Is this the end of another year?

Yes, we are at the end of 2008 and what an awesome year it was. It was a busy year full of great growth for staff and students at HLC. I have seen many improvements throughout the years I been employed at HLC that's been both beneficial to our operation and challenging. Many staff and students came, stayed, and left for different reasons, but through it all HLC still stand strong and continues to make a positive difference in peoples lives. I really appreciate the commitment each staff have with their position along with the many hats and responsibilities everyone wear that supports our school. One of the many special things I like about our staff is that they make it a point to show how much they are appreciated and continue to celebrate successes for both students and staff. That type of action is very encouraging to the receiving person and gives them a grateful feeling. As for me, I love being part of this wonder operation and vision at HLC. Working in the education industry allows me to not only share my skills with students and staff, but also gives me the opportunity to learn life long lessons each and everyday. I have found that you can never be too old or too young to learn and at HLC it happens everyday. Therefore, I am thankful and grateful for a successful and fulfilling year and look forward to more awesome years with HLC.

When a child is born

This is the reason for the season. This little girl is amazing, she touched my heart and hope she touches your too on this special day. The birthday of our Christ the king.

Merry Christmas - Mele Kalikimaka

Just want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Although, the weather in Hawaii have been a little wet with occasional showers and sun shine Hawaii is still a great place to be during this winter season. The surf is good, the people is great, and the ALOHA spirit is awesome.

Therefore from our 'ohana to yours, may this holiday season bring you all lots of LOVE, HAPPINESS and PEACE. Aloha no kakou!

Winterball '08

Winterball was at Kualoa Ranch Banquet Hall. Kualoa Ranch is located in the town of Kaaawa Valley and has acres of beautiful valley and mountain peaks on the windward side of the island. The event was a blast. Students dressed up in their best attire and their best attitudes. The evening was full of great ocean & mountain view, great food, great music, great dancing, great fun, and much much more. The Winterball committee and support staff did an awesome job planning, decorating and hosting the event. They did a lot of work and it all paid off. Mahalo nui to the committee and staff for all your hard work. We all appreciated your time and really enjoyed the event.

An invitation is needed to view our photo gallery. Please email you request to maulelava_hlc@yahoo.com .

Math Courses

HLC has 3 different types of Math course taught to our student this year. We have live instructional classes and 2 types of online programs offered by a company called It's All About Kids (IAAK). One online math program is called e2020 and the other is called Compass math. This is our first year using the Compass program, but our second years using e2020 program. For more information on those online programs [click here].

HLC board members decided to analyze the online program operation for one more year to assess its operation and see if it is a good program or not. Sound like a great theory but from a technical point of view its a nightmare. Most of our computers are old donated pc's, therefore, we are using those pc's on our thin client system, which allows computers to be used as terminals without hard drives and it gets all its information from the linux servers. Unfortunately, those servers have been giving me problems. One day its working the next its not working, especially with the lecture videos sounding very choppy and hard to understand. So, I have a lot of students and staff voicing their concerns and the issue is really challenging my technical abilities. I am really hoping to be able to improve our linux thin client system over the Christmas break. I am one of the few staff that will be still working during the school break, so if students on our online math programs need tech assistance with their work I will be available during regular business hours.

Click to view pics of Math

Christmas Party

Christmas Party for staff and special supporters was held today, Dec. 14 2008 at Buca di Beppo in Honolulu. It is a great Italian restaurant next to Dave & Busters & Ward Center. There was so much good food and great fellowship. It was my first time there and really enjoyed it. We had a wonderful time and really appreciated HLC treating us to a great dinner. Mahalo HLC.

Hoike Night

At least once every other month HLC offers a Hoike Night event were our students can share and present their projects to the public and receive credit under HLC Public Presentation Standard. HLC students are required to do 3 public presentations each year. The skills they learn by fulfilling this requirement is important life long lessons that will definitely be needed in their future endeavors.

This pass Tuesday, December 9 2008, was our latest Hoike Night. We featured 5 great presentations. The visual aids and topics was a Booklet on Hurricane Preparation, Video on Basketball, 3 Power point on Guns, Kilo / 'Ape, and Petroglyphs. Presenters were evaluated by their audience using HLC Presentation Rubric. This tool give good feedback to the presenters and their Advisors.

From the technical point of view, I believe technology has become a more demanding and essential support tool in today's presentation events not only at HLC, but throughout the business and educational industry. Therefore, I am confident that we are on the right track by setting up our students for success by providing these types of opportunities. Another important point to share is that these technical presentations were held at the same time in 2 different rooms, therefore, I needed tech assistance in one room while I supported the technology in the other. I really want to give credit to our HLC Jr Technicians who stepped up to the plate, took charge, and succeeded. By them controlling the lights, audio, and tech equipment the presenters could concentrate just on getting through their portion of the presentation. I am proud to say that our Jr Techs also gained an additional important life long lessons that can be used in their future endeavors.

Kaneohe Christmas Parade

The parade was Saturday, Dec 6, 2008. It's an annual parade that HLC participate in. We had a good group of students and staff there to support. We met in the back Sear's parking lot at Windward Mall, had coffee & snacks then walked across the street to Safeway, where the parade started. The parade was a good 2 mile walk on Kamehameha Hwy from Haiku Road to Kaneohe Bay Drive. Lots of people came to watch and support. I brought my 2 miniture dachshund dogs who seem to be the highlight of our group. While we was walking they would walk up to the croud and people would pet them. We all had a lot of fun walking, singing, & watching the dogs steal the show. An invitation is needed to view our photo gallery. Please email you request to maulelava_hlc@yahoo.com .

'Ai Pono Class

Click on image to see more pics

'Ai Pono class is a staff driven project class instructed by Aunty Tammy Smith. This class teach students Good Nutrition by learning about the different types of food, how to prep and cook, analize their body affects after consuming or eating their food, and much more. Students enjoy the benefits of eating and gaining life long lessons past down from our Kupuna through the Hawaiian Culture. Today, this class shared their experience with the community by preparing a delicious " 'ONO " meal for about 40 people at Key Project Community Center in Kahalu'u Hawaii. It was a lot of work, but the reward of sharing was huge. The people at Key Project was very greatful and impress with the life lessons the students are learning and sharing. The slogan of Hakipuu Learning Center is "Maka hana ka 'ike" Learning is in the doing. This class teach the students by having them do the work which in return give them knowledge that help them to make good decisions in life.

Makahiki '08

Each year Hakipuu Learning Center host a Makahiki Event at Kualoa Park on the Windward side of O'ahu to share and perpetuate the Hawaiian Culture with Hawaii's students. This year the Makahiki was held on Thursday, Nov. 13, 2008. Two charter schools and 1 private school came to participate. Halau Lokahi, Halau Kumana, and Punahou Elementry joined in the festivities. The day was filled with Hawaiian culture games, entertainment, and food. It was a perfect day for being outdoors and everyone enjoyed themselves. HLC documented the event with video and pictures and the tech team is working hard editing the video to share on this blog and with others. In the meantime, Click on the image for more pictures of the day.

HLC 'Ohana Halloween Fest

Thursday, Oct 30, 2008 we had our Family Night event. It was a great turn out. Students & family came to the festival and had a lot of fun. Activities consist of jack-o-lantern contest, ace painting, spooky story telling, math activity, drawing, food designing, and of course eating delicious food & a lot of sweets.

Having this festival gave our students the opportunity to celebrate and fun in a safe environment. Click on the picture to view pics

Tech Talk Conference

I had the priviledge to escort our senior students friday to the Tech Talk Conference held at Windward Community College. It was a mini fare that shared the lastest technology tips & tools with the community. I found the information very interesting and felt it was great exposure to our 'opio (youth), especially because they are so tech savvy and we live in the digital era.

Some workshops topics they attended were Blogging, Tech in Gardening, Agriculture, Educational Teaching, Networking, Music with Garageband, and more. In the Exhibition area, information consist of Local Tech Businesses, College information, Career Information, Tech Prizes and more. I believe this information can be of great benefit to them and myself. I even got a chance to attend an IT Coordinator workshop that exposed me to great tech programs that can assist our educational operations and goals at HLC. Look forward to the next tech opportunity.

Click on the image for more information on the conference.

HLC Fall 2008 Camp

This fall season HLC staff and student body camped for a week, 4 days and 2 nights. Tuesday, Day 1 was not an overnighter. We had a camp prep day filled with activities and work. Wednesday we traveled to Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC) for cultural experiences and activities then we went to the camp site at Kualoa Park where we stayed overnight till Friday. Camp was filled with a lot of fun and interesting learning activities.

Here is the links to some videos of our time at camp. Hope you enjoy it.

Finally finish the VIDEO

This is the video from our Ulumua Celebration. I want to thank our Junior Technicians for taking all the footage and our Documentation Team for organizing the Video Production. The video is about 18 minutes long and I hope you enjoy it.

Ulumua Mahalo Celebration

On wednesday, sept 24 2008 HLC held a Mahalo Celebration for Oahu's newest double haul canoe named Ulumua. She is a beautiful 12 paddler canoe that was made in collaboration of multiple organizations working together to reach the one goal of sharing hawaii's culture, skills and knowledge of building an awesome canoe. HLC 'ohana and staff wanted to thank everyone that took part in Ulumua's building success and very grateful for being granted to be the caretakers for the time being. Ulumua is an impressive sight to see and HLC is very proud to care for her and share her with Hawaii's 'opio (youth).

It was a wonderful ceremony. Mahalo to everyone for helping us share this special day.

Jr Tech After School Class

Today, jr techs worked on their project foundry portfolio pages. It is private web pages they design on Project Foundry that showcase their education accomplishments. They are required to make 2 pages. Their Home Page and their Jr Tech Program Page. I encourage them to be creative, appropriate, and to focus on their education information. So far, about half of them are taking it serious and working diligently on their web pages. The other half just want to learn the skill and leave class. Those students choose not to be creative. It's unfortunate because I am planning to have them share with other students so more of them can use the portolio part of Project Foundry.

Jr Techs also got trained on basic media equipment usage. They will need to use the still digital camera and the camcorder video camera throughout the school, especially during our upcoming camp in October. Therefore, I needed to train them on the equipment. Half of the class took Video Production classes before so they had the skills, the other half had to learn today.

Tech Update

HLC Junior Tech program is working out very well. Now that school been in session for over a month, junior techs have been supporting our Tech Department by servicing their classrooms with minor tech needs. I love it because they are gaining tech experience each day but the best part for me is that because they service the minor issues I can concentrate on other important tech areas. For more on the Junior Tech Program check out their page: http://hakipuulearningcenter.tech.officelive.com/jrtech.aspx

Some important areas I needed to take care of is our Thin Client Systems. Each classroom has their own server this year, but they apparently don’t seem to be running as smooth as we expected. The video and audio is choppy and some pc model’s audio don’t work. But my main concern is servers crashing and students loosing their work. As of today, 2 of 6 servers continue to crash and we need to constantly reinstall the Edubuntu OS. This is a pain. So far, I am not happy with this Linux OS thin client system. It should be making my work easier as an administrator and more effective for users, but it is making more work for me and adding more frustration to the users. I am holding on the last string with this system. It need to improve or it may get cut.

It's been a while !!!

Kala mai (Sorry). It has been a while since I blogged. Been very very busy. Summer came and went. Now we are about 3 weeks into the school year and so much has happen since my last posting. Technology wise, a lot of changes here at HLC. We received some new tech equipment and implemented new Linux Servers in each class. The Operating Systems (OS) on those servers is Edubuntu running Thin Client networking. Last school year, 2 of the 6 classes were piloting the Linux system and the feed back from the students was great. They learned how to us it quick and enjoyed the cool features and benefit. On the other hand, as the tech administrator it was a nightmare, it is a complicated process to set up, operate & maintain, but still possible. It just takes longer to do certain admin task then it does on other OS. Regardless, we still decided to extend it to the remaining classes, especially since Linux is a FREE open source so the price is right up our alley. Therefore, summer was overwhelmingly busy due to us having to set up all the new servers & thin client terminals. On the old peer to peer network I had to literally back up, update, maintain, etc each computer one by one. On the new system, when operating correctly, I should be able to do those task only once on each server and it would be applied to every account. I am really hoping this will help up in the long run. We are now running 3 different type of OS at HLC, Linux, Windows and Mac. Each system comes with its own benefits and challenges. Keeping up with all this tech can be challenging.

One major goal accomplished this summer was the implementing a junior tech program. I offered an intense tech course to a small group of HLC students. That summer course was design to train students on basic skills and knowledge of technician duties. They gained knowledge on hardware, software, networking and equipment handling. Upon course completion student became official Junior Technicians for the upcoming school year. So, now we have more assistance in the Tech department and I see it as a win, win situation. The Jr Techs gain skills, experience, and credit where as HLC gain more tech help. I LOVE IT. We now have 8 Jr Techs and they enjoy being part of the Tech team. They are experiencing the benefits and challenge of a Technician. Jr Techs continue to train with me and look forward to accomplishing their next goal which is to build their own personal computer and be able to take it home. COOL!!!!!!

End of the School Year

It has been a long time since I posted. The past couple months have been chaotic at Hakipuu Learning Center. The end of the school year is always a busy time for me. Trying to keep up with all the Tech duties along with assisting staff and students with tech issues can be over whelming but very fulfilling. I enjoy working with others but sometimes have a hard time finding enough time of the day to accomplish everything I want and need to complete.


I am proud to say our senior student class succeeded and was able to achieve the credits they needed to graduate. Every senior project was awesome. They worked very hard and did a wonderful job sharing their project with everyone at school and on Hoike (presentation) Night. The quality of the project improved tremendously this year. Every senior student used some type of technology to help show case their awesome project. It is so rewarding to see how our students grew in educational skills and knowledge. Each of our seniors gained tech skills necessary to pursue their future goals.


HLC Class of 2008 graduated this year on Saturday, May 31, 2008. Graduation ceremony and reception was held at Paliku Theater on the campus of Windward Community College in Kaneohe, Hawaii. The ceremony was beautiful, meaningful, and wonderful. The graduates performed couple songs and shared heartfelt speeches for us. The reception was fun and joyful. A lot of leis, balloons, signs, music, and ONO Hawaiian Food we shared. What a wonderful day that was.

CONGRATULATIONS

Class of 2008!!!!!

Video Archive

This video was made by students of Golf PE class. It was made to thank SDGA for teaching basic skills of golf. Thanks Rob & Senior Students of SDGA!

Project Foundry Profile

Project foundry is a web base application we use to track student credits and projects at Hakipuu. It has a profile feature that allow us to build profile pages and share what we want on the net. So far, no one at HLC used this feature because it was not need. This year I would like to give our senior students the option of building their profile, so I am in the process of familiarizing myself with it by building one for the Tech department. I doesn't seem to be as building friendly as other application I used to make webpages, but it is usable. I am still in the building stages but it is viewable right now. The url address is super long so I snip it and made it shorter. http://www.snipurl.com/hlc_events

Pics from Camp

Here's some of our pics from camp. Had a lot of fun and worked very hard. We hiked, swimmed, played, raced, worked, learned, ate, and much much more. We all had a great time and appreciate the opportunity to get out and learn. At Hakipuu Learning Center we say, "MAKA HANA KA 'IKE" which means, "Learning is in the doing" and that is exactly what we did at camp.

HLC Yearly Camp

Twice every year HLC go camping with our students and staff. Each camp's learning objective and theme varies but normal the 1st camp is set during the beginning portion of each school year and with the purpose of meeting, working, and fellowshiping with all students and staff. This gives everyone the opportunity to get to know individuals that we normally don't work with on a daily basis. The 2nd camp of the year is normally just before Spring Break. Well, this past week was our 2nd camp and the outcome was great. The Camp Theme was to do with Dealing with Abuse. Students learned about the affects of Substance Abuse, Physical Abuse, Mental Abuse, Same Sex Relationships, and more. Besides the learning objectives, students had many physical and mental activities to participate in and believe me they had a full and busy agenda the whole week. Overall, camp was educational and fun. Many of us, staff and students, had a lot of fun and now glad it is over so we can relax and enjoy our Spring break.

But as a Tech Staff myself, I do not get Spring Break Vacation off but I don't mind because it gives me time to catch up with all my Technology work. Especially the work I normally put off because I'm so busy assisting other areas of technology. These school vacation breaks are the best time for me to concentrate on my technology duties without those distractions, obsticals, and/or challenges I normally run into when school is in session.

Technology at Hakipuu Learning Center (HLC)

Working at HLC have been very fulfilling and rewarding for me. I really enjoy supporting, maintaining, trouble shooting, and improving our technology resources at HLC. The best part about my position and being appreciated by others for what I do. The cool part about my position is being able to experiment with different equipments and applications then implementing the good outcomes and overcoming the challenging outcomes. Overall, I am learning great tech skills and enjoy sharing those skills with students and staff at HLC.