E-Learner 2.0.vi

He was born into a small royal family who was at that time ruling a small kingdom in the northern hemisphere.

Even though the kingdom had returned to its peaceful state after years of being invaded, his father, who was then the nominated King, had to join the army to set a role model for the citizens while his grandfather took care of internal affairs.

He stayed with his mother most of the time, who was then teaching at a local high-school. Every once in a while he would go and join with the Queen in her class, which in fact is a fun activity of running around and poking her students.

A few years later the King came back and took control over the country, designated a new capital which was far away from the Queen's school.

The prince's health in the early years wasn't good due to lack of nutrition as a result of years of wars. His mother, however, took good care of him so he didn't have to suffer a lot from health issues.

Occasionally his father would pay a short visit to his mother and him but the visit didn't last long. It seemed ok for him though, as he got used to it.

In the early years of his life, the prince was living with a lot of different people in the family as his parents were so busy with doing what they were supposed to do. He was living with his maternal grandparents, fraternal grandparents, and with his uncle. He stayed with his uncle for the most of his pre-school time and went to a kindergarten nearby his uncle's house. He often felt lonely and missed his parents. He felt he was left behind and no-one wanted to take care of him. But it seemed ok because he soon got used to it.

On the contrary, he really enjoyed the time spent with at his fraternal grandparents' palace as there were a lot of younger princes and princesses over there. He could spend the whole day hanging around with them and playing games. Of all, he liked one of his younger brothers best, who has become his life-time friend and sibling. Even now that hasn't been changed, no matter how the younger prince becomes.

Then one day, his father finally allowed the family to reunite and it was a very special day for him. He still remembered how beautiful the sky was and how fresh and excited he felt when on the way to the new palace.

The palace was located on the bank of the river, the other side was a lake. So basically it was surrounded by a lot of water.

He started to enjoy watching the every boat, fishing boats, sailing ones, etc. sailing past his palace. Sometimes the King bought some fish from the fishermen and it was very delicious.

The capital was a small area with not so many people. Some of them worked for the state factory which produced brisks, which were then used to trade with neighboring countries or sell to domestic markets. It was a quite successful business as a matter of fact. The King himself ran the factory and created lots of jobs for the citizens. The economy was healthy and growing steadily.

The new experience brought about many changes in his later years. He went to school, made a lot of new friends who were also the capital citizens. They were very playful and enjoyed life. However, some didn't like him as he came from a royal family but overall life was fine. He did pretty well at school and was quite a good son at home.

However, he was spoiled as he was a prince. He knew how to drink at the age of 4 and how to smoke cigarettes at the age of 7 or so. Everybody in the country knew he was a young drinker but his parents didn't know he was a smoker too. This inevitably affected his ventilation system eventually.

Life was tranquil and joyful until the floods from the river kept flooding his country. Gradually all the results of hard work were swept away and the country fell into an economic crisis.

To make matters worse, neighboring countries started to eye the throne and mobilize their armies to the border.

In the end, his father was forced to step down and his family left the country in exile. He was at the age of 14 and was in the middle of grade 4, mature enough to understand what's been going on and what to expect in the future.

So they went to the southern hemisphere to seek a new life as citizens of the economic center of the region. A lot of hardships were waiting for them to overcome and the new refugees had to figure out how to start a new life from scratch.

I'll tell you why.

Since April I've been so worried about this mandatory internship. It's not an internship by any means. It's like one goes to a company, observes the business processes, documents everything and put them into a report, gets it signed and sealed and then sends it to the university. Due to the silly nature of the internship, I don't even have to go to the company everyday, and in fact until now I haven't paid any visit whatsoever!

By the way, the company suddenly appeared in my radar when one of my close friends said her father is a friend of the deputy director and it is ok for me to intern there with her. Marvelous!

Around the second week of SEALNet's Project Vietnam 08, or PV08 for short, she sent me a message telling me that I wouldn't have to worry so much about this silly thing. In effect, she's been very enthusiastic about this opportunity but for me, after more than a week with PV08, I can't find anything more boring for the last summer of my life!

Certainly the company is a good one to observe, a state oil importer! Considering the current volatile oil prices, it's such a good company to learn about. However, if the internship lasts for at least two months, it will be willing to spend my time there.

I can't understand why such a university as mine thinks 1 month is enough for an internship. This is simply awkward (btw, I've learnt some very useful "awkward" hand signs from Matt! :)) ).

Anyway, it's just not so fun as SEALNet so I'm a bit lazy to do what I'm supposed to do.

Tomorrow I will pay a visit to the company. I've heard that the people there are quite friendly. Hopefully it's gonna be a nice day.

Oh dear, I'm jealous of people who have an actual internship. Next year perhaps!

The fact that Vietnamese 2.0 websites are emerging rapidly is indeed very encouraging. I've used several ones of them and was particular impressed by cyvee.com, a social network for professionals.

www.clip.vn is another hit. It resembles the way www.youtube.com works in many way and what is more, it's for the whole Vietnamese community.

In the search for suitable web 2.0 technologies to introduce to the classroom, I've almost decided to include clip.vn in the list. However, there's one thing that prevents me from doing so.

It's similar to the fact that everyone can drink any beer or wine here in Vietnam. People regardless of age can watch any movie in any cinema nationwide. ANYONE CAN WATCH ANYTHING on this video site. And as I've observed for a while, there are many inappropriate clips for children. But the sad thing is the administrators don't implement any controlling system whatsoever to prevent kids under 18 from viewing such videos. This fact alone has stopped me to think about clip.vn as a promising educational tool in an e-learning 2.0 environment.

In conclusion, I think clip.vn should learn the control mechanism that youtube applies, for video clips with mature content, only adults can view them. This is still a bit ineffective if a child mask themselves as being an adult but for the most part, it helps. Perhaps I should write them an email soon.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's the clue:



Be careful, you need to be over 18 to watch this video!