淡水回憶

The following was written on the 15th of December 2009, in Taipei.

淡水，下午五點半，天黑，在等冷氣團到，河水跟時間一樣依然流動，老街跟河邊依然有著既熱鬧又充滿休閒的浪漫情懷。老人穿著防風外套垂釣，相信他在河邊享受了至少一整個下午。

偶而到了麥當勞，好奇心驅使下發現了來往老街跟岸邊的捷徑，回憶更為濃烈，無奈、嘆息跟鬱悶持續濃罩得像天空跟淡水河的藍黑色一樣。風跟河水都努力的勸勉跟鼓勵著我要生活好目前一刻去跟真理對話。歌詞好：「放手，放開所有」

Test Result

1st group
Grape
主要能力：

• 反省
• 敏感
• 彈性
• 創造力
• 喜歡跟人一起工作

以下情況的學習效果可能較好：

• 跟人一起工作，互相分享
• 在工作與遊戲間取得平衡
• 能溝通
• 非競爭性環境

以下事情可能表現較差：

• 提出精確答案
• 專心處理一件事
• 編制計劃

為改善自己，必須：

• 更注意細節
• 不要急著投入
• 作決定時，要減少情緒化反應

2nd group
Orange
主要能力：

• 實驗
• 獨立
• 好奇
• 想出不同的作法
• 創造變遷

以下情況的學習效果可能較好：

• 允許嘗試與錯誤的環境
• 製造真實的產品
• 能夠競爭
• 自主性強

以下事情可能表現較差：

• 在時限內達成任務
• 專心聽演講
• 只有少數的方案或選擇

為改善自己，必須：

• 授權他人，讓別人負責
• 更接受別人的構想
• 學習排出優先順序

3rd group
Banana
主要能力：

• 規劃
• 找事實
• 組織團隊
• 遵循指導 

以下情況的學習效果可能較好：

• 井井有條的環境
• 追求特定結果
• 能信任人會各盡其職
• 可預測的情境

以下事情可能表現較差：

• 了解別人的感覺
• 處理反對意見
• 回答假設性問題

為改善自己，必須：

• 多表達感受
• 請別人說明他們的觀點
• 減少僵化的反應

4th group
Watermelon
主要能力：

• 為觀點不同而辯論
• 找出解決辦法
• 分析觀念
• 決定某事的價值或重要性

以下情況的學習效果可能較好：

• 能夠得到資源
• 能獨立作業
• 自己的知性能力受專重
• 遵循傳統作法

以下事情可能表現較差：

• 跟團體一起工作
• 受批評
• 需用外交手腕說服人

為改善自己，必須：

• 接受不完美
• 考慮所有方案
• 為別人設想

呂宇俊，蕭凱欣 (2006) 呂sir 通識教室－－人際關係篇，明窗出版社，香港。

Universal Value

Yesterday, the 44th President of the United States Obama met with some future leaders in Shanghai.  He kept mentioning clean energy and universal values that the Americans believe and are pursuing.  It is true that those mentioned universal values are not unique for people in the States, but also for all people, while I'm worrying about the reaction from Beijing.  No matter how, on one hand, personally, I somehow agree those mentioned universal values; on the other hand, it is easy for me to reflect on the issue about what the universal values are with all the questions behind and followed.

Papa Benedetto XVI presented his third and the latest letter, Caritas in Veritate, to all the people which is about love in truth.  I believe in love and can't help agreeing the idea written behind.  We have to wake up and love rationally, in just.  However, where is truth?  Of course, for us Christians, definitely and without any doubt, God is truth.  So, here comes the second problem: how do we know what we are doing and are going to do is based on the truth or the God's will?  Mmmm....let's pursue to find more about the truth.  Cheers.

Warm Tissue Paper

前幾天在澳門日報欣賞了一篇讀者所寫對澳門現況歌功頌德，粉飾太平的文章後，發現原來真的也有不少好人在我身邊。

話說今天早上坐二路公車從下環到發電廠時，有一位高中男生在中區上車後一直站我附近，其實我也沒有留意他。不過到了大概荷蘭園馬路時，他可能因為留意到我一直用力的吸鼻子的關係吧，他帶著微笑的拿著一把衛生紙遞向我，問我要不要，之後我報以微笑跟他說不用跟謝謝。

我心裡面想，這個年青人對陌生人主動關心的行徑實在是可貴，也給我在這冬日裡添了一份暖意。

Religious Education

Religious education provides opportunities for young people different point of views to deal with the important issues about life and death, suffering, love, value and meaning, existence, common good, etc.  It provokes the experience to reflect critically and sensationally the personal, spiritual, moral and social problems.

The aims of religious education are to enable students to:
(a) acquire knowledge of the religion they study;
(b) judge about religious, moral and social issues rationally;
(c) enhance their spiritual, moral, and social development; and
(d) develop a positive attitude towards people and respect for their beliefs.

By the end of the course, students are expected being capable of demonstrating the ability to:
(a) identify situations which require the prioritising of values and virtues;
(b) understand the complexities involved in making moral decisions;
(c) apply critical thinking skills to the making of reasoned and responsible moral decisions through discussion of various ethical issues;
(d) understand the origin, precepts, forms and practices of the religion they study;
(e) address problems in their daily lives and tackle contemporary moral or social problems by applying the teachings of the religion they study;
(f) take care of others by modelling the life of the religious founders they study;
(g) apply prior knowledge in ethics studies or religious studies to life experiences and other service experiences;
(h) appreciate the diversity in different religions and cultures, and develop a positive attitude towards people having different religions and respect for their beliefs; and
(i) reflect the issues in their daily lives.

The course will be mixed with humanistic and constructive pedagogy by having dialogue between the teacher and students, and among the students where most of them are living near the school and their social economic status are usually relatively in lower middle. Nevertheless, information technology will be used to enhance the students’ learning experience where blog, forum, wiki, and multimedia will be used throughout the whole course. A simple survey that was done in the beginning of the course indicates that most of the target students don’t have a blog or maintain a blog regularly. It may imply that some of the students may not be familiar with some of the online learning tools like blog or wiki.

Session	Course Content	Reference or Aid
1	Introduction
2	Prayer
3	Course Evaluation and Review
4	Introduction of Bible and the Readings	Bible + PowerPoint
5	What is life?  What does life contain?	Bible
6	Who am I?  What am I?	Worksheet
7	Power of Pressure	Bible + Worksheet + YMCA leaflet
8	Changing Family – Single Parent	Worksheet
9	Generation Gap	Bible + PowerPoint
10	Subject Examination	Bible
11	Subject Examination	Bible
12	School Examination
13	Organized Crime and Triad	Worksheet
14	Single Child	Worksheet
15	Brotherhood	Worksheet
16	Occupation	Worksheet
17	Christmas Break
18	Christmas Break
19	Discipline and Regulations	Students’ Handbook
20	True Love	Bible
21	Girl and Sea – Purity and Love Relation
22	Counsellor and Social Worker’s Time
23	Dilemma (e.g. cheating, wife or prison)
24	CNY
25	CNY
26	Marriage	Bible + Worksheet + YMCA leaflet
27	Subject Examination	Bible
28	Subject Examination	Bible
29	School Examination
30	Universal Declaration of Human Rights	2nd Vatican Council
31	Life or Death: Case Study on minorities	PowerPoint
32	Minorities and Marginal Groups: WWJD?	Bible + Worksheet
33	Sport Week
34	Dignity & Respect	Worksheet and Church documents
35	Public Area	Worksheet
36	Introduction to Ontology
37	John 6: Jesus is God and Life	Bible
38	Symbols and Signs of Life	Real Objects + Bible
39	Holy Eucharist	Real Objects + Bible
40	Subject Examination	Bible

Of course, multimedia will be provided to students to supplement classroom work across the whole course.

Success criteria	High	Medium	Low
Ability to demonstrate their knowledge on the moral, ethical, social and religious issues they learnt	Student can accurately answer most questions related to facts or theories	Student is able to accurately answer about 70% of questions related to facts or theories	Student appears to have insufficient knowledge about the facts, theories or processes used
Ability to analyze and make judgments on the moral, ethical, social and religious issues.	Student proves to have reasonably deep insight and analysis, with sufficient literature reference, on the topic for the judgments on the issues.	Student shows reasonable insight and analysis on the topic for the judgments on the issues.	Student seems to have little reasonable insight and analysis on the topic for the judgments on the issues.
Ability to apply the religious point of view, no matter Christianity or other religion, on the moral, ethical, social and political issues.	Student is capable to use religious thinking to explain, analyze, justify and evaluate the moral, ethical, social and political issues systematically and globally.  Student also reflects on his or her own daily life, community, environment or country by using a religious and affective way.	Student applies the religious care or thinking to explain, analyze, justify and evaluate a few points on the issues.	Student shows nearly no or very limited religious vision on the issues.

Throughout the course, the students will be required to accomplish some tasks by using the following online learning tools.

BLOG
Students will be asked to write a journal every two weeks for them to reflect on

• What they have learnt from the course in the past two weeks or in the past;
• How they can apply what they have learnt; 
• The most impressive scene and activities on the sessions, and;
• How they felt on the classes.

FORUM

Each class of students has to go to the online forum to discuss a topic opened by one specific students after each session.

WIKI
A Wiki about the relationship between religions and human societies is necessary to be created, designed, managed and maintained by all the students.

The Secret Orange

Recently, I think it is necessary to have more vegetables and fruits to maintain my health specially there are many classes suspended for the H1N1A flu.  Coming back from lunch at Eskimo, I suddenly found some pieces of orange with two toothsticks had been put on my desktop.  Finally it was found that those pieces of orange were offered by one of my colleagues Sister Kong (O.P.).  I met her later and I said, "Thank you, Sister."  She replied, "This is called sharing!".  Oh, she is reminding me the power of constructivism in learning, not only with technology, but also with several pieces of orange.  May God bless her.

New Gadgets

Thanks for Miss Neena Thota's warm reminder about the video clips and RSS feed and that's why and how my blog is now with video bar and RSS feed from http://www.youtube.com/ and http://www.dailygood.org/ respectively. The video bar and RSS feed can be served as multimedia learning objects for the students' discussion and reflection. There are some more interesting channels in the following.

• H2ONews
• Vatican
• RTHK
• PasssionduChrist
• UNICEF
• HelpGiveThemAVoice
• GreeanPeaceVideo
• WWF
• IFRC
• WorldVision
• SalvationArmy
• WorldScouting

Any recommendation?

Why Interlude?

If you know music, you may know interlude than the others.  For those who don't really know what interlude is, you just imagine it is a melody between two different melodies within a musical piece or a song.

Between 2004-2007, some of my students plus one of my colleagues and I performed twice on the stage by using the name Interlude for the rock band.  Why I named Interlude for the band is because I don't think the band will be long lasting.

Well, this is life.  There is nothing can be maintained forever physically.  Even the particles they keep changing from one form to another during different physical or chemical reaction, across the time.  So do my physical life and body, and also the web1.0/2.0 era.  It will finally pass away, just like an interlude, that is something in between.

Learning Styles

I can't help doing the learning style test in advance since there is really fun and interest.  From the result, I'm more active than reflective, more intuitive than sensitive, more visual than verbal, and an extremely little bit sequential than global learner.  You guys can go to have a test and let me know which type of learning you keen to be.  Richard Felder and Soloman's analysis is quite nice for you to be a reference about learning style.

Interlude Launched

I still remember that my first and the only personal website in the web1.0 era was done because of the requirement of a complusory course of GIS in the university around ten years ago.  The whole site was then moved from the university to a local ISP after graduation.  However, since it takes time to maintain such a big site about engineering and arts, it slowly faded out from my life.

Now, it's time for web2.0 to go.  Just like ten years ago, my very first blog is now launched because of the requirement of a course of Education and Technology in the graduate school.  Many things changed but my heart is still the same.  Therefore, I write this post, in memory of this extreme late blogging in the history of web, when everybody blogs for years.  Time for web 3.0 may come tomorrow.  Time changes really fast, but, how about us?