Welcome Members of DIM-Barcelona, SPAIN

Thanks to our visitors from DIM Barcelona-Spain, one of the greatest and most diverse cities in the world. Home to the best soccer team in the world, Barca FCB.....Can you tell I'm a big fan?
My blog is dedicated to the process of Learning anything interesting, with a tendency to explain and question things from the Science's and Technology's points of view, or at least I try to.
I hope you can enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.

Gracias a nuestros visitantes del DIM Barcelona-España, una de las más grandiosas y más diversas ciudades del mundo. Hogar del mejor equipo de fútbol del mundo, el Barca FCB.......¿Se nota que soy un gran fanático?
Mi blog está dedicado al proceso de Aprendizaje, con tendencia a explicar y cuestionar las cosas desde el punto de vista de la Ciencia y la Tecnología, o por lo menos eso intento.
Espero que disfruten leerlo tanto, como yo disfruto escribiéndolo.

Twisted Ankle - December 1st

I twisted my ankle two days ago playing basketball at a school activity. I guess the intensity of the game and being out of shape caused that. Anyway, my case is very similar to many others suffering from overweight. Limb and hip injuries are very common in overweight people, because knees, feet and ankles have a limit to support the body's weight.
So, Ive spent the whole day working in the computer and producing a lot. Browsing the links that I receive daily stumbled upon this video, that even though is titled Ankle Injuries, has nothing to do do with the physical phenomenon, but a lot with patience and creativity. Take a look at it.


Fujiya & Miyagi- Ankle Injuries from Insound on Vimeo.

Widgets - December 1st

I just found out this website called Sprout, it allows you to create your own widgets easily to promote things or to present information in an interactive way. I think it's a great way to make your web surfing more dynamic.



For those of you who have blogs and wikis, this list of places will also serve their purpose:

Lecturing - November 30th

Last week I went to Rio de Janeiro to give two lectures about Wikis and its uses in Primary and Secondary Education. I went to share my experience during this year. Until february this year, I had never worked in blogs, wikis or anything beyond MSN Messenger and basic internet search engines.

But it took only a few weeks of basic training, institutional support and self-learning to become the ICT Coordinator at my school.

Going to Rio helped me realize that even though I have the possibility to communicate with anybody in the world in real-time through Plurk, Twitter, or receive the information in a matter of minutes after it was published in any part of the world through bloglines; not everybody does it.

Part because their technological immersion is still in the rise, or because the need to do it has not reached them yet. It reached me quickly, and even though I will never stop learning I feel happy to be part of the educational technology world team, because the distances in a global community are reduces with one or two clicks.

Reading and Writing in the 21st Century

Learning to read and write are two of the most fundamental skills in humans. That's basically what differentiates us from the other superior animals. Although if you listen to many people talking or reading, it seems as if they didn't alphabetize at all.
Those two basic skills have been suffering changes in response to the changing technology in today's world.

The internet meant a whole new way of communication with people as general public, consumers, students and laymen. Advertising campaigns had to be modified to fit the format of small space and quick seconds-long ads from any brand or product in order to be published and targeted to specific audiences.

As any emerging technology, the internet had a great impact in children, teenagers and young adults. It is not a surprise that advertising in the internet was not different from the tv major campaigns. Even though it was an uncertain year or in the nineties when the internet got popular, it has consiolidated as a completely new way of doing business and shopping. It's not necessary to be hooked up to QVC or any other shopping channel, you could access to any brand with a website at anytime, from any part of the world.

And then came the Web 2.0, a brand new way to generate information. Anybody can contribute and/or publish anything, from family events to professional education. These technologies also require a new set of skills and styles of presentation of information. Because we read and write in different ways nowadays. It is actually not bad to write a lot through a computer, because you have the capabilities of instantaneous editing and improvement, instead of drawing scratches over paper, and pretend to move words with arrows from one position to another. The cherry on top is the fact that we pollute less and we help saving our planet.

And these days you can also read with your ears, yes. Thanks to audiobooks and podcasting, you can take lots of information in a simple mp3 player anywhere with you. So, everytime you're riding a bus, train or airplane, don't waste your time, learn something new by e-writing and e-reading (via audio or visual publications).

eWaste - November 12th

As much as technology help us progressing: Those of us who have access to: tv, cable, wireless phones, mobile phones, and computers are avid users of technology.
But, where do we dump our technology trash or waste. At the current rate, the life span of a mobile phone is between 6 and 12 months, a computer's 12 to 18 months, and so on, just to name a few of the most popular ones.
Unfortunately eWaste is discarded in dumping places in countries such as China, and many poor countries located in latinamerica, to mention some.

Let's watch this video and think twice before we want to change our mobile phone just because the new "in" model comes out.


Watch CBS Videos Online

The Future - November 2nd

I stumbled upon this conference about the future of media. Even though it's a long video, it is certainloy interesting to hear Gerd Leonhard, a known futurist, talking about Web 2.0 as our current future..... or present?