Group in Facebook

Hi

I joined a group called "Let's fight against the disappearing of the subjunctive". Okay, I can see that some of you are thinking "gosh, what a boring stuff! "... but it's not! I describe it quickly. It's an Italian group, or better it is addressed to Italian speaking people, since participants are from many different countries. It hosts many different sub-discussions related to the use of correct Italian language, the detection of funny , or I should better say horrible, grammar mistakes, but there is also a poetry's corner, a space to discuss about "good and bad" books, another dedicated to neologisms or italianizations of "internet words" (quite scaring) and so on. I'm participating in some discussions, as one about words that are unfortunately disappearing, and I'm working hard to contribute to a section where people plays on words modifying just a letter in an existing word to create another one with a different funny meaning.
Well, I guess this is an example of informal learning, gained in a very relaxed and joyful way, as well as a way to speak and know new people with whom I share common interests (many are teachers or academics...).
Now I'm going to play :-)

Hi
I've found this article published by one of the most famous bloggers, Andrew Sullivan, published on "The Atlantic". It's an interesting reflection about the nature of blogs and its relationship with journalism. He points out some of the features of Web 2.0 we have talked about during the next class, namely the opportunity to be immediately linked to the sources on which claims and statements are grounded on. Another reflection I agree with is the following about readers: "They will send links, stories, and facts, challenging the blogger’s view of the world, sometimes outright refuting it, but more frequently adding context and nuance and complexity to an idea."

If you are interested, here's the link:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/andrew-sullivan-why-i-blog

Veronica

An interesting research by British Library and JISC

Hi
I've found this research about the "Google generation" and possible scenarios of access and interaction with digital resources in five to ten years’ time. The following bit is not encouraging...but I keep on feeling positive about future developments.

"Children (especially) tend to make very narrow relevance judgements by considering the presence or absence of words exactly describing the search topic: as a result they miss many relevant documents and end up repeating searches. Information seeking tends to stop at the point at which articles are found and printed, especially for younger users, with little regard to the document content. "

Here is the link to the research: http://www.bl.uk/news/pdf/googlegen.pdf

Enjoy the reading.

My laptop makes me feel free...

I didn't know about the existence of TeacherTube, do you?
There I've found this video about perceptions and opinions of students about ICT in education. I find it quite disturbing, if not scaring. Do these pupils seem sincere to you? Are they advertising laptops or what? Or am I overeacting?

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=9aae08821d40e3b402ff

Monthy Python: Philosophers' football game

Hi
Today I was surfing and searching serious articles about critical thinking and stuff like that...then I bumped into this Monty Phyton's video. It has really boosted the mood of my day!
If you have five minutes to spare, have a look at it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79vdlEcWxvM

I'm spending a lot of time in reading your blogs and comments. Yes, it is time-consuming, but maybe this wandering can give us an idea about what this blog-stuff is about, what is for and how could we use it for educational purposes. I would like to share my first thoughts about this with you.
What is for: we are a little community but quite various. We share some interests but we also have different ones. Well, like every class... Last week, before posting my blog, I asked George to what extent our blogs should be "personal": this is one of the points I'm struggling to grasp. Blogs and education? How? And what kind of education? Is it "education" posting a blog about the books or the music I like? Is it education posting a link to an article which doesn't have apparently specific links to education? Of course, it depends on one's idea of what education is. Don't get me wrong: I really believe that education consists also in giving students specific knowledges and abilities in specific subject. Blogs or Facebook are certainly not that useful to teach a class the list of irregular verbs in a linear way, this is true. And they present constraints with regard to the age of the learners...even though probably my son will be able to use these tools earlier that I can imagine now. But this is another story.
Maybe, tools are not the only thing that has to change in education. Maybe education should encompass more stuff that what is being taught now. Maybe these tools could permit us to broaden our range of educability: I mean, I will keep on teaching the irregular verbs as I did, but I could also post an article for my students about whatever topic, to make them exercise in recognizing the verbs within a context AND at the same time to make them reading something I find interesting for their general growth as individuals.
Does it make any sense?
Talking about individuals and what this word means, here's a link to an article I have read some time ago. It is not about education in the strict sense, but I believe there are some interesting concepts about what is I. If I had a class ( at least 16 years old) now, I would certainly post it in the class wiki...:-)
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/multiple-personalities
See you soon!

Self presentation

Hi everyone,

my name is Veronica, I come from Italy originally, but I have been living in Manchester since last year. I applied to this course because I was keen to learn new skills which could help me in being a more creative teacher and, why not, a more creative person... and as the course proceeds I know I'm in the right place.
I'm not sure if I should add details about me in general, but it really seems a bit difficult to condense a life in few fines ...we could do better this in front of a beer in a pub, or in further posts with distant students.
So, from where to begin to present myself in this very moment, and what I really like to do?
First of all, I'm happy to be back to school again! I have finished my university studies many years ago, and I thought that, except for preparing my classes, the learning period was already gone. I saw my job as a long flat path of days repeating the same pattern, lighted up mostly by the human relationship with students. Quite boring, isn't it? My personal development was left away, and my idea of reading consisted just in novels.
But now I'm discovering the pleasure of reading not just for the sake of it, reflecting, studying, being challenged, and last but not least learning with and from the others. I wouldn't be so glad if it had been just a matter of reading stuff by my own...I like this kind of learning because of its communicative feature and because we are so many and so different.
Talking more specifically about activities I like more, I can say that I prefer theoretical tasks rather than practical ones. What I mean is that I really enjoy edit texts or choosing images and contents to be put in a project, software or whatelse. So far, the tasks I enjoyed more have been designing contents for presentations and discussing with all of you, besides to reading, analysing texts and writing. I know, I have mentioned this already, but it is true...
Programming or alike don't appeal me that much...but I'm becoming more open to the new, thus I would conclude saying "never say never".
That's it for the moment.
Looking forward to reading your posts,

Veronica.