i) Jambo! I’m Tumaini and am a 19 year old born and raised Canadian. My ethnic background is Tanzanian, hence the use of “Jambo” at the start of my page. I'm majoring in IDS and minoring in Environmental Science and Human Geography. In the future, whether it is near or far, I hope to pursue a career that allows me to work abroad in developing nations on projects involving food security, water sanitation, and/or living conditions. One major interest of mine is film making (documentaries), although all my ideas have yet to be written. My hopes are to one day incorporate my knowledge in development with film because it brings life to the issues people read and hear about on the news/internet every day, making it such an effective way of diffusing knowledge to the masses.

ii) I chose to take this course because I have always been somewhat tech-savvy. As a kid, I enjoyed trying to uncover what went wrong with my computer, and as a teenager I became fascinated with computer science. I wasn't the best at programming in my grade 10 programming class but I do continue to practice every so often. I’m excited to learn about computers in-depth and take that knowledge with me to use in my every day and professional life. I worry that this course will prove me wrong about how tech-savvy I truly am. 

iii) What I hope to get out of this Active Learning Experience is to become more confident in actively participating in classes, even when I’m completely unsure about the subject matter at hand (because I have a tendency to speak only when I’m 100% sure about something). I'm also looking forward to the more personal learning experience with the students and professors. I hope that is new active learning experience will allow me to easily absorb the content we'll learn because I don't have the best memory. Because the A.L.E forces us to openly discuss the information we come across, I hope to grow as a communicator and strengthen my abilities of communicating information and/or my thoughts/ideas to people, whether it be in a personal or professional setting. Developing this skill would be very beneficial to me considering that careers in IDS likely involve communicating information/ideas to people, therefore being capable and comfortable communicating is extremely important. Additionally, as an aspiring filmmaker communication is key. Filmmakers must be able to communicate their vision of a film to their peers and audiences in order to bring life to a thought and to explain to audiences ones vision. I’m also interested in seeing how communication technologies tie into the political, environmental and social aspects of developing societies and the rewards or setbacks they bring to these areas. The knowledge I hope to share within the class is the knowledge I possess, or think I possess with computers. I hope to gain more confidence in speaking out in class and to gain more overall knowledge on the complexities of communication technologies. I believe my knowledge of computer programming resources is a strength because I think everyone would like to learn some level of programming. I think my intense curiosity for understanding computers and their technical aspects is a strength and that it will spread among my peers because of the close-interactions we’ll share in conversations and group projects. 

If your interested in learning some programming visit: http://www.codeacademy.com :)



Interested in mini-documentaries on countries about food, politics, culture, economics and more? Watch Anthony Bourdain's "Parts Unknown". Here's episode 1