After the students all went back to their morning classes, Brad and Nick discussed events we have planned for the next few months. Nick told us that the students are very excited about the trip next Summer, and that they are very eager to get fully engaged in the program. We have a video conference event planned for early October, the Halloween Party for the last week in October (lots of voice chat and virtual dancing to break the ice), the Jidai Matsuri (Festival of Ages) in November, and our Christmas Gift Exchange via video conference in December. By November we will have identified our group of 30 students for the Spring Break Kyoto Exchange. We will also have a series of video conferences and language lessons sprinkled around in the next four months.

This is the earliest we’ve ever gotten started with student activities. Last year it was late November when we first started recruiting students for the Exchange trip, this year it will be mid October when we start. Each year we get a little better at this, make the events a little bit more challenging, and get a new crop of students that are just a little more excited and a little more prepared to take on the challenges of this program.

I’m looking forward to sharing all of this with all of you as the year progresses. Keep an eye out here for frequent updates. And as you’ve probably noticed by now, I’ve all but stopped posting industry news items or posts on this blog that are not directly related to Skoolaborate or PacRimX. One reason is simply a matter of time, and another is that there are so many other places that cover that kind of news in much more detail than I can provide here.

It’s going to be a great year!

- Stan Trevena, Director of Technology, Modesto City Schools

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Kyoto Exchange – Blog Finally Updated

August 7, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I want to apologize for how long it took to get all the pictures and information from the Spring Break Kyoto Exchange posted to the blog. I’ve had an extremely busy and trying couple of months. Almost as soon as I returned from this exchange trip my boss was placed on administrative leave. Her contract was just bought out this past week, and she is now no longer with the district. I had to relocate one of my departments to a new facility. We’ve had to plan, cancel, and then replan the Kyoto students visit to Modesto this summer due to travel restrictions enacted by the Japanese Government (I will explain this in a blog post in the morning). And I have had my normal duties as Director of Information and Technology Services for Modesto City Schools to keep me busy in addition to all of these.

There never seems to be enough time. Today I had a fishing trip planned on a long overdue day off.  A sudden change in plans (the person I was going with was unexpectedly hospitalized) left me at home instead of fishing. I decided to take advantage of this window of unplanned time to finally get this blog updated. I sat down at my computer this morning at 9:00am. I took over 1,800 photos while on this exchange.  I spent the day today selecting, editing, and posting pictures and stories from this trip to the blog.  There are so many I left out, but there’s just not enough time or space for them.  I am typing this message at 1:00am.  That’s what I call a full day of updating!

I have been so busy this summer that I have not had time to reflect back on this trip much. Today was an awesome experience for me. It was so much fun to relive the trip by going through and selecting photos and recounting stories for this blog. I really don’t see how this trip could have been any better, from the weather to the sites and the people. Everything was perfect and made this a very memorable experience. This exchange will always hold a special place in my memory, as it was a first for me. It was my first time out of the country. It was my first time organizing and executing a trip of this magnitude for students. And it was my first time going to Japan.

I have made a commitment to myself to learn Japanese before returning this Spring to Kyoto. I am using the Rosetta Stone software to try and expand my Japanese vocabulary. I hope to be able to give my speeches next time in Japanese. I also hope to be a little more self sufficient (and confident) when out and about in Kyoto.

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D8 – Kyoto Exchange – The Long Way Home

August 7, 2009 · Leave a Comment

As the students arrived in the morning it became clear that all did not go as planned since the goodbye party. One student had left a camera at the restaurant she had eaten at the night before with her host family. Another student had left her shoes on the train (she had bought new ones at Kyoto Station). One had left her cell phone at her host family’s house. And several other loose ends also needed to be tied up before leaving.

The students were scheduled to tour the temple grounds next to the school this morning to fill time before leaving for the airport.  This was the only activity this week during school hours that the Kyoto students were allowed to get out of class to attend.

While the students and teachers were touring the temple grounds next door to the school, I took one of the student chaperones and headed out to try to recover some of the items left around town the night before by the students. I was also on a mission to return to Bic Camera and pick up another PSP for one of my other sons. He had seen a picture of his brother on Twitter with his new PSP, and decided he wanted one as well.

When I got down to Kyoto Station we had a little time left before we had to be back at the school, we could not resist taking a quick trip to the top of Kyoto Tower. The view from up there was stunning. I definitely need to add this activity to the next trip as a must see for the students.

After securing the packages, we headed back to Kyoto Gakuen. We got back just after they had finished up with lunch (they ate at the school with the students). Having not eaten lunch myself while running around Kyoto that morning, I picked up one of the famous American Dogs at 7/11 by the school to try it for myself.

I must say, not being a big corn dog connoisseur, I was impressed with how good it actually tasted. Not sure if it was just me missing American food after a week away from home, but it was pretty tasty. 

While I was eating my quick lunch, Daniel came over to show me his PSP that he had bought the day before at Bic down at Kyoto Station (a green one).

Time to say Goodbye

The time had finally come. It was time to get in the shuttles and head to Osaka for the airport. Not many wanted to leave their friends at KG. There were lots of hugs between the students as they said their goodbyes. The principal’s assistant said “Awe, they’re really going to miss each other”.  No question about that, as some were already planning to return to Japan on their own for visits next year. 

As we got on the freeway to Osaka it was immediately obvious that some of the students had been out very late the night before with their Kyoto friends.

We made a quick stop halfway to Osaka at a different rest stop than on our trip in. This was the last time we had access to the Japanese vending machines.

Our time was up quickly and it was back in the shuttle and back on the road to the airport in Osaka.

The airport was pretty empty when we arrived. We had no problems unloading our bags and getting into the terminal with time to spare before our flight.

Several students had money left over that they wanted to convert back to dollars before leaving (the fees were a lot less in Japan and in San Francisco for converting currencies).

One student had purchased a lot of food items and got hung up in customs.  I was not there, but other students said it was not a quick check, and that some of the items she had packed were removed from her bags under protest from her.  She came very close to missing the loading of the plane due to the arguments in customs over the contents of her luggage.

Once we had everyone one on the plane and accounted for we breathed our second to last sigh of relief on this trip.

Now we just had to keep ourselves from going mad on the long flight back to the States. Many of the students slept.  It was very odd, we took off from Osaka in the late afternoon.  We flew into the night, were in the dark for a good part of the flight, and then watched the sun rise as we approached our midway point by Alaska.  I can’t sleep on planes, but I had an older Japanese lady from San Francisco that seemed to think my shoulder made a really good pillow.  It was a very long flight home.

Families were waiting for us when we landed in San Francisco.

There were even signs being held up by some to welcome their children back home.

It was only after the last student left with their family that we breathed our final sigh of relief. It has worked. We had pulled it off. We had taken 19 high school students to Kyoto Japan for over a week without incident. We had a great bunch of kids. They were polite, level headed, and stayed on task the whole time they were in Kyoto while still having fun. I can only hope that future exchanges will go as well as this one. I miss Japan and am looking forward to our next exchange during the 2010 Spring Break. We have been asked to bring 30 students next time, since this one went so well. We have already started the planning for the next trip. It can only get better from here as we build more experience in planning these types of exchanges.

Now we have to go back to meeting virtually online until the students come for Summer School. I know most of the Modesto students are anxiously awaiting their three week visit. I also want to thank all the parents as I sign off on this recap of the Exchange. If not for them, this would never have happened. It was their support, their trust, and their children that made this exchange possible. I already have several of the students that went on this exchange that will be 18 next year that have asked to go back as student chaperones. I would say this first PacRimX Exchange Trip was a success. And thank you Mr. Cornwell, I could not have done this without your tireless assistance in the planning and execution of this trip.

And a final Thank You goes out to the School Board and the Administrators who approved this trip and continue to fund the PacRimX/Skoolaborate project. Here’s looking forward to next year!

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