AP Conference 2006

Many teachers of Chinese Language attended the conference. About 30-40 teachers showed up to my session. I was surprised about the turnout which probably due to the recent "Chinese fever". My son, Steve helped me take some photos and videotape my presentation. Thanks, Steve!

The session went well this morning. I just could not finish all the slides I prepared. But I could sense the willingness among the teachers to try some tools I mentioned during the presentation. The main point of my session was that no matter what levels of Chinese class, teachers should integrate some technologies in teaching, because we live in a digital era. Students are far more ahead of us in using digital devices. It is our job to bring their world to the classroom and let them experience a bigger world. Here the creativity on the part of teachers is essential. Teachers should find a way to bridge this gap. There is always a different way to do it in one's classroom. No excuse to say:"It doesn't fit me or my class."

Since I did not have the Internet access in the presentation room, I could not show the web sites and student sample works in the session. Actually, a few things bothered me very much at this hotel. It is a quite fansy resort hotel. But there is no wireless connection, not even in the conference room. Another one is that my computer was probably got hacked. My desktop icons including the language bar for Chinese input (Microsoft IME) were all gone after I rebooted my computer. Luckily I made a back up copy in my ipod last night. I could still show my slides. I did notice a wireless connection on my desktop last night when I got on the Internet. I was suspicious. I tried to disconnect it, but not successful. So I shut down my computer. It was too late to stop hacking. Hope that I did not lose anything else. This is the damage that the technology can cause. Oh, well. Things happen. One just goes along with them.