Meeting for the Week of Apr. 13th, 2015
This Meeting’s Highlights
Speaker: Luis Pérez
Program: The Future is in the Margins
Meeting for the week of April 13th to 19th, 2015
Greetings
Welcome from Club President Rushton Hurley
This week I greet our members and guests from Madison, Wisconsin, where the weather is of the super-wonderful quality we get most days of the year in Silicon Valley. "You are bragging," you say. "You are correct," I reply.The thing about being around something wonderful all the time is that you easily lose the ability to appreciate it. Is there someone who day in and day out makes your life easier, better, and happier? Have you thanked that person lately? Bought him or her some flowers, coffee, chocolate, or a movie ticket, just because?If you read through that last paragraph and didn't come up with a plan of action to do something nice for someone else, make sure the people around you don't think of you as a cold, heartless, cretin.Of course, having come to this week's meeting of the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley, the percentage chances of cretin-ness for you are minimal. We're glad you're here, and hope that you'll enjoy it enough to share our site with friends, Rotary colleagues, and others!Guests, we welcome your comments, as well, and ask that you consider contributing the cost of a meal to the service projects our club is putting in motion. Feel free to use our donation system at the bottom of this page, or you can mail a check made out to the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley to our treasurer: ℅ Allen Thompson, 13500 Cascade Ct., Bakersfield CA 93314.
Making Up a Meeting
This thought is specifically for the members of the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley. Guests, feel free to skip this bit, unless you are simply trying to maximize the number of words you read on our site. Members, on Monday you should have received an email with clarification about our policies for getting credit for attendance and properly doing make-up meetings. If not, contact President Rushton (president@siliconvalleyrotary.com). In addition to following our processes properly, it's our goal that each member will visit meetings of the clubs in his or her area, helping their members know we are available for make-up meetings, and perhaps even taking part as a volunteer in service projects they do.
The Power of Images
You may have heard of the drought California is facing. Well, club photo guru Keith Marsh has poignant evidence."Here is an HDR photo I took in January of Half Dome over the Merced River. The sad part of the photo is that there was not a flake of snow to be seen in the valley and just a trickle of water over the falls."If the rain gods owe you any favors, now is a good time to call them in.
Happenings
Thanks to the efforts of Secretary Dean, who many would say has the most unconventional hair of all the members of our club, we can do a couple of birthday shout-outs this week! On April 18th, both Chris Cochrane and Meg Taylor celebrate their departure from the womb. Well done, guys - we're proud of you.
District Conference
The district conference, themed "Make a World of Difference," is here! This Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, there are meals, sessions about cool service stuff from all sorts of angles, and plenty of inspiration and entertainment thrown in, as well. For a detailed schedule and other info you may need, go to the District 5170 website.
eClub Social for May, Part 1
Member Stephen Zhou is working on a plan for a fun social the afternoon of Saturday, May 9th, which may involve a great restaurant, and will surely include fun folks who are members of this club. Please plan to attend, and if you want to bring someone you think would be a good addition to our weekly cyber gatherings, you are certainly welcome to do so.
eClub Social for May, Part 2
There is the possibility that a group of us will go to the San Jose Earthquakes soccer match on Sunday the 24th. If that's of interest to you, send an email to Webmaster Mitty (webmaster@siliconvalleyrotary.com). We hope to have enough of us involved to score some kind of discount. Stay tuned for more details!
The World of Rotary
As you may recall from previous meetings, Rotary has six areas of focus: promoting peace, fighting disease, providing clean water, saving mothers and children, supporting education, and promoting local economies.Last week we learned a bit about clean water efforts, and this week, in honor of the work of our speaker to reach students who have challenges, we see one way Rotary has sought to help a New Orleans school which have faced challenges after Hurricane Katrina.
Service Time
Perhaps at some point this week, you decided that you should spend an hour helping at a school, or reading to children at a library, or talking with folks at an elderly care facility. If you have done anything like that, share it in our service survey.
Happy Dollars
What are these? As nicely described by Webmaster Mitty:Happy Dollars is the segment of our meeting where anyone can choose to make a voluntary donation to tell us a short story about something good that has happened to them this past week. Think of this as a karma jar section. Maybe someone paid for your coffee, gave you a ride somewhere, or you got a job promotion. This is your chance to brag about it or give a shoutout to someone, while giving back a piece of that karma back to our community.Shoutouts, comments, and stories will be posted in next week's meeting, so long as it's kept brief and within reason. Money you donate for this goes back to the club to fund awesome projects to do more good in our local communities and abroad.
Fill out my online form.
Sharings
A Little Humor
This week’s joke goes a long way to describe why we use the term “little” in “A Little Humor.”
Sam walks into his boss’s office. “Sir, I’ll be straight with you, I know the economy isn’t great, but I have over three companies after me, and I would like to respectfully ask for a raise.” After a few minutes of haggling the boss finally agrees to a 5% raise, and Sam happily gets up to leave.
“By the way”, asks the boss as Sam is getting up, “which three companies are after you?” “The electric company, water company, and phone company”, Sam replied.
Selected Comments from Last Week
Each week, we ask our members and guests to leave a comment telling us what they thought of the program and the meeting, what is happening in their lives, or what they heard or saw recently that inspired them. Here are several of the comments from last week:
member Allen Thompson (California, USA)
Great Program! From Books to Brilliance is a marvelous effort and we hope it will benefit children long into the future.
guest François Tessier (Quebec, Canada)
Again, that was a great meeting. I am stunned, and all I have to say about this project is a big WOW! Congratulations to Maggie and Kim Covill. I particularly like the story of how everything started. Bravo!!!
member Rushton Hurley (California, USA)
Great stuff, Kim and Maggie – keep up the great work! I love that very moving Rotary video about Japan, too. After two weeks and a bit at home, I’m back on the road tomorrow to inspire some teachers! Best to all!
member Shags Shagrin (California, USA)
Sorry to have missed the Charter event due to illness. Things are now better – thanks for the get-well wishes. Another great meeting, Mr. President!
member Keith Marsh (California, USA)
Great program! I watched while working out on the treadmill at the Silver Legacy in Reno. Two birds, one stone.
This Week’s Program
As many of you have noted from my greeting each week, I do a heap of of traveling to different places to work with schools and teacher gatherings of all sorts. It’s work I really enjoy, primarily because it gives me the chance to meet lots of wonderfully fascinating people.
Today’s speaker is one of those folks.
Luis Pérez received his doctorate in special education and a Master’s in instructional technology from the University of South Florida. He is the author of Mobile Learning for All: Supporting Accessibility with the iPad, from Corwin Press. In recognition of his accomplishments in the field of educational technology, Luis was selected as an Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE) in 2009 and as a Google Certified Teacher (GCT) in 2014. His work has appeared in publications such as Teaching Exceptional Children, Closing the Gap Solutions, Technological Horizons in Education Journal, and The Loop Magazine. He regularly presents at national and international conferences.
In addition to his work in educational technology, Luis is an avid photographer whose work has been featured on The App Whisperer website, the New York Times Bits Blog, and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Luis’ talk is titled, “The Future is in the Margins,” and I hope you enjoy what he has to share, as well as the lively discussion that follows.
You can learn more about Luis’ work at his website, which includes links to more about Universal Design for Learning. You can also follow Luis on Twitter by logging into the system and clicking the “follow” button on his page.
