Monday, June 22, 2009

SMART MOBS

We've been reading about the great social change that ICTs bring along, particularly in the evolution of social cognition, its generation, spread and growth. One of the most important books about this topic is

Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution by Howard Rheingold

This is a lecture he delivered in MIT. ENJOY!

The link is here
And here you will find the book's website with reviews, summaries, news, blog entries, etc.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Cultures without borders

Last year I presented this in an URUTESOL syposium. I was just reviewing it under the new light of this experience with FLACSO. So I thought it was a good idea to bring it up again with a few comments.

The main idea behind this presentation is that the meeting point between language and culture finds its greatest stage in the internet, where production is abundant, available for free and extremely rich. It is our role to teach students to dig behind symbols to find those interesting stories that weave below the evident. To what extent will this new medium transform our lives? We cannot say anything yet, but certainly it will expand the types and number of genre and challenge our creativity and competence.

Now, do you want to witness the wonderful story between Richard and Marian? Do you want to know why Alejo, an Urugayan child and Salvador, a Spanish grownup became friends? In this presentation I collect a few stories and illustrate them with their authors permission. The all show the natural human need to communicate, made possible throught the interent. They are briefly analyzed in their linguisctic and cultural content.


Monday, June 8, 2009

Crossposting?

Hi!

This is just a test post to see if I can crosspost my contributions here to my official blogfolio.

I've followed these steps:

Sign In –> your blog’s Settings –> Email tab –> at the Mail-to-Blogger Address, fill in the email address (ex: yourbloggeraccount.YourEmailAddress@blogger.com) –> choose: publish immediately or save emails as drafts –> Save Settings. Make sure you take on of the complete email address you’ve just assigned for this account.

(source: How To: Cross Post...)

I've set the email account as indicated at the target blog, wonder if that's ok...
If this works, the next question is: will this just crosspost my own entries, or any post submitted by any of the blog writers?

Cross your fingers for me!

Gladys

Happy birthday, Mariana!


Listen, everyone! It was Mariana's birthday last Friday.... Since I didn't log on between Friday and this morning, this is my first chance to send her my hugs... Mariana: I hope you had a great time, close to your family.

Anyone else willing to leave their greetings here? Or am I the only one who fails to send cybercards in time? ;-)

Gladys

Sunday, June 7, 2009

My first Assignment

Hi Everybody,

Yesterday I got the results for my first assignment. When I read at my e-mail I was terrified at the idea of failing, my heart starting to beat faster and faster as the page was opening, it took ages to open, but I felt the same way I did when I was at my secondary school.
How are you all doing?

Hope to hear from you soon

Regards,

Juan Domingo
Esquel-Argentina

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Looking back, looking ahead...

The recent discussions and readings shared in our studies during the last two weeks have led me to re-view ("see with new eyes", as White and Arndt -1991; Process Writing- had defined it) all new technologies around me...


Some ideas I particularly want to remember:
  • We need to make these tools ours ("appropriate" them, integrate them into our lives so that they serve OUR purposes) if the're to have a lasting effect on our lives... Then, we must look into ways to help our students do the same in turn!
  • Different ways of doing things will inevitably lead to a redefinition of identities and social roles
  • ... And that's about the only thing new technologies will "INEVITABLY" do... ;-) The rest is in the hands of the tool users...

BTW, this reminds me of something I read a long time ago, when I was studying the relationship between teaching and policy: "By refusing to take sides, the ELT community has actually been supporting the conservative status quo." We'd better make our choices this time, before someone else makes them for us!

Gladys

PS: If you've never watched The Machine is (Using) Us, don't put it off another day!

Monday, May 18, 2009

Difficulties to implement new technology?

The Internet


We've been reading about the Internet, its origin, history and evolution. I found this map particularly interesting to see the great differences in access to the internet and to band width. Consequences for language use in the internet? What about our role as bilingual professionals and teachers of English? What about digital literacy and language use? I recommend these links too.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

It feels like home just because we are teachers!


Hello! I'm Mariana and it is so superamazing that we are here together! It feels like home to have you three around, even if I only know Gladys! I think we English teachers have such a great advantage when it comes to technology! Just the fact that we are able to read and write in English allows us to be connected, plus we are used to sharing with people of pretty diverse background! Well, I'll tell you a bit more about me, I manage two franchises of Alianza, one in Montevideo and one in Canelones, both in Uruguay. I am also a sociologist, licenced in 1994. Later I kept on more involved with organizational studies, especially organizational communication. So, there are so so many ways in which this diploma interests me!
Well, thanks for being around!

Here you will see two of my blogs, one of poems in Spanish (I write them) and one more related to my job interests

Sunday, April 19, 2009

FLACSO MY FIRST THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS COURSE


Hi everybody!!!
I'm Juan Domingo.

I'm anxious about this course!!!

Here are my fears and thoughts about this new way I'm starting!!!



I live in Esquel a small town in the northwest of Chubut. I hope you like it!!

I hope you're having a nice weekend

Regards,

Juan Domingo

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Hi!

Hi everyone! Just been browsing the platform, the Virtual Classroom, actually!
Looking forward to starting straightaway!
Regards,
Marina

Off we go!

Well, campus for "Diplomatura en Educación y Nuevas Tecnologías" (FLACSO) opened yesterday at 9 PM GMT (that was 6 PM my time). Having taken online courses before, I was almost positive we'd be allowed at least a couple of days to log in and browse around, familiarising ourselves with the online environment and our partners (which turned out to be over 200, BTW!). Yet, can you believe I was quite upset because some "local" duties prevented me from entering the site before today? :-p!

It was nice to find out we'll be using a Moodle platform, which I'm a bit familiar with, and at the same will profit from seeing used in more effective ways. It was even better to confirm 3 colleagues I look up to are just starting walking along the same path at the same time. As I'm a social learner, this means a lot to me, and I hope they like the idea of collaborating in this blog and sharing a bit of what we go through in our course with every English teacher on the Web via this blog!

In his welcome "speech", our coordinator has invited us to record our feelings and impressions as we just get started, and save them so that we can go back to them. I've drafted my impressions here, feel free to peep if you like!

Gladys