User:Leolaoshi

/My sandbox/

How to reach me ?
eMail: leolaoshiATgmailDOTcom

Phone: (86)13625275372

MSN :wangwang108@hotmail.com

Skype: leolaoshi

Blog: http://leolaoshi.yo2.com (being blocked in China sorry )

http://leolaoshi.haokanbu.com (Class blogging with my students in China )

Photos: http://leolaoshi.haokanbu.com

My profile
I live in Soochow in China with my family. My professional interest is in education and curriculum, I have complelted my MA in education with  Soochow Univerisity(English Version)in 2009, I specialised in the Curriculum Development and Design , I have worked as Middle school English teacher for 3 years , while studying as a MA students , I have been working as teacher and teacher trainer for different schools and organisations ranging from K1-12 to University level  for last 5 years , Meanwhile I explored the use of socially networked media in educational setting. I have been really enjoy my teaching at "Mass media Research " class called EDEXCEL, as part of the HND course from UK.

I am also very interested in creating a Professtional Learning Community for schools and for diffferent educational settings ,I always think my students doesnot necessarily learn most from my classes, The first reason lies with classroom is not necessarily the best place to learn ,secondly ,we learn most effectively when we engage in a very intense social interaction or with others ,Third assumption is as a adult we have brought different background into the learning and we look for different outcomes for our learning ,Forthly when our learning happen best when relevant to our paticular work context.

I am also the founder of an International NGO project called HELP, stands for HelpElephantsLiveProject for last 3 years , You can find out more abt this project below.

Bacially I really enjoyed worked as a teacher, I take teaching or education as my "calling" ,instead of just a Job

My interests
I would like to find out more abt the below areas :


 * Everything to do with Curriculum ( Design /Development/ Implementation /assessment )
 * Community- based -Learning CBL
 * Value Education
 * Conservation Project
 * How to make Educational NGO in China sustainable
 * Informal Learning
 * Teacher professional Development
 * ESL/EFL
 * Design-based educational Research ( EDR)

2010
I have started working in Suzhou dushuhu Lake Library ,Information service department, My job is mostly abt designing traning program and workshops for University teachers and Students , I have done several workshops at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University and other Universities too ,The content of Workshop is mostly abt Information search and integreation with new Information Literacy , I have been learning a lot from this job ,especially on coordination , people skills etc.

The most recent presentation I have done is on March 10th 2010 for delegation of Staffordshire University when they visit library, the Slides I used is here

This is not a job I am really enjoying doing though I am learning a lot in this job, however I realised that everything there is a purpose for it , and sometimes , You can not get whatever you want in your life , Life is not just abt having fun , it is also "traning " and "responsiblity " etc ....

2009
2009 has been a really important year for myself too, I learned some very valuble lessons like :


 * We are all much more alike than different.
 * We grow the most when we stretch ourselves.
 * The world is SOOOOO small.
 * The world is SOOOOO large.
 * There is no one RIGHT way to do things.
 * Love never fails ..true love endures,bears....
 * A true leader serve ,the heart of Management is Education

Meanwhile ,in the coming 2009, We have done Pilot programs of HELP( what is HELP ? read below ) and First HELP teacher training  in Suzhou China.

I am also going to register HELP with a company name in China, we would like to have any ideas or input .....

Dr Tina Vazin helped me to present a paper at 2009 35th Annual Conference of the Eastern Community College Social Science Association (ECCSSA) about HELP projects

The theme of this conference is “Visions for Creating a Sustainable Future: Toward Transformational Change for a Collective World at Peace”

2008
Hongkong Alpha Course Internship

2008 October has ended with a unexpected Experience with Alpha Course in Hongkong, Thanks to Ching Ching and all the staff in Alpha, I spent a very good time in Hongkong , and learned some very valuable lessons there , and I love the food in Hongkong !

"HELP" project

HELP stands for "HelpelephantsLliveProject" ,it is an Non-Profit project funded by USA Education Department, the program have been going around since 2007 , 39 schools in China have agreed to participate this program ,you can view their signed scan copy of Letter of commitment here ,I have been working as the co-director of this project in Mainland China.

We have just finished a very exciting Pilot program of HELP at the last day of 2008,we have done a pretest ,taught 3 sessions ,posttest,end of project survey, with the help of our first HELP school Xinghai Primary school ,we have sucessfully collected all data and making comparsion with US students ,even more excitedly ,some schools from German and Iran have also agreed to teach HELP from 2009,which make HELP a truly International program .Our vision on HELP are:

1. Increase knowledge of the global problem (such as eventual extinction of elephant) 2. Increase knowledge of possible strategies to solve the global problem 3. Increase sense of global responsibility of natural resources 4. Increase sense of personal responsibility for global problems 5. Increase positive attitudes towards working with international populations to solve global problems 6. Integrate Value Education in Chinese culture setting

P Course

P stands for Passion or Paper /Practice /Project and Presentation,which focus on 3 areas ,I work as the project coordinator ,with the help of China Red Cross Leadership Course,we have compeleted our first year program in Soochow University in 2008. our course blog is here

1 Passion:Instill the life Values in College students

2 Paper: Helping them with their research skills

3 Project: Leadship traning through different small projects funded

by University especially the help of Soochow Univeristy Library and University Youth Society

I persnally learned so much from this project, especially to know more about current student Generation( Born in late 80s and even 90s ) ,and working with some of Student organisations ,also gained some very valuable lessons on how to teach with those Digital Native generation in China.

Hunan Summer Pre-school English teacher workshop"

I worked with Peter Blackwell from Brown University ,I helped him to conduct a Pre-school teacher workshop mainly on English subject (ESL),mainly focus on how to use Stories and Literature to enrich and develop curriculum for Preschoolers at Nobel Education Group at Changsha ( Captital City of Hunan in South China), I learned a lot from this collaborative experience with Peter and Alan ( CEO from 21st Century Education group )

Migrant Children education Project"

reading this article you will what is going on in their life

Me and other 2 Master students helped to work on a Migrant Children Educatin project to dig in some of Literature ,with the job description ,we have sucessfully done our part to ensure the project can go on smoothly.

I think that " Urban Migrant Children" is a huge and "Cannot-Wait" program in China ,we are thinking hard on how we can leverage resources and ideas to make the life easier for those kids. This project is also funded from 21St Century Education group

Wiki workshops

From 2007 to now, I Have been conducting a seris of web2.0 workshop among Soochow Univerisity teachers and students ( more than 1000 attendees) ,especially to do with wiki ,trying to implement a Learning2.0 program and create Open_ educational_resources ,no big progress now .but I learned that creating professinal Learning Community ( PLC) needs a lot more than technology itself.

Virtual International Invovlments

Being involoved and particiapting with Flexible learning networked world ( FLNW )conferenceConference based in Thiland ,FLNW08 kicked off from Bangkok on the 16th January 2008. An itinerary of events outlines all that is happening through out January 2008. Ablog is also being used to document progress and an email forum cops the incessant chatter of the participants.

I had a podcast and following with another interview with Stephan Ridgway via Gtalk also with Alex on the first day of FLNW08 talking about what does it mean to me living in a networked learning world and you can also see my slides to help you understand the presentation .Brent make a wonderful mashup here Thank you Brent

2007
University "Media" teaching Experience

have been Working with HND program(from UK) with college students ,taking them down the "muddy" road of "Mass media reserach " in the context of New media era ,reinforcing the concept of "Self-regulated learning " and networked learning (They are new to my student and me as well ).It was surelly a learning curve for me when I first became a Formal University teacher .I am so thankful for my students ,they helped me to "re-learn" a lot of things in my teaching career !

My Student's work

Most of my student's work has been put on Internet so that anyone can view it from Individual work and Group work.research topics range from techie topics like RSS to Non-techietopics like Journalist or like 2008 Olympic ,etc etc.

My reflection and learning curve in this Journey has been documented on my beloved blog tagged with educationalblogging( In simplified Chinese mostly).

International appearence


 * Keynote presentation to The 6th International Conference on Chinese Language Pedagogy Co-organised by Yale Univeristy and Nanjing Univerisity (2007 Aug)My paper talk about Hidden Curriculum in teacher Professional Developments.

Pre-school English Teacher Workshop

Conducted teacher workshops to Xinzhou Pre-schoolteachers on Game based learning ,and give a 2 hour workshop on using [http://www.disciplinewithoutstress.com/ DisciplinewithoutStress(DWS)( A classroom management system I have been using with K1-12 students in China and had amazing results)it is mostly about how to implement on classroom to promote the internal motivation instead of using rewards and punishments.

Find out more about The Author of the book Marvinmashall also quoted me in his newsletter "Last month's section '3. INCREASING EFFECTIVENESS,' was about Leo, a teacher in China. He stated that he would like more people in China to know about Dw/oS. He requested people leave comments on his blog and that he would translate some of them into Chinese for posting. I then made an error by stating that the site has been blocked. When copying the URL (Uniform Resource Locator-- 'the world wide web address'), I neglected to add 'cn' for 'China' as the suffix. You can see Leo's blog and add a comment. If you scroll past the Chinese posting, you will see what he has posted in English. The correct URL is http://my.opera.com/leolaoshi Leo will be presenting a summer workshop on Dw/oS in China and would greatly appreciate any experience you have had using the system that he can share in his workshop" By all means if you are struggling with your classroom management issue now ,I strongly recommend you go and get a reading from this book called Disciplinewithoutstress

2006
Chinese teacher for Oversea Students :

Working with Furman Unviersity Chinese progrqam 2006 Fall ,served as Chinese langauge teacher to a group of American college students .also using my blog to facilitate Chinese learning outside of the class.I had really good time as well as a little "painful"time by stepping out of my "comfort zone " by trying teaching something new to challenge myself. The most fruitful success was using an intersting activity in my class called "Teashop question" chaguanwenti. I have painfully came to a point to understand that sometimes as a teacher(in whatever subject) ,students does not always learn most and "grow" most from YOUR class(Ouch!) ,but rather something they enjoy doing outside of class.

Also the most cherished Memory and experien with this Course are my identification on Hidden Curriculum and How Hidden Curriculum can affect both teacher and student's learing in a enormous way ! also after this teaching experience ,my paper on Hidden Curriclum had been accepted by Yale University 6th Intenational Conference ,and I did a Keynote at that conference which really encouraged me to look further into this issue in my work and research.

English Summer camp and teacher workshops

I worked with An American professor Tina Vazin from Univerisity of Alabama you can see Dr Vazin Teaching Slideshowto know her experience at China.

We have been closely worked together ,and built a blog with students in China and trying to implement Layered-curriculuminto Chinese English classroom for middle school students.

also conducted a 5 day teacher workshop to about 100 middle school English teachers(most from rural schools in China ) ,topics covered student Learning style ,ICT skills for teachers ,Blogging ,Games to use in EFL Classes ,teacher professional development etc .was well received at the end of day after we gave a demonstration class by using what we have been using in last 5 days ( it was not very good at the begining of the workshop)

2005-2003

 * working as EFL teacher trainer and help conducted abt 20 English summer programs(camps) and Teacher workshops in middle schools for teachers throughout China ,gainning a good background and knowledge about what it is like to be a teacher in a test-driven educational system (ie China ),meanwhile ,really enjoying collabroatively working with educators from UK Africa and America,South Africa etc.

1998-2003
My undergraduate school is not a famous school at all ,called Anhui Institute of Education now change to Hefei Teacher College, but I learned the most important thing in my life when I was there.began to discover my passion on Education.