A YEAR AT FLACSO

A year ago by these days we were just about to start a new postgrade on Education and New Tecnologies. The year went by so quickly that a 2 weeks ago this degree was over and now Gladys, Mariana and I me are the new graduates.

The year I spent was great! I had the possibility to grow up professionally with the help of my colleagues. During the course I worked with different teachers from all over Argentina and it was a really great experience to design a Webquest, write an article and complete a project using a wiki. At the beginning it was shocking to see that something you had written the previous night was re-written and none of your words could be seen when opening the wiki. It was hard to see your words to vanish as time went by but it was incredible to see that despite the surface structure was different the deep structure kept ones ideas!!!!!!!!!!

I have learnt quite a lot and read tones of pages! but what I found incredible was to have made such good friends from whom I have learnt a lot, as well. It was really nice to meet them in the flesh. I have also met Gladys for very short times during our breaks before the presentations and I also met Mariana Porta with whom I shared a dinner before coming to Esquel, which is 2000 km away from Buenos Aires.

Now I have my diploma on Education on ICT, but as I want to learn more in a few days I am starting to drive a new road, an specialization on Education and ICT. I know it is going to be hard, but I will try.

Gladys
Mariana

WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What do students wait from us in their classes?

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.

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.

Stories From A Culture Without Borders

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