30.1.10
On social networks and my internet anxiety ...
I have been very resistant to change most of my life. Since I know this, I always try very hard to be open, force myself to experiment, and embrace innovation desperately, especially in my teaching. On the other hand, I am a very private person and prefer to remain very low profile and social networks demand participation, socialization, sharing, communication, time ... but that's how knowledge is built, connected, created and re-created, right?
In a world where people in their late twenties -like my children- cannot imagine how their parents could work in the past without Internet, mails, even a computer for writing a memo, and our grandchildren are born with an i-phone or a blackberry by their side, sliding pictures intuitively or by imitation with their tiny fingers ... we can't escape change and social networks have become an integral part of our lives, whether we like them or not.
Nowadays I don't blog as much as I used to, except when I set up class blogs or wikis for my students. I don't have time to be looking for new tools to be discussed in my personal blog anymore and I don' t want to be re-copying what others are finding to fill a space. I have not made an effort to make others follow my sites and prefer to quietly read what the "experts" in the area are into. When I have a specific need to help my students, I simply Google to find what I want, or so I think. I prefer to use fewer tools that I can handle well than the newest gadget that just came up into existence. But I am always suffering from FOAMS, fear of always missing something , and SONGCOP (just made it up), shame of not giving back to communities of practice where I have learned so much ...
I am always amazed at how certain social tools gain popularity and are widely used. Phenomena such as Twitter and Facebook are beyond imagination. Who would have guessed? I probably do not blog as much, for example, because Facebook has taken precedence in my personal life to stay connected with family and friends all over the world: a daughter in Canada, a son in Australia, a niece in Germany, another in London, one more in Illinois, and most important of all, a husband in Bogota while I am usually in Caracas ... so sharing pictures and keeping updated with the political situation in Venezuela seem to take most of my free time at the moment. I do not twitter much but follow a couple of lists, especially from the university student movement and their political actions, and national news.
All these networks seem to grow unpredictably beyond their original idea into monsters of what seems to be random information but with amazing possibilities to those who can see through it with their special glasses. As Vance Stevens says (although in a different context), it is fascinating "how a system so prone to chaos and entropy so often works through the wisdom of the crowds that populate it to keep the pieces loosely joined all heading in the same direction."
In a world where people in their late twenties -like my children- cannot imagine how their parents could work in the past without Internet, mails, even a computer for writing a memo, and our grandchildren are born with an i-phone or a blackberry by their side, sliding pictures intuitively or by imitation with their tiny fingers ... we can't escape change and social networks have become an integral part of our lives, whether we like them or not.
Nowadays I don't blog as much as I used to, except when I set up class blogs or wikis for my students. I don't have time to be looking for new tools to be discussed in my personal blog anymore and I don' t want to be re-copying what others are finding to fill a space. I have not made an effort to make others follow my sites and prefer to quietly read what the "experts" in the area are into. When I have a specific need to help my students, I simply Google to find what I want, or so I think. I prefer to use fewer tools that I can handle well than the newest gadget that just came up into existence. But I am always suffering from FOAMS, fear of always missing something , and SONGCOP (just made it up), shame of not giving back to communities of practice where I have learned so much ...
I am always amazed at how certain social tools gain popularity and are widely used. Phenomena such as Twitter and Facebook are beyond imagination. Who would have guessed? I probably do not blog as much, for example, because Facebook has taken precedence in my personal life to stay connected with family and friends all over the world: a daughter in Canada, a son in Australia, a niece in Germany, another in London, one more in Illinois, and most important of all, a husband in Bogota while I am usually in Caracas ... so sharing pictures and keeping updated with the political situation in Venezuela seem to take most of my free time at the moment. I do not twitter much but follow a couple of lists, especially from the university student movement and their political actions, and national news.
All these networks seem to grow unpredictably beyond their original idea into monsters of what seems to be random information but with amazing possibilities to those who can see through it with their special glasses. As Vance Stevens says (although in a different context), it is fascinating "how a system so prone to chaos and entropy so often works through the wisdom of the crowds that populate it to keep the pieces loosely joined all heading in the same direction."
28.1.10
EVO multiliteracies
I am already three weeks behind in reading and activities, oopphhssss !!! But could not stop embedding this powerful video in the starting page of the Multiliteracies group. It summarizes in a visual way what students are going through today as educators want to keep things the way they were in our time and past, and the need to learn how to deal with and use technology to help our students in their future. So far I set up my Ning page and hopefully will participate in a meeting with Mark Pegrum, the author of the book From Blogs to Bombs this Sunday.
Just checked the tagging page for evomlit (spezify) and, wow, it looks quite nice. It seems like a combination of Pageflakes and a kind of tag reader :-)
Just checked the tagging page for evomlit (spezify) and, wow, it looks quite nice. It seems like a combination of Pageflakes and a kind of tag reader :-)
15.12.09
EVO 2010
Once again a meeting with old and new friends for six weeks, how exciting is that :-)
This time, Grandma matters will take away most of my time. I retired just 2 months ago from university after many years of teaching and now have a newborn granddaughter and a dear daughter who needs my help in this commonly stressful stage of life, more so as she lives abroad and away from her roots and family.
I decided to "lurk" in Becoming a Webhead, the mother group; and will try to be a bit active in Multiliteracies.
We'll see how it goes :-)
Labels: EVO2010
15.9.09
Long time, no post ...
This was one of my first blogs ever. I started it when I joined Becoming a Webhead and Collaborative Blogging in EVo 2006. I had participated in BaW in 2005 but just opened up a blog for trying it out and never went back to it, and another for administrative matters at work. Since then I have used class blogs every term for my EFL reading courses, have published an article with a coworker about the effectiveness of blogging to improve reading practice and have used wikis for EFL writing instruction and practice. This led to my latest research which I presented in my promotion thesis to full professor at Simon Bolivar University in Caracas.Despite my crossover to Motime and Wordpress, I find Blogger has improved the most, it is still free and it is very easy to handle both for my students and myself :-)
I owe tons to the EVO organization and the caring and expert Webheads group. Not only have I been able to learn what teaching for the future of digital natives mean, but I have been able to do innovative work in my classroom which has been recognized in my workplace with three different awards (two university professor's awards in 2005 and 2008; and one professor's association teaching award in 2009).
I feel closer to my students, their way of life and definitely closer to my own son and daughter, and probably my future grand daughter. Last but not least, I have made great connections with mindlike friends all over the world and have worked collaborativey with some of them.
I am looking forward to the next EVO sessions in January 2010 ;-) I am excited to learn what has been going on in the past year and what I have missed and could be valuable in my students' future and mine too.
Labels: EVO2010
