Preface— On December 30, 2020, Al Guzman helped to register me in Kim Randall's 2 units LINC-90C class: "Online Collaboration Tools" (Online: March 1-26, 2021). Kim emailed the class, "Our daily lives have shifted quite a bit in the past 12 months! Please share something you are excited to do when pandemic 'eases' up & introduce yourself." I wrote "Enjoy teaching poetry to kids; Sharing wisdom (Tour); "Alone but not Lonely"; When pandemic ends, love to— Go ballroom dancing at Cubberley Pavilion, See classic films at Stanford Theatre, Breakfast and movies with friends. Sent "Introduction" done in HTML to Kim on March 3 instead of MyPortal/Canvas as it was not visible in Safari browser; That's why I was kicked out of her class; With Chrome browser, saw LINC-90C Assignments. Kim Randall dropped me from LINC-90C class because I didn't do "Orientation" assignment right; With Al Guzman's help, she installed me back into her class (3/8), but my assignments are late. Below are summaries of her weekly assignments. Orientation: (March 1-7, 2021) Kim links to Education Collaboration Tools, Business Collaboration Tools, Distance Learning Tools. We were to explore at least 3 of these tools, and discuss one of them. BreakutEdu offers physical & digital puzzle games Students can design "Collaborative Poem", writing one line and pass the paper to the next student, who adds another line. Because it is composed by different students, there may be surprising elements, such as fantasy on display. Will have students check out "Rhyming Zone" if they wish to compose a rhymed poem or sonnet. Module 1a: Explore online collaboration tools (March 1-7, 2021) 37 Online Collaboration Tools are listed in "Best Student-Collaboration Tools". MURAL offers "Multifaceted interactive whiteboard promotes collaboration". Students can work together in an effective, visual way. I like their slide #8 showing "Cupcake, Sliced Birthday Cake, 3-tiered Wedding Cake"— from the simple to the grand. I'll include "Earth, Solar System, Milky Way" as the 4th-6th images. A bite of "Cupcake" with a cup of "Milky Way" to drink to a grander mystery of life. Module 1b: Making 3 Slides in Google Drive (March 1-7, 2021) Open account in Google Drive. 1) Teaching poetry to kids; 2) Sharing wisdom (Tour); 3) Poem learned this past year: "Alone but not Lonely"; When pandemic ends, love to— Go ballroom dancing at Cubberley Pavilion, See classic films at Stanford Theatre, Breakfast and movies with friends (Al Guzman). Module 2a: Google Earth & Tour (March 8-14, 2021) 1) Welcome Home to the new Google Earth; 2) 15 Years of Google Earth Stories; 3) Explore a Voyager Story: Turning the Tide for Whale Sharks; 4) Explore a user created story: Free Shipping. Enjoyed their 56-seconds video showing earthly terrains, canyons, snow-capped mountains, Empire State Building in New York City. Story 14: First ever picture of a black hole. Tagging whale sharks to study migratory movements. Interesting story of Henry Box Brown shipping himself from Richmond to Philadelphia (March 22-30, 1859), in his 250 miles escape to freedom. Module 2b: Google Literature Trip (March 8-14, 2021) Used Google Map of Europe to plot this literature trips to points of inspiration, where poets experienced epiphanies & enlightenment— A.E. & James Joyce (Dublin, Ireland), Wordsworth (Tintern Abbey, England), William Blake (London, England), Balzac (Paris, France), Rilke (Paris Zoo, France), Goethe (Harz Mountains, Germany), Schiller (Weimar, Germany), Lord Byron (Montreux, Switzerland), Dante (Ravenna, Italy), Rumi (Konya, Turkey). Like Dante's ascent to Paradise, we're not going by train, ship, or plane, but by Pegasus, the flying horse & symbol of poetry, to take us to these sacred places to experience transcendence. Module 3a: What Is Canva? (March 15-21, 2021) 1) What is Canva?; 2) Ten Things You Can Create with Canva; 3) Five Unexpected Uses for Canva; 4) Canva for Education; 5) Explore what is on Canva's website; 6) Discussion on Using Canva. Canva was created in 2012 by Melanie Perkins in Australia to create social media graphics. This platform allows you to create invitations, business cards, flyers, lesson plans, Zoom backgrounds, and more using professionally designed templates. With so many templates, photos, and fonts to choose from, Canva provides an ideal platform for graphic designers to excel in their work. I was overwhelmed by their vast offerings to enhance your projects. Module 3b: Making a Banner in Canva (March 15-21, 2021) Kim suggested using "Custom size" (800x200 px) in creating a banner. There were hundreds of templates to choose from. Chose "Explore the Wonders of Learning", and changed to "Explore the Wonders of WisdomPortal.com". Selecting larger dimension (1400x425 px) gave a different set of templates. Chose "Go Beyond" & changed to "Explore the Wonders of WisdomPortal.com". Canva's "Your Story" had hundreds of posters. For poem "My Story", containing 8 Canva posters, needed a Canva logo banner, done in Photoshop using their "Welcome" template. Canva's template "Anything Worth Having Takes Time" inspired another poem "Spinoza". Module 4a: Discussion on Padlet (March 22-27, 2021) Padlet is a software to use making and sharing content with others. Padlet empowers everyone to make the content they want, whether it's a quick bulletin board, a blog, or a portfolio. I would create a collaborative tool to engage & inspire students to brainstorm together, sharing ideas, photos, videos, to make their work livelier. Canva templates can help them with designs, Pinterest photos have images to illustrate their poems, YouTube videos and Google Earth can take them travelling afar. My "Geometry Playground" will engage students to write poems, using "Geometrical Figures Compilation" to stir them to action. Module 4b: Making a Padlet (HTML) (March 22-27, 2021) Instead of using Padlet to teach K-12 students to write poems, for part 2, decided on a wider audience— "Albert Einstein & Wisdom Mudra" is a better topic to inspire more people. When I taught this seminar (January 14-16, 1980) to 20 engineering students at WPI, they were engaged and enthusiastic. Some went to museums, and collected portraits of inventors & creative people in the wisdom mudra pose. In addition to my slide show of Buddha and Christ in this gesture, I taped two dozen pages of artists and scientists in this mudra pose along with inspiring quotes from their writings for them to read. At the 1911 Solvay Physics Conference. the 33-year-old Einstein is in the wisdom mudra meditating like the Buddha. He has this mudra pose at the 1913 Solvay Conference on Physics, at the 5th Solvay Conference in 1927, and the 6th Solvay Conference 1930. Are these by chance or did Einstein know their importance? Module 4c: Creating Inside Padlet (March 22-27, 2021) There are 8 templates in Padlet to choose— Wall, Canvas, Stream, Grid, Shelf, Backchannel, Map, and Timeline. I selected "Grid"— Arrange content in rows of boxes. Dragged 4 images for first row— 1980 WPI Seminar on Wisdom Mudra, Albert Einstein in Wisdom Mudra pose at 1911 Solvay Physics Conference, Buddha in Chin Mudra (thumb touches forefinger) when in meditation, Christ in Shuni Mudra (thumb touches middle finger). No room for texts to accompany images, except for brief title. Greatest scientists are featured in second row— Copernicus (Heliocentric system), Galileo (Father of modern science), Sir Isaac Newton (Gravity & laws of motion), James Clerk Maxwell (Electromagnetism). Could not fit Einstein in the second row with the scientists, so he's in the third row with Albrecht Dürer, greatest German artist during the Renaissance, and Beethoven, greatest composer of all time. Beethoven when composing or conducting has his fingers in the Wisdom Mudra pose. The last row shows poet e.e.cummings, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, modern dancer Martha Graham, Indian Kathak Classic dancer, all in the Wisdom Mudra pose. Poems of E.E. Cummings uplift us to the cosmic realm, such as his Poem XLVI in 1x1 (1944)— "open your heart: / i'll give you a treasure / of tiniest world / a piece of forever..." | Top | Module 4c | Module 4b | Module 4a | Module 3a | Module 3b | Module 2b | Module 2a | Module 1 | | Orientation | Haikus 2021 | Poems 2021 | Nature Walks | Interesting News | Books | A-Z Portals | Home | © Peter Y. Chou, Wisdom Portal P.O. Box 390707, Mountain View, CA 94039 email: (3-27-2021)