On 26th
October 1901 the Remedios de Escalada railway workshops opened. A year later
the railway station was inaugurated and simply called “Villa Talleres”
(Workshop Village). Much later, in 1923, Villa Talleres was renamed as
“Remedios de Escalada” to pay homage to General José de San Martin’s wife.
Why did I choose this
photo? Why did I pick out this historical building located in this particular
city?
I’ve been working at
two state secondary schools in this city for about 16 years. Most of these
students have always lived in this city. Some of them come from families that
have always worked for the railway company.
Yet none of them
seem to know a thing about the history of this railway city. They don’t know
how the history of the Argentinian railway network and the development of this
city are closely related to British history.
I believe that a
better understanding of your own historical background will enable you to make
more informed decisions in your own life.
Well, here it is; my first pop-up video. It took me quite a
while to add all the events, but in the end, I was able to sort out all the
technicalities.
Enjoy!
Video credit:
This is ‘Bionic Woman: Fembot Flashback’ created by Bionic Blonde.
a #etmooc story created by Max Alvarez
flickr photo by cogdogblog
flickr photo by JudyArzt1
flickr photo by cogdogblog
flickr photo by mrsdkrebs
flickr photo by ncaramanico It was my 18th birthday and my dad gave me this watch as a present. His dad had given it to him when he turned 18. It was a very special watch. It had been handed down from one generation to the next one since dear great-great-grandfather arrived in Buenos Aires.
The watch was assembled in Spain, my great-great-grandfather’s homeland, and the outer parts were replaced over the years. However, the clockwork – the heart and soul of the watch – was made in Switzerland and it remained untouched. So this birthday present was meant to mark a rite of passage on my dad’s side of the family.
My 18th birthday was on a sunny winter Saturday and I wanted it to be a special day. Instead of having a typical birthday party, I felt like going camping with my cousins and closest friends. No parents, no relatives and no other adults in the whereabouts; just us.
Despite the weather forecast saying there would be heavy showers and strong winds, it turned out that the weather was fine. We went sightseeing and trekking. We had a picnic and took a lot of photos of ourselves striking funny poses. I wouldn’t say we had the time of our lives, but we enjoyed ourselves a lot.
Yet great fun is never meant to last. On our way back home, we had a car accident. It was really dark and it started to rain heavily. There were strong winds. My eldest cousin, Paul, was driving along, at low speed, trying to make out the road.
Suddenly, a lorry flashed its lights straight at us, and hopefully in time, Paul managed to veer off the road. But he lost control of the car. It’s funny but time seemed to go by so slowly at that moment. We ended up into a roadside ditch.
Luckily enough, the ditch wasn’t full of water. I don’t quite remember how we managed to get out of the car. We were soaking wet and freezing cold. It was pitch-dark and pouring down with rain. The only thing we were able to make out was the lights of a farmhouse far away.
We walked towards the light. It was Mr and Mrs Baume’s dairy farm. They were a kind elderly couple whose children had already married, so they lived in this big farmhouse alone. They were delighted to have some young visitors and put us up for that night. I was so tired that I fell asleep as soon as I got into bed. I didn’t even notice that my watch was missing.
The following morning, I woke up early. Everybody was still fast asleep. I wanted to know the time. That’s when I realised my watch had gone. I jumped out of bed and started to search the whole place up and down. It was useless. I couldn’t find it. I must have left it in the car and the car was deep down the ditch.
I felt tired and a bit miserable. That watch had ticked the time away on my dad’s side of the family for years and now it was gone for ever! I lost it. I knew I would be ticked off. Feeling guilty, sad and hungry, I went into the kitchen.
Sweets! Tons of sweets in different colours and shapes… gummy bears and my favourite ones, M&Ms. I headed for the jars on the counter, and as the sweets slowly melted in my mouth, I started to think how to go down the ditch and recover my precious gift.
The animated gifs show an instance of classroom disruption
and how this is handled by the teacher. Since we’re looking into the story retrospectively,
we should take into account the narrow context of this particular classroom
within the broader context of the culture it belongs in.
The classroom event is situated in the specific context of
culture of the US in the late ‘70s. So we should ask ourselves; at that time,
what was happening in the world? What was happening in the US? What was the
education policy in that country? What theories of knowledge and learning were
considered valid? What teaching methods were teachers supposed to use?
The contextualisation of this particular classroom event
helps us understand the power relationships and the cultural values that are negotiated
in the event. In very broad terms, it might help us spot similarities and
differences to other classrooms across cultures. It could also help us see
whether there have been any changes over time.
Power relationships and cultural values are classroom
features that are usually left unsaid and hence taken for granted. It’s assumed
that students must behave themselves. However, in the video, the student’s
disruptive behaviour and the way the teacher deals with it bring the power
relationships and cultural values to the forefront.
These features can be analysed in terms of the teacher’s role,
the students’ role, how the rapport between the teacher and the students should
be established, and the classroom proxemics (the arrangement and use of
classroom objects in relation to the patterns of social interaction). Why are
students seated individually and in rows facing the board?
The teacher tells the students that she doesn’t believe in
issuing threats to her students as she tears the telephone directory in half.
Please, excuse my digression, but I can’t help wondering what a teacher needs a
phone book in the classroom for… Anyway, her actions speak louder than her
words and students get the message squarely. She seems to think that if respect
doesn’t develop naturally, it must be enforced. Yet can values be enforced?
In this story, we also have a glimpse at the technology
available in the classroom – quite the same as in one of the schools where I
work. There are two big blackboards, chalk, books, and… on second thoughts and
on a lighter note, should we consider this very special teacher a technological
device (a cyborg)?
Up to what extent did the use of these technological
devices, together with the arrangement and use of other classroom objects,
mirror the power relationships and cultural values circulating outside the
classroom at that time?
Let’s go back to the present. I ask myself to what extent
has the classroom scene in the video changed around the world? To what extent
does the use of today’s technological devices affect the patterns of
interaction (T-S, T-Ss, S-S, S-Ss) and the learning process in the classroom?
What power relationships and cultural values does the use of this technology
reflect?
From the very moment we step into the classroom, either
consciously or subconsciously we’re teaching cultural values. We’re teaching what we believe in and essentially who we are.
This is going to be a very unusual post to read because of the content and style. So get ready.
I wrote two six word stories from scratch. I just had a quick look at some examples posted on Six Word Stories as I was talking on the phone with a friend who had been cheated on.
Now, this is what you get when you try to write something meaningful as you're talking on the phone. Multitasking doesn't suit me. Sorry, Mr. Hemingway. He must be tossing and turning in his grave wanting to kill me off. :-)
On second thoughts, they look like worn-out clichés and so deprived...
Really, I hope my Language & Culture tutors won't ever read this post.
Hope to get more inspired for the following post.
Feel free to speak up your mind and post a comment ;)
Since my last post,
I’ve been quite busy. I’ve been reading, trying out new things, synthesising
and integrating what I learnt. I’ve also been reflecting upon my learning
process. Little by little, everything’s falling into place.
I thought I knew… but actually I didn’t!
There are so many
things you need to consider when you write a post that you just can’t learn
them all in just one reading session. As for tweeting, the same thing holds
true. That’s why I decided that I’d deal with each issue as they crop up. I’m
sure they will.
Screenshot 1: The red arrow shows where to find the button that lets you download the post as PDF
So I downloaded Sue Waters’
blog entries about how to tweet and blog effectively in PDF (See Screenshot 1 above)
on my desktop for later reference and summarised what I think are the most
important tips in Screenshot 2 below. After all, blogging and microblogging
effectively are two digital literacy skills that develop over time. I suppose,
as long as I write posts and tweets regularly, I’ll keep improving.
Screenshot 2: tips for writing blog posts
A big THANK YOU to Sue Waters and
Alison Seaman for their useful tips, timely help and endless patience! By interacting
with them and the other ETMOOCers, I’m
‘re-learning’ how to ask for help when I need it, you see. Asking for help
to a more knowledgeable and able peer is an empowering learning strategy that
adults often underestimate.
Maybe, this is so
because you openly acknowledge the fact that you don’t know and you might feel
exposed and vulnerable. Nobody likes feeling that way. In any case, when you
ask for help your peers provide you with the scaffolding you need to move ahead in your ZPD. Or, along the lines of connectivism, your peers act as nodes and help you create connexions and by so doing
you elaborate the network in which knowledge resides.
So, asking for
help, a simple strategy that boosts your learning experience and makes you a
better individual. It seems to me that, sometimes, we forget the most important
things in life. Hopefully, we come across somebody who reminds us about these
little things…
Scooping my delicious learning
Yet my real goal
was to explore connectivism and the underlying points of view, ideas
and theories in order to check whether they fit my academic interests: linguistics, TEFL and teacher
cognition in language teaching, “what teachers think, know, and believe and
the relationships of these mental constructs to what teachers do in the
language teaching classroom (Borg, 2003: 81).”
Basically, teacher
cognition has to do with developing our self-reflective skills in order to
improve as professionals. I think connectivism may have an important role to
play here. Let’s analyse this quote:
“Connectivism
is driven by the understanding that decisions are based on rapidly altering
foundations. New information is continually being acquired. The ability to draw distinctions between
important and unimportant informationis
vital. The ability to recognize when
new information alters the landscape based on decisions made yesterday is
also criticalSimens (2004).”
(My emphasis)
In “PKM as pre-curation”, Harold Jarche states that “Personal Knowledge Management
or PKM is a framework for individuals to take
control of their professional development while working in organizations or
across networks”. Through PKM, an individual makes sense of the information
available by putting it into context through a process of filtering,
validation, synthesis, presentation and customisation. He adds that PKM can be
turned into content curation when the whole process is carried out for an
intended audience.
If you want to learn more about PKM, watch this introduction to the concept:
Then, in “Content Curation for Education
and Learning”, Robin Good
claims that content curation has to do with picking out resources in an attempt
to make sense of a topic, having a specific target audience in mind. That is,
content curation involves a degree of customisation of the resources for other
people.
Both resources are
related to the field of teacher cognition in TEFL. The sole process of content
selection involves reflection and shows what the curator thinks is relevant for
her/him or others. By having a quick look at what the curator stores, the
underlying selection and classification processes can be analysed by having a
look at the labels or tags used and how they were grouped in bundles.
So over the weekend,
I put Jarche and Good’s ideas into practice. I decided to use Delicious for
PKM and Scoop.It
for content curation. Thinking of other teachers (who like me) know very little
about the topic and need to get information, I created two Scoop.It’s about connectivism and connected learning: one with supporting arguments; the other with the ongoing debate.
I chose this tool
because it’s quite easy to use, flexible and visually appealing. Moreover, it
makes your learning evident. Basically, it’s like a front page or the cover of
a glossy magazine. By having a quick look, you can get the gist of what the
Scoop.It is about. If it suits your needs, you’ll keep reading. If not, you
move on to something else.
Yet my approach to both
PKM and content curation involves and an ongoing spiral process of filtering,
validation, synthesis, presentation and customisation. For instance, though I
had to analyse each resource in order to determine whether they were reliable (data
supported by current research, etc), I didn’t provide a descriptive comment for
each comment.
I’ll be doing so as
I revisit each Scoop.It to make adjustments. That is, it is open-ended continuous
process that, as long as others (my intended audience) get involved with it and
provide their own comments, will result in a feedback loop.
However, something doesn’t
seem to be working with the Scoop.It with the ongoing debate. Compared to the one with supporting arguments; it’s received very few visitors. I wonder
whether up to what extent what Caleb Kelly
calls “The TEDification of ideas” is happening
here. Maybe, it’s not groupthink
but a failure to spread the word about the Scoo.It. So I´ll re-tweet it and see
what happens. In the meantime, I’ll keep on working with the theory.
References:
Borg, S. (2003). “Teacher cognition in language teaching: A
review of research on what language teachers think, know, believe, and do”. Language
Teaching, 36 (2). pp. 81-109. ISSN 1475-3049 PDF
(317Kb). Retrieved 28th January 2013 from: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/1652/.
To those who
think that Twitter is a piece of cake, let me tell you that sometimes the
simplest thing is the most difficult one to understand and eventually master. Believe
it or not, I signed up for a Twitter account about two years ago – yes, you
read it well: two years ago! – but I started to tweet last week. I’d been a
by-stander all that time. Why did I take so long to have a go at it?
I know what you may be thinking; "Oh, dear, you're just like the silly pussycat on the photo. You've just been watching the bird twittering." Me? No, no at all. Keep on reading and you´ll see there are other more powerful reasons.
Actually, I suppose two
misconceptions were at play. First, I thought that Twitter was meant to follow
showbiz people and that kind of stuff. Plain ignorance here, you see. Then, every
time I tried to use the Twitter web application, I felt alienated by how fast
an overwhelming number of tweets were posted. I just couldn’t keep up reading.
It felt like as
if I were trying to have a conversation on a noisy, crowded dance floor in
which I was surrounded by pogo dancers jumping up and down. Do you get the
picture? That’s why I didn’t dare to use the Twitter application on my mobile.
What I find quite awkward about Twitter is that you’re
deprived of all the non-linguistic, or paralinguistic, elements that play a key
role in a face-to-face conversation. That is, there are no body language,
gestures or intonation which you can infer meaning from. Sure, you can still use
some symbols to show your mood to your interlocutors. Yet I don’t think there’s
much more than this.
Moreover, I think the purpose of Twitter and its design introduce
some extraneous elements in human conversation: the issue of brevity, the immediacy
of exchanging messages, the disruption of the conversation turns and the skill
to encode and decode the messages fast and as they are intended.
In other words, you’ve got to think fast, come straight to
the point and type in your thought, fast. No wonder you’re prone to make some
unintended typos or other kinds of mistakes (Maybe, this could be turned into
an educational purpose). Finally, you’ve got to be able to spot the replies to
your tweets in an ocean of unwanted tweets in order to follow your thread.
I just wonder whether there are some linguistics researchers
doing conversational analysis on Twitter. They should. I think it could be interesting
to learn about how Twitter affects the patterns of social interaction and
literacy.
Coming back to the point, all these nuisances make it very
easy to misunderstand the meaning of the messages, or give others a wrong
impression. What I mean is that, most probably, the sender takes for granted
too much shared background knowledge between them and you as the recipient. So some
things are left unsaid because it’s assumed that you will be able to infer the
intended message almost automatically. This includes recognising any mistakes
for what they are.
So, for a beginner Twitterer like me, it’s not being as easy
– as I thought it would be – to get familiar with this tool. I
wonder if anyone else doing etmooc is also feeling this way.
I also downloaded and installed the TweetDeck on
my desktop. This application made it easier to filter out unwanted tweets. I’ve
learnt that you can tweet directly from there and manage your Facebook messages
as well. It also allows you to add or remove followers and manage your lists.
Just a few minutes ago, I had one of the most enriching experiences
on Twitter. I logged in from my TweetDeck and started tweeting with the tag
#etmooc. The thing is that my tweets were getting nowhere because I wasn’t
using the tags #etmchat and @etmooc.
In no time, two advanced twitterers, Laurie Renton and Jess Henze,
helped me out and I was able to tweet the right way. But then, I got another
problem: I couldn’t read the tweets that weren’t addressed at me. I was missing
most of the tweets because I hadn’t added a specific column for the chatroom on
my TweetDeck.
Again, the same experienced twitterers, together with Sue Waters,
gave me a hand. The three of them were very positive, supportive and encouraging.
I felt they took care of me. They didn’t need to, but they chose to do it.
By sharing their time and expertise with me, they prompted
me to move further in my learning curve. I had to read their tweets and get
what they were aiming at quickly. Then, I had to perform some actions to solve
the problem quickly. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to keep the conversation
going. All this process resulted in both learning something specific and creating
new connexions with more able peers.
I won’t bother you with theories of learning in this post (good
overviews on video are Diego Leal Fonseca’s Conectivismo y Aprendizaje en
Red and George Simens’ Connectivism: Socializing Open Learning).
I just want to say that I think my PLN got broadened tonight. It expanded not
because of the actual number of connexions but because of the quality of those
connexions. I think I’ll remember very well what I learnt tonight. Most importantly,
I’ll remember who I learnt with.
Now, as an educator, I can see the potential of Twitter as a
microblogging tool. This application lets you spread relevant news (for your
audience, not necessarily for you) in very few words and fast so that you can reach
a broad audience.
A tweet, in a way, is like the headline in the front page of
a newspaper; if it catches your attention, you go to the page where the whole
story is printed. That is, a tweet is meant to start social interaction and
maybe develop conversation in few turns.
However, I still think that if you need to say something
wordy or more complex, you’d better use Skype, go to talk over the phone or
meet the person face-to-face.
So how can I ‘exploit’ this tool in my PLN?
At this very moment in my own learning path, I wouldn’t use
it with (secondary) students. I wonder…
Would I tweet them reminders of deadlines?
Would I tweet them about the topics I know they find
interesting?
Would I set a chat room and have them talk over these
topics?
Would they feel confident and comfortable enough? (They’re mainly
elementary-to-pre-intermediate learners of English)
Would it be appropriate to use Twitter within my teaching
context? (In the province of Buenos Aires, in 2006, DGCyE
issued a ban – Resolución No. 1728/06– on using mobiles at schools)
How would the school community react?
I’ve got too many questions on my mind but not a single answer
yet. That’s why I think I need to try out Twitter a little bit more with my
peers until I get confident enough to move on.
I’ve just started to use it to ‘spread the word’ about
topics and other stuff I know my co-workers find relevant and I got only one
reply. I know, I know; I’ve got to be patient. After all, on this side of the
world, we, teachers are on summer holidays, you see.
Anyway, I’ll keep experimenting with this tool to ‘find out’
what else can be done with it. I mean what educational purposes and uses can be
implemented in my teaching context.
Beware people; now, you’ll see me more often on Twitter ;)
To tell you
the truth, when I got the meaning of the lyrics on this fantastic video posted on this blog, I didn’t like the idea of so much sharing at all. Why? Well, basically,
I’d been educated in a competitive environment in which you don’t show your
weaknesses at college, university or the workplace. That’s valuable information
that can be used against you.
In my
country, among other controversies, you’ll find out that, as a teacher, you’re
trained through very traditional methods but then you’re expected to teach your
students through the latest ones. For instance, you spend your academic life mostly
attending lectures but then you’ve got to foster highly interactive, collaborative
work among your students.
Anyway, I’ve
learnt that when something upsets me, I must pay attention to it and try to find
out the reason. The chances are that what upsets me is actually pushing me away
from my comfort zone.
So far, I’ve
been using OneNote
and Evernote to keep my reflections and
other stuff. I’ve never felt like sharing my weaknesses with people other than
my mentors. Let alone on a blog like this one (this blog was initially just the
visible part of my e-portfolio).
But then if you
take part in a cMOOC, you’ll have to share the whole learning
experience with others including your weaknesses. That’s precisely, I believe, what’s
really daring. In a sense, it’s like being naked. So it takes some courage to
show the world your erroneous zones. That
is, in order to keep improving, you need to be aware of your own flaws. But that’s
not enough along the lines of connectivism; you’ve got to share them. Otherwise,
how can you expect others to help you move on? It’s all give and take; you
create knowledge as you´re working collaboratively with others.
But in my
case, I’ll have to find a way of giving more and taking less. I’ve recently gone
through information overload (Thanks to Sue Waters’ tips I managed to stop the
email notifications flooding my inbox this morning).
So in a way,
I rediscovered the meaning of sharing. Brian
Metcalfe couldn’t be more right. In a fun and inspiring way,
he summarises what I think is the main tenet of connectivism; connecting with
others through sharing; sharing not only resources, but also what you are. To do so, you need to learn
to rely on others as they rely on you.
This is my introduction. I decided to try out xtranormal, a tool I didn't know. So by creating this video I learnt (or at least I think I did) how to use this tool.
Among other
things, the following video featuring NicholasChristakis
(Professor of Sociology, Medical Sociology and Medicine) in a presentation at HarvardUniversity inspired me to write a
cross-curricular yearly project about social networking. Actually, I was
supposed to plan a teaching sequence for an in-service teacher training course,
but little by little the teaching sequence became four teaching sequences and
so the whole thing had to be redesigned as a yearly project - just a bunch of short teaching sequences.
I implemented this project in two classes at a technical secondary school by the second week in
May in 2012. In one class, the project was successfully completed with just few adjustments here and there. In the other class, the project had to be extensively adapted and I'm still wondering up to what extent students were able to learn something at all...
Well, what’s
the video about?
I won’t tell you:-D Let's watch the video and as you watch, think over
these questions:
How many
kinds of social networks are there? How do social networks form? How do they
work? What do they look like?
When and
where are social networks set?
What
purposes do social networks serve? Why do people get involved in social
networking services?
How do
social network sevices affect our daily lives? Which aspects of our lives are
affected? How?
What is the
relationship between reciprocity/collaboration and social networks? What about social networking services?
What is the
point of a ‘connected’ life? Is there any possible advantages/disadvantages? If so, which
one(s)?
What is the
relationship between social networks and social capital? what role(s) do social networking services play?
What do you
think about the way Prof.Christakis introduces the concept
of capitalism and describes it? Which political stance underlies this part of
the presentation? Do you agree with his point of view?
How does he
connect education, social networks and human capital? Do you agree with his
ideas and point of view? Is he speaking about social networks or social networking services? Is it important to know the difference? If so, why?
Prof.Christakis puts forwards a given specific use
for social networks. Which one? Now, what other potential uses could social
networking have?
Taking
account of the fact that social networks are made up of people connecting to
other people, do you think the analogy he uses (graphite vs diamond) to
illustrate his ideas is appropriate/felicitous? Think about the properties of
each material and try to match these properties to different social groups.
Which social group is the diamond? Which one is the graphite?
Just before
ending the presentation (10:07), Prof.Christakis goes back to the main
idea of the whole talk and makes it explicit. What do you think? Do you agree
with him? Why?
I hope you find this video as interesting, relevant and thought-provoking as I’ve found it. Enjoy!
