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November 21, 2009

Posting compositions to blogs

 

After sometime using the internet to help my students learn English, there are some things I have noticed that make me move to the blended learning path. One of the things that I saw was that as students use computers to write classroom assignments, they enhance their skills in computer usage. Before blogging in English, they do not know much about how to write a paragraph or even what to indent a paragraph is. Besides that, I have also realized that many of them continue using small letters for some words that should be capitalized. Many would say that the latter mistake is not related to computer use but to the way feedback on written work has been given, however, I think using a word processor makes the mistakes more visible. Finally, I have also realized that having students posting compositions on blogs make them more aware of readership and, as a consequence, they make an extra effort to improve their writing.  

 

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November 19, 2009

Invitation to connect on LinkedIn

LinkedIn

Jose Antonio da Silva requested to add you as a connection on LinkedIn:

Arjun,

I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.

- Jose Antonio

Accept View invitation from Jose Antonio da Silva


DID YOU KNOW you can conduct a more credible and powerful reference check using LinkedIn?
Enter the company name and years of employment or the prospective employee to find their colleagues that are also in your network. This provides you with a more balanced set of feedback to evaluate that new hire.

© 2009, LinkedIn Corporation

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July 7, 2009

Will you be there?

 


It was a beautiful funeral. Now Michael is gone and people who could have "been there" will never have a tomorrow to be with him. This song makes us think about how often we desert people when they need us most. Somebody in the funeral said that his only addiction were his fans. Brook Shields compared him to The Little Prince (so fragile). It was a beautiful comparison. To me he also reminds us The Devoted Friend of Oscar Wilde. This is the story of a little man who was unable to say no. He happened to have a neighbor who benefited from his friendship in the spring and left him alone in the winter. If we remember Michael's life, he was really lonely lately.
This makes us think about the friends we have and what kind of friend we are. Can our friends count on us only in spring time?
The spoken part says it all
In My Darkest Hour
In My Deepest Despair
Will You Still Care?
Will You Be There?
In My Trials
And My Tribulations
Through Our Doubts
And Frustrations
In My Violence
In My Turbulence
Through My Fear
And My Confessions
In My Anguish And My Pain
Through My Joy And My Sorrow
In The Promise Of Another Tomorrow
I'll Never Let You Part
For You're Always In My Heart.

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June 29, 2009

Social Networks and the Green Revolution

 

 

The events unfolding after the Iranian election called the world's attention to the power of social media. Everything started with an election that is said to have been rigged. The opposition to the Iranian government protested and protestants took the streets and traditional media was censored. What followed next was a flood of news from social networks. Iranians used twitter ,  facebook , and youtube to post videos and text updates about the protests and the violence that the government forces used to deal with it.
Some international news commentators said some Iranians did not even know that their posts or videos were being read and watched all over the word. So, for many of them it represented the discovery of a new way of voicing their protests, of informing the outside world of what is happening in their country. The power of uncensored, unfiltered information is just huge and this made me think about the power of social media in educators'hands. However, just the other day, I listened to a university professor on the radio defending the reliability of encyclopedias in favor of wikipedia and other open platforms.

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Filed under  //   twitter social-networks green-revolution youtube  

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June 15, 2009

RSS: My Customized news

 

http://www.netvibes.com/#GeneralI remember that a text book I used to teach English some years ago predicted the advent of customized newspapers. Thinking  about RSS and how it has changed my life, I realized that RSS is just that: customized news. I am really a big fan of RSS because it allows me to visit all my favorite websites in one single page. Before using in (I use Netvibes more often than Google Reader), I remember that sometimes I forgot to visit some of my favorite websites. Now,  I can always  with just a click be updated on my customized news.  

 
José Antônio

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Filed under  //   rss webtools  

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May 28, 2009

Blogging in the classroom : A window of opportunity

 

 

As all my readers know, I have been blogging for sometime. However, I would like to point out that I really do not know everything about blogging. As my dear friend Carla Arena said "There is no recipe on how to blog."
My first impressions when I discovered blogging were as if a window, better a large door, had oppened in front of my eyes. I saw and still see blogging as a great opportunity to engage in meaningful conversations with my students. Better still, I see it as an opportunity for them to have conversations among themselves and with people outside the classroom walls.
Bloging in class has allowed me to see how gifted my students are in many areas. It opened my eyes to see and discover things about them that I would not have discovered otherwise. And I am sure it gave them opportunities to make discoveries and to get skills that are useful for them in the present and  that will certainly be very helpful in their future.
The picture I chose also shows, in my opinion, that blogging is challenging. There are lots of possibilities, but sometimes they are not so easy to visualize. You need to open the door. Next you will have to walk the path of blogging with your students. It is a big challenge to keep the conversation going. We teachers have to teach our students how to comment, we have to talk about the importance of replying to comments, and so on.

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May 23, 2009

The energy of a good class



I was just thinking about the feelings or the sensation you have when you are giving a good class. I think the idea of flow explains this feeling. According to  Csíkszentmihály   “Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity”  Being in class with your students is like dancing to a contagious rhythm . So connecting flow, music, the sensation I have during and after a good class, I decided to share this song that for me, at least, translates the sensation of flow.


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May 21, 2009

Social Bookmarking: Food for Thought

 
 
- How can online social bookmarking help you?
I have been using social bookmarking for some time now. It has been helping me to deal with information overload. What I cannot read at the moment, I can always save for later. It has also helped me focus and prepare presentations I have done in teaching conferences. With social bookmarking, I always have access to what other people have bookmarked on a given suject.
- What are the advantages of having bookmarking as a social activity?
The advantages are many. One of them is having your favorites accesseble anywhere, anytime. So, social bookmarking gives you mobility. Besides that, you also draw on the power of the collective to find resources, to discover new things, and to be updated on any topic you might be interested in.
- How could Diigo be used in your classroom?
In classroom, I could create a Diigo group on a subject of common interest for students and have them share there favorites. Once favorites are shared, I could ask them to review the shared websites writing comments.
- What were your main difficulties to get started with socital bookmarking?
At the beginning, I had some problems understanding how to download the bookmarking toolbar. It also took me sometime to realize that I needed to download the toolbar in other computers if I wanted to continue bookmarking from somewhere else.
- Did you find any interesting resources shared by your peers? Please, add the link to it.
I really liked the link of a blog post shared by Carla called 6 reasons why people aren't commenting on your blog I liked it because it is really instructive to all of us bloggers. I really don't think that getting comments should be the main reason for blogging, but it is always good to know what kind of tone makes a pleasant blog.
Kindest regards
 


 

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May 17, 2009

The Power of Sharing

http://www.diigo.com/friends/joseaokc


I have been using Diigo for a while. It has been helping me a lot in my attempts to discover and learn. Using social bookmarking has lots of advantages. One of the  advantages of having bookmarking as a social activity is the possibility of sharing valuable resources I find online with friends. Before Diigo, whenever I found something interesting on the web I had to keep if for myself only (first because it could only be accessible from my home PC and second because I could not tell anyone about my favorites). Besides being able to share what I discover, I have the luck of having access to what my friends bookmard as they surf the web.  Social bookmarking really draws on the powers of the collective and it is definetely fascinating.



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May 9, 2009

My students, technology, and I

 

The videos pay attention  and a vision of k12 students today really touched me so much that I decided to share a similar one. I hope you guys like it. It is not the first time I have watched them, I must confess. Nonetheless their impact is never the same, it gets better and bigger as you delve into the web 2.0 world. When you like something (the way I myself like technology and teaching), everytime you see it, you see it in a different way, with different eyes. I have for that these things are like movies you watch many times and each time you find something new and interesting.

 

       * How do your students learn? I think most of them are digital natives (and even the ones that aren't are quite familiar with technology) and they do not learn in the linear way we sometimes expect them to.      They are multitaskers and many times when I take them to computer lab, I see them surfing between the task they are doing and a google search or a youtube video. My most basic level students use google translator if they want a word instead of asking it to me

  • How much tech-richness does your curriculum provide? I don't think any school curriculum will provide any tech richness. In my opinion, its up to the teacher integrate tech richnesss into the curriculum.
  • How are you using the WWW to teach your students? I use every possible chance to use the www to teach my students. I use blogs, wikis, socialnetworking, and so on.
  • How do we turn our 21st century classrooms into learning engines? I think we can these by becoming learners ourselves. We have to admit the trials and errors that a tech approach to teaching brings along.
  • Are you engaging your students? To this question, I would say that I am trying to. Some activities turn out just fine, others not so fine. But overral I realize that students are learning.
  • What are your main barriers to incorporating technology into your classroom? The main barriers are my own limitations. It is sometimes hard to transform what the curriculum asks us to do into something interactive and engaging. 


 
José Antônio

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