The International Coalition to End the Illegal Siege of Gaza  an organization formed after the 22-day assault on Gaza in winter2008-2009 is holding and coordinating the Gaza Freedom March which will take place on Dec 31 to mark one year since the assault through mobilizing an international contingent for a nonviolent march alongside the people of Gaza to end the illegal blockade.

Though participation is now closed, this post is to call on everyone who supports this effort to blog about it on Dec 31st as well as to to tweet and try to make #GAZA a trending topic on Twitter on that day.G

For more information please add a comment to this blog post so I can arrange for us to meet one of the participants and activists who’s a fellow Jordanian. Together we can find the best way she can update us about the march as its happening.

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Was a great evening tonight at the Royal Scientific Society who hosted Amman Twestival, Organized by Malik Shistawi Foundation, and Sponsored by Aramex and Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship in support of Al-Aman Fund for the Future of the Orphans.

Almost 100 people attended a very heated discussion about Twitter, social media and entrepreneurship prospects for Jordan and our part of the world. I was happy to be selected amongst the panel speakers along with Zeid Nasser, Laith Al Qasem and Laith Zureikat moderated by Moh’d Khawaja.

Majd Shweikeh CEO of Orange Mobile attended and shared great insights as well as the marketing, Shop’nShip and sustainability teams from Aramex including Lina Shihadeh, Firas Hilal and Raji Hattar.

The discussion topics were many, from use of social media to promote business, new ways of reaching and servicing customers, connecting to people as well as discovering content & opinions from around the web. The longed-for Qatayef break was equally interesting, as I got to meet lots of tweeps face-to-face! Ok, I never went to any of the Jordanian bloggers meetings so this was a first-time experience

Its one of those days where I have a good feeling about Jordan and us Jordanians.

As a contribution to this momentum, I worked most of the weekend to create a simple website that aggregates all tweeps (twitter people) and their tweets from Jordan, you can check it out at http://JOtweeps.com. To be included all you need to do is follow @JOtweeps and we will follow back.

Also you can go to #AmmanTwestival to read all tweets about the event.

Happy tweeting everyone!

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I’ve had a chance to attended one of the humans greatest events 12 days ago @ We Choose The Moon a web experience built by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon.

I kept up with most of the journey witnessing the animation and listening to the audio of the mission over its all 11 stages from July 16th till the 20th. A big salute to the designers and flash animators for a brilliant job!

Was so much fun, that afterwards I had this big urge to watch my favorite movie of all times Contact of course! Found a streaming of the whole movie online! Don’t you love online video?

Anyway, now you can watch the animation of the whole journey at your own pace at the website, go through the photo & video gallery available for each stage.

I love NASA, the best of the US of A!

I still have a dream to travel in Space by the age of 60, hopefully two things happen by then:

1. The ticket and accommodation price becomes affordable.

2. by affordable i mean, that I can save up to $50,000-75,000 to do it!

What? A LOT can happen in 25 years!

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Alma moved us today with her stories and experiences during her art residency at Qattan Foundation in Ramallah Nov-Dec 2008 where she collected love stories from people there.

Artist Talk by alma Khasawnih

She talked about love.

Telling a tale of Mohammed the 40 year old divorcee who’s still in love, then another Mohammad, the tormented lover, then a third one too. Connecting and disconnecting. The deserted lover’s park, the lonely benches. Observing lovers. Romantic Indian films watched by men in the cafe.

Alma’s passion ignited hearts in the room. We  laughed, we contemplated about our own love stories, we were moved.

This event by far, was the most entertaining event I have attended in years.

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Those were the words exchanged between visitors at the opening of Alma Khasawnih’s first solo exhibition “Up Close” on June 1st at LeCentre (French Cultural Center)

“Up Close” original, crazy and brilliant

The art pieces presented did need a closer look to be able to see the magnificent details, actually the artist included a handy magnifier almost with each piece to allow visitors this closer look.

The exhibition included two main types of pieces; paintings and sculptures/installations…something very different and original.

I encourage you to go and take your up close look @ the French Cultural Center in Jabal Elweibdeh, Paris Circle and you will notice more than half of the pieces are sold out!

Here are some photos taken by Rafiq Nasereddin from Makan

See the details??? Yes, crazy brilliant is my friend and business partner Alma

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Well after taking two days to recover from the three day IMCL 2008 conference, I would like to talk about my experience there.

The conference was really small in size not the bigger one I anticipated it to be, though i was part disappointed at first then became to appreciate the intimacy of smaller conferences, the chance to meet and talk to many people as well as to attend more sessions!

Our presentation attracted several good discussions with other attendees/presenters (some good ego boost ) several people were very excited about the site and appreciative of what we are trying to do in an attempt to encourage and capture informal learning while few were suspicious of the real value community websites could bring to “deep” learning.

The general talk at the conference was concentrated into 2 main topics, the need for platforms that could connect informal learning to formal learning, the second was the non-existence real change eLearning has made to traditional learning environments. Some experts were talking about eLearning serving to be yet another content delivery channel with content being the same traditional content that was delivered in class.

Some participants shared experiences they had at the class room, like ability for students to send questions by sms to the instructor while in class, another one ability for students to send geology field trip photos by MMS to the class’s blackboard eLearning system.

In general, I believe many educational systems are confusing new technologies as a goal instead of a mean for better teaching and largely ignoring the power of informal learning. And eLearning vendors are supplying tools to enable accessibility of content instead of new ways to teach and learn. Focus is always on the teacher and what he/she needs with little attention being given to the learners and what they need.

All in all it was a great learning experience for me, to see what different people in the Learning “industry” are talking about!

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If you have not heard of Yazan Rousan or any of his songs, then as an ammany you are definitely missing something BIG!

I don’t think I want to call his songs “songs” because his lyrics and the way he sings them is just wildly amazing, some are out of nowhere and some hit home big time. He definitely has a style of his own with his dark glasses, and cynical sense of humor!

Yazan, Agwa noo3 indeed! (translates to “best kind” oh well!)

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Last Wednesday, my longtime friend and a community icon, Rana Hussieni received a royal medal for her contributions to the advancement of human rights in Jordan. http://www.jordantimes.com/index.php?news=3117

Though recognizing Rana in Jordan took years to happen, she is the proud holder of many international awards and a worldwide feminist icon referred to in conferences and women studies programs worldwide.

Rana makes me and lots of people I know proud. Her determination and dedication to reporting the so called “honor crimes” cannot be described but courageous and daring. Two very important characteristics every reporter should have, thus she shines amongst the Jordanian and Arab journalists for that.

Being recognized with a royal medal only signifies the level of support Rana is getting in Jordan. The highest possible. And that gives us hope that change will be forced sooner than later where those criminals are thought of as murderers and not as defending their so called honor.

For the past two years, Rana was busy writing her book “Murder in the Name of Honor” which is to be published next year. All of us are waiting anxiously to buy it and read through it!!

Congratulations Rana and good luck

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