Tonight was the finale of my Internet Marketing Now: New Tools and Trends course. I learned so much from the students. Being an instructor is really humbling and I just love it. Special thanks to all the students who made it such an enjoyable experience.
I have been looking for a few Christmas gifts recently and I am interesting in opportunities for green giving. From initial searches, I was quite disappointed with the sites that come up in Google searches. One that I do like is the TreeHugger's Green Gift Guide.
Went to work, took the train to Sunnyvale. Carpooled to San Jose. Dinner with friends and then went to the Carmina Burana at the San Jose Ballet! Wow! I never knew ballet could be so entertaining. What a performance! I was inspired by the sets, the music and the phemonenal athleticism of the ballet dancers. I wonder if we could get someone to teach ballet. I think it would be a blast.
Struggling to find something to post about at the last minute while my spouse is nagging me to come to bed... I look at the Southern Wilderness Alliance web site and see and link to Women Protecting Wilderness. Since I am reading Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes by Mark Penn and E. Kinney Zalesne at the moment, and learned that women outnumber men, I am pleased to see a few interesting bullet points about why women are so powerful, not only in protecting wildness, but also in other areas.
Quoting from the web page directly: "
Women comprise a majority of registered voters.
Women make as much as 85% of all consumer purchases.
Women are the most important educators in society, both as teachers where we dominate the profession, and as parents where we still outnumber men.
Women are starting new businesses at a faster rate than men.
We should feel empowered by these facts. We have a tremendous influence in the marketplace, in the business world, at the polls, and in the next generation. We have the power to create the world we want to see in the future. The best first step is to start deciding what kind of future we want. What do we want the future of our public lands to be? We need to start the conversation! "
From the Art of Engagement Online Conference, I was interested in Beverly Naidus' request for stories about how people become socially engaged artists.
I knew I loved teaching, but I didn't know how much. As an instructor looking through my students assignments (blogs) makes me feel proud, inspired and humbled all at the same time. The students are amazing. Their courage to write intensely personal life celebrations, sharing what's important and learning through exploration, reminds me why I teach. I teach, because I love to learn. I teach because I am inspired by what unfolds, by the dynamic nature of the community, by the passion and enthusiasm of the students. I am truly fortunate and grateful for the opportunity to be able to share my knowledge and learn from others. I hope you will join me in this wonderful adventure with Classes for Causes. Teach a class or take one, the cause is worth it, and you'll have a blast.
I am teaching a class called Internet Marketing Now: New Tools and Trends for San Francisco State University's College of Extended Learning. I am teaching the students about blogging and how to become an effective blogger. In order to teach them the discipline of regular posting, I created an assignment that they post to their blogs every day for two weeks. It is working well for the class and it is helping me to post something to my blogs daily as well. This is something I struggle with, but the assignment gets me over the writers block. Perhaps I should create assignments for the other things that I struggle to find time to do everyday as well.
What assignment would you give your class that would help them and at the same time help you accomplish your goals?
We're all hungry for something. Hungry for knowledge, hungry for attention, hungry for food, hungry for love. At my first Symphony Parnassus concert today I realized that teaching and learning is everywhere. The conductor, Stephen Paulson gave a short presentation about Sibelius's 7th Symphony and his passion for the music was contagious. People are eager to learn in almost every setting, concert hall, soccer field, grocery store, and mountain top. Here's a site that helps you improve your vocabulary while donating rice - http://www.freerice.com.
Care to share other similar sites? Post a comment below. Thanks.
Look to GOOD instead of GOOG. GoodSearch gives money to charities every time you search or shop online using their search engine. It's a Good concept and it's doing Good. Good can't be bad, so it's all Good. It's all about Good and Good and Good.
Click on the ad to give GoodSearch a test drive. Thanks to Kiska for the referral.
MD is a good friend and someone who inspired me to teach. She taught me Flash at SFSU's Multimedia Studies Program in the early days of the Internet, in the late 1990's. She was and is an excellent teacher and a lot of my teaching style is the result of my admiration for what she did in those Flash I, Flash II and Flash Online classes. Unfortunately she doesn't teach at the MSP anymore, but I will always fondly admire and aspire to her:
* Outstanding course materials meticulously prepared * Exuberant amounts of energy and patience * Encouragement of trying, failing and starting over. (It REALLY IS always faster the second time around.) * Passion for the subject, the conversation and the education * Dedication to the students and the technology
Cheers, MD! Best wishes and many thanks. You are an inspirational teacher and I'm honored to be one of your former students.
In this class I am having my students create their own blogs and I am really excited about what they are doing with the project. Today Michaela referred me to a site called 6billionothers.org from her new blog. What a honor it is to be teaching like minded students and colleagues. 6 Billion Others is an experimental project by Yann Arthus Bertrand. He says "Every single person has something interesting to say. And every single person has a right to say it even if they don't know it." That's what blogging is about too. It's your right to tell your story, to share your passion, to speak your peace.
When I thought of the project for the class I had no idea that this month is National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo.) The assignment is to post to your blog once a day from the beginning to the end of the class, which is November 5th through 19th. However, since I am taking on the NaBloPoMo as well, I will be posting daily.
They say that it takes 21 days to make or break a habit. Here's to making the habit of daily posting on the Classes for Causes blog, because I believe we can all make a difference, all 6 billion of us, one person at a time.
I am grateful for the opportunity to teach, for in the teaching I am learning.
At Microplace, you can invest your money in someone in a third world county, someone poor, but hardworking. The key is that you are investing, because you get a return on your investment. Loan someone $100 and get 3% or $103 in return. That's free money for you and you're helping someone in need.
Step 1: You purchase an investment on MicroPlace that provides the opportunity to earn a financial return.
Step 2: Your investment dollars are used to provide loans to the working poor.
Step 3: The working poor use their loans to build businesses. They repay their loans and pull themselves out of poverty!
Sound too good to be true? Check it out for yourself at MicroPlace.
Nelson Mandela urges us to "Be The Great Generation" and calls world leaders to act at the G8 summit and not to hesitate. "Poverty is not natural, it is man-made." www.makepovertyhistory.org/video
Also check out The One Campaign. Together we can make poverty history, one person at a time. Give.
Things don't always go exactly the way you expect them to.
I planned a party (Late Birthday, Post Halloween, Early Holiday, Fundraiser on a Veggie-oil Powered Schoolbus - http://www.teacherwiththebus.org) for November 3rd and invited about 75 people. 11 people accepted, 24 couldn't make it and I didn't hear from most of the rest.
No big deal right? Well considering I was hiring the bus, had already paid my $350 deposit and needed to entertain my guests, the fundraiser with only 11 people turned into quite an expense. I had two choices: One, go forward with the event and spend about $700 in addition to the $440 raised from event ticket sales, (fees for the bus hire, food, alcohol, prizes) or two, cancel the event having spent $350. I chose the latter and I am sad and disappointed.
What did I learn? I learned that I need to call people instead of relying on email and an Evite. I learned that just because you send an Evite, doesn't mean everyone on the list will receive it. Several people reported that they had not received it when I emailed and called to follow-up. I learned that I should send more invitations. If my acceptance rate is 10% I need to send 350 invitations for the next event. I learned that more advance notice is better. Two weeks is not enough. I learned that you can't ever please everyone. There will always be someone who can't make it. I learned that thinking big means falling hard. I learned that I have friends who are there to catch me when I fall. I learned I can't do it all, alone. I learned to be humble. I learned to be simple. I learned that next time will be better.
Never stop learning. Learning is living. Live and learn and learn to REALLY live.
"So much of modern culture is characterized by stories of self-indulgence and self-destruction. So much of modern politics is focused not on honest differences of policy but on personal attacks. So much of modern media is dominated by people who earn fortunes by demeaning others, defining them by their worst moments, exploiting their agonies. Who's happier? The uniters or the dividers? The builders or the breakers? The givers or the takers? I think you know the answer. There's a whole world out there that needs you, down the street or across the ocean. Give." -- Bill Clinton at the end of his most recent book: "Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World"
