Friday, February 25, 2005

The Mug Shots Project

Mug Projeto Tamar
Mug Projeto Tamar,
originally uploaded by bee1.
Sergei Gridushko from Belarus started the mug shots project with his university students and I decided to join him with my 10th graders in Brazil.

Last week, my students opened an account with Blogger, Flickr and Bloglines and I asked them to photograph their mugs (or cups/bowls) over the weekend. This week they are going to upload the photos to their blogs and post an entry describing their mugs, saying how they got them, why they are important, how they are used and where they are kept. I am using my Live Journal account and Flickr for this kind of post. Later we will link our texts and photos to Sergei's project


Thursday, February 10, 2005

Rebels



Bird in Bariloche, which Ale Weser posted to her blog and Aaron's subsequent comment on it, took me to a poem I wrote about 4 years ago... funny how connections are made.


Many would like to be that bird
perched on top of the tall eucalyptus tree
ready to stay or fly away
free to go where they see fit
with no rules to keep them from it

one must be able to break loose
to have the choice , the voice
and to make it come true
in spite of the birds of prey
who see things the other way

this wild nature in us
may seem inappropriate, indecent , insane
for the regulated society set
and yet
this is exactly what gives us our name

rebels of the world unite
creating may not give money or fame
it's a hard fight and to become a knight
one must taste defeat and eat it
without shame.

our chant though
is not pie in the sky
let's try to fly far
with our own wings
not to fear or retreat
but to sing aloud
for the world to hear
the doings and every feat

so as to make it move closer
to a more sustainable and tolerant beat.

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

OSN 2005: Exploring on-line tools for collaboration

The Online Social Networks 2005 Conference has just started. Over 300 people around the world have signed up and I have just logged in as a special guest ;-)

Howard Rheingold ( SmartMobs) , Lisa Kimball (Group Jazz, Joi Ito (ICANN) and Brian Reich (Mindshare Interactive Campaigns) are the keynoters. They organized this online conference for anyone interested in working with social networking processes, tools, and media and invited a number of online social network experts to:

• Exchange ideas with pioneers in OSN development
• Gain insight in making better use of social capital, successful collaboration online, and efficient creation and management of knowledge capital
• Make contact with leading solution providers

How to explore on-line tools for collaboration is what three webheads in action: Karen Garcia, Venny Su and Jeff Cooper, will be showing us at Tappedin this coming Friday.

Thanks Karen for the invitation to join the environment and the forums. Although I do not think I have met anyone there (except you three obviously), I am looking forward to exploring and connecting !

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Can RSS help learners and educators?

Listening now to Mary Harrsch's presentation at Learning Times. 16 people in the room and Mary is sharing with us her historical sites and photos while she explains how to use different tools like Flickr and how they help her create a community of practice around shared interests.

Some sentences and themes that are emerging while I moderate the chat and do some live blogging:

" learning from others ... "creating a synergy with people by using weblogs"

"sharing and considering different points of view"

"The beauty of RSS is that anyone can publish and you can get authentic narratives, from the horse's mouth and not filtered information."

Furl enables people to read what you write and also what you read.

Weblogs and RSS are great for research and syndicating learning objects.

Creating opportunities for people to meet and greet other professionals in the field...expanding your community of practice.

Must leave you now...watch out for the recording to have the whole picture.

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

The Internet is About People

Amy Gahran in Contentious blog says..."contrary to popular opinion, the internet is not really about technology. It’s about people, specifically how people communicate. Despite the best efforts of evolution and civilization, human beings still have a lot of rough edges – individually and collectively."

Aaron Campbell in Under the Influence of Epoche points out:" blogging we are creating an online identity which partially mirrors our own self image, yet at the same time emphasizes those aspects of self that we want others to experience, while masking those that we wish our readers to overlook. .... the thoughts and images we project contain so many blind and hidden elements of self of which we are unconscious when we project. It is through the discussions we have with others online and through further reflection on the archive of those interactions, that those blind and hidden aspects begin to slowly emerge.

Yes...it is fascinating how people manage to project their image online in blogs through their narratives, the choice of subjects they write about or by the way they interact with this new environment and its tools and the people with whom they establish contact. Some do it gracefully, others are still bungling, some attack, cling to their ideas and are focused on results while others show compassion, collaboration and explore. So much a reflection of our real world, but so much more extended. Comforting but worrying as well.

Many of the people I read today and got to talk to online was thanks to blogs. These tools are open to all and foster an interactivity that is conducive to dialogue, questioning, answering...
How else would I have discovered them, managed to contact them and been allowed to view/comment on their perspectives ? Through academic papers, newspapers, Yahoo Messenger, emails, forums listservs?

Graham Stanley has just posted a discussion emerging from the BE list he belongs to. By commenting on it and opening it up to others in blogosphere, Graham brings it to a more interactive level, where not only a few participate. I am interested to know how it will develop and if people will react to it.

Blogs do not confine you to a specific environment. I enjoy this mobility, the clash and flow of different perspectives. I feel excited by this state of flux which allows me to question, create and re-invent my own meanings, connect the threads and try to figure out patterns in this expanded vision of the brave new world around me.