Invitation to Twine

As Michele Martin has clearly explained, in our third  Web2.0 Wednesday we were supposed to invite someone that is totally new to the both fascinating and  somewhat demanding new world of web2.0. We should take in consideration that, often, newbies feel hesitant about “randomly joining online conversations”. Although this hesitation is familiar to me, I’ve tried to join an online conversation in the attempt of making it look confortable enough for a “different kind” of newbie.

Thus, I will adress this invitation to join Twine, first, to someone I admire and consider as a young friend: my ex-student Julia, that is just finishing her master’s degree for  Organizational Behavior master program at Portugal. Her interests are adult’s training, e-learning and b-learning; as for her web2.0 practice, she joined twitter some days ago.

Twine presents it self as a service issued from the semantic web as it is explained in the overview, were the key words are: Organize, Share and Discover , while Twine gets to know you trough your preferences and goes on making recommendations.

Its creator, Nova Spivack, calls it an “interest network” that synthesizes what we were aiming at with blogs, rss and social networks.

Which is the main difference Twine’s creator finds between “twinning” on one hand and blogging and social networking, on the other?

According to him, by interacting in Twine, he can better “participate in many different specific groups … around particular interests and relationships…” Not all different interest communities  can be blended together in a unique network. Or, in Twine, the author says it’s “very easy to create microblogs and microcommunities…”

Commenting this article inside Twine, Javed Alam adds:

“I think Social bookmarking/networking/media is an evolutionary phase of the “new Media” development. It will be very interesting to see who wins. The social networks like facebook, myspace where the members are the focus or the social bookmarking networks where interest brings people together.”

Howard Shippin says that Twine should also include blog features if it aspires to stand free above all the other interest networks:

“If Twine is to be more than a more clever and updated version of services like Ma.gnolia and StumbleUpon, I think that it would be sensible to place an equal emphasis on creating a satisfying interface for original authorship, since this is what would give the service vibrancy and genuine interest value.”

What do you think? The “new Media” development will give advantage to the services that both allow blogging and are interest centered? Do interest centered services bring more people together or, at least, in a more deeply way than member centered services?

Although it is still in beta under invitation version, the actual members have been asked to invite new friends to enrich the experience. I happen to be there by simple chance, I hardly knew where I was entering to when I first subscribed, but I’m enjoying it.

Thus, I feel encouraged  to extend this invitation to all the participants in Web2.0 Wednesdays as well as to all the members of edublogs and still far away, whenever there is someone feeling concerned by what is at stake. Just leave an email.

You could  come to Twine, have a look and judge by yourself. I hope you will come, Julia.

Drawing a Diagram

I must start by the fourth task of our Wednesdays, as I am still waiting for a friend of mine in order to fulfill the invitation to participate in our web adventure, that we have been asked to made up; it is a real invitation, I mean it, so I think it is worth while to wait.

After reading carefully the introduction of “this incredible list of tools” I decided to convert a simple table written in word into a colored diagram from Draw Anywhere after subscribing to the Beta Lovely Charts and after giving up my experience at Gliffy.

According to Cristina Laun, the author of this introduction, ” visual learners learn through seeing and retain more information when it’s presented in the form of pictures, diagrams”, and so on; I’m not a visual learner at all, but I love all kinds of “visual metaphors” as those I’ve found at Webilus I know I’m an  auditory learner and, according to Antoine de la Garanderie, this learning type of person does need to see graphics, schemes, visual representations of what they are or have been listening to, precisely because they don’t do it by themselves, they can’t see spontaneously with the eyes of their minds - when they are studying, for instance, I don’t mean it when remembering facts of life or when acting creatively. Thus I think both kinds of learners find different advantages and both benefit from being provided with some visual format of  their subject of study.

As my table couldn’t fit in the space reserved to the diagram, I only transformed the titles of this table:

In the Jing screencast words can’t be read; I don’t know why they became so small; in the diagram, on the contrary, I recognize that I exaggerated the font size.

I will try to do it better and then I’ll start again.

A Path along the Coast

There is a path along Cascais coast that may be taken as  something unique in both my culture and my personal life.

If you walk along this path facing the open sea you contemplate the Atlantic Ocean as it seems to widen and become as large as the whole horizon; if you walk facing Lisbon, where the river Tejo meets the sea, you will go directly to down town, at Cascais Bay. In any case, you’ll be following the route of the Caravels - the  sailing ships that, in ancient times, departure to or returned from  distant lands as India, Japan or Brazil with their precious cargo.

I often walk along this path, when, returning home, after school, I leave my car in front of the house and go visit my parents. As several collaborators in T.J. original invitation said, the proximity of the ocean is both relaxing and energizing, as if a healing power lay hidden in its deepness.

I stopped taking photos when my way made me turn inland, where an arch-like rock stands - called the “Mouth of Hell”.

The song that went with the photos was the story told by both a sailor whose ship has sunk in front of this coast and a lover who misses someone he calls “Crazy” - as in Carla Arena’s brazilian song - that used to wait for him at a certain window turned towards the sea. But I wasn’t sure if I had the rigth to use it on line.

I won’t explain why I’m so late to fulfill this task - as Michele Martin won’t stand any such nonsense - but I would just like to add that to me, dealing efficiently with practical items - such as web tools - turns out to be far more difficult than trying to reflect upon splendid posts and put those thoughts in written words.

Thus, after several defeating trials, I just  gave up trying to shorten the presentation with  Windows Movie Maker; then I tried Microsoft Photo Story and Slides Share - but the files couldn’t be uploaded - . Finally, I uploaded the photos to Flickr but they are showed in reversed order and I can’t figure why. Here they are - I hope!

Should I have asked for more help than that which is so generously provided to us at The Edublogger ? Or it’s just a question of training and being patient?

The Path along the Coast

A Web2.0 Bilingual Approach

After trying hard to create an online portfolio - until I realized that I had only read half of Michele Martin’s last post - I finally understood what we were meant to do for our first web2.0wednesday

Then, having gathered some inspiration from the awesome contributions of my fellow bloggers Carla and Kevin I made up this one minute presentation of the prevailing values in web2.0; I used different possibilities offered by  Photofiltre to transform a photo.

The upload system didn’t recognized it at first and kept saying the file was empty; I noticed that I hadn’t name the file at all; I also saved it as a j peg. file, although I’m not sure I needed to.

Reading with Discipline

I’m very happy with the great news: Web2.0Wednesdays is about to start!

To me it’s like coming back home again, like the return to real life, like gathering again with loved persons. I’m ashamed of not coping so well with the total freedom “regime” we have been on the last two weeks, but I simply could not discipline my readings.

Every time I look on Google Reader, my Delicious or Diigo I discover yet a brand new useful tool - as gliffy -   or an irresistible discussion  - as “How do you use Metaphors…” -  or an international event - as k-12online 08 - or an amazing reflection - as some EURODL papers -  that keeps me under its spell: no way to stop reading until I reach the end.
The issue is that there seems not to be an end at all: inventive tools just seem to  pop up each day from every corner, discussions link to new perspectives that multiply into more conversations, deeper reflections  open over unknown territories of thought …we are, indeed, engaged in an endless quest.
From behind  this concert of enchanting and multiple voices I can still listen to  Kirsty Dyer ’s advice: “Stay focused“. What  meaning  unfolds to me from this call?
I turn again to the Bamboo Project, I take once more Michele Martin’s questions to discipline my reading, to silence all the inner voices and commit myself with the risk of sharing:

1. What have I learned today?

R: From a Colleague: The light of the Sun takes 8 minutes to reach the earth.

2. About the progress of a particular project:

R: My “blogging pioneers” started the process of commenting; some of them learned how to insert links.

3. My progress in achieving a specific goal:

R: I’ve stopped reading and started writing again. But that’s only because I’m so happy for a new Challenge is about to start!

4. Advice I’ve received from other people:

R: From Michele Martin: engage in reflective practice through simple daily steps.

5. A Question you have about anything:

R: I really  enjoyed reading about digital literacy in the paper: “Towards a Theory of Digital Literacy” I would like to go deeper in this subject, I wonder where to find more of this “stuff”.

6. Joy of the week:

Having been nominated for the Challenge by Britt Wattwood: that’s a great encouragement and a total surprise that I deeply appreciated. thank you, Britt.

Father Stan Came to Town

Every year - for more than 13 years now - a Franciscan friar from South Bronx, New York, keeps coming to Portugal, to visit and preach a retreat to his youth group - “Jovens de S. Francisco”.

Father Stan is a musician, he composes all sort of different kinds of music, such as Jazz, Folk or Rap; he sings and sells his songs all over the world to get some money in order to help his friends in Bronx, where he lives with other friars and friends that were homeless once.

He also goes all over the world to preach, sing and visit friends, specially young ones, as this time he did with us, giving his concert in our school, in June. He came earlier than usual as he was heading to Australia, to collaborate in the organization of the youth world meeting that will be held next July, in Sydney, Australia

Webilus, Understanding the Web trough Visual Metaphors

As Michele Martin says in “If you behave like a disease…“:

“…using metaphors to think about concepts is one of the more powerful ways for me to both learn and to get creative.”

I would add to that the surprising power of visual metaphors to show, simultaneously, a whole set of implications and co-implications that may lay hidden within a complex concept.

I will try to embed Webilus gadget in this post so that anyone who doesn’t know it yet may visit it: it is a French site where we can find the best illustrations and images circulating in internet and whose common subject is the web in general.

These images, duly quoted and linked to their source, may be useful for several different purposes, from marketing ones to educational, and it seems to me that knowing not only how to use them but also how to make them becomes part of 21st century digital literacy.

A lesson with Hubble

Today we were going to visit our blogs during lesson time, but our net connection failed; as I had a new brand lesson prepared in my pen, students weren’t disappointed. I must remember that it is not enough to prepare a lesson in our wiki or in one of our blogs or in our Moodle platform; I must carry with me several lessons prepared, just in case.

For the technical set up of the lesson, as usual, my students did everything: to connect the laptop, the net connection, the projector and the pen; next, Filipa opened the power point and monitored the whole presentation; the other students read, asked and answered questions; I just stood at the back of the class commenting and provoking questions.

I’ve tried to present the role of conjunctions as linking words connecting ideas according to logical relations; I’ve downloaded photos from Hubble’s site and I’ve wrote all the sentences as legends or commentaries to these photos. They were enthusiastic about the amazing galaxy we live in and conjunctions didn’t seem so abstract after all.

Empowering Students

If I spent some free time with a small group at a time, I know they will be able to present the lessons themselves; and that is our ultimate goal, as says Sheryl Nussbaum Beach in her wonderful post Letter to my Colleagues where we can read:

“Want to know how a 21st Century learner learns? Ask them. You will be amazed at what you hear and if you are smart- you’ll act upon it. (…) Turn your classrooms into learning ecologies- learn with and from your students. Get rid of top down, expert driven instruction methods and nurture self-directed discovery- both your own and theirs. Turn your passions into classroom curriculum. Get excited and mentor your kids integrating your passions with core content and foundational knowledge. Help them develop a love and understanding for culture and our rich heritage.”

I agree with these words; it’s a question of time and passion, for us, to empower our young students and they soon will break free. We may verify it by visiting the beautiful blog of Laura

Building Community

Alberto asked me how to embed music files in his posts; I’ve suggested that, if he wants, I could write all the practical instructions about using web tools in his Blog; he would cooperate and ask other colleagues to collaborate; everyone looking for a particular practical information would go to his Blog and look for it.

Tomorrow I’ll ask two other students if they are willing to take in charge the work related with our library, including book reviews and so on; any other student looking for a book or wishing to post a review would go to their blog.

We may distribute by all the students’ blogs several different tasks at the service of our small new born community. Thus students would be progressively strengthened in responsibility, autonomy and initiative. Moreover, It would give them a motive to not stop blogging when the personal inspiration would seem to them to be “absent”, as they would feel that they are also in a mission, at the service of others.

Experiments On My Own

As nobody is looking now, I’ll profit to do some trials here: let us see…

It worked!

I’ll try a few ones more:

It looks fine too! I’ll go on…

The Last Challenge

In order to answer as I should, I must quote and link to almost every Blog I visited; as I can’t possibly do it, I will address all my gratitude to The Comment Challenge “general quarters”.

1. What did you personally gain from the Challenge?

R. A growing sense of belonging to a Community, the discovery of several unique “voices” at Edublogs, the adventure of writing and reading in a sharing perspective, the joy of rediscovering the beautiful English language - (my translation studies just seem to have been reactivated from a distant past).

2. What did you gain professionally?

R. My students will have a word to say…In the meanwhile, I may add that now I know where are the fundamental sources I must consult to study and put into practice the art of blogging and using web20 tools in the context of School.

3. Is this something you would do again? Why?

R. I certainly would, though I hope not in May again; it’s the most busy month of the whole school year as we have to correct tests twice and to deal with the ones sent by the “education government department” and to prepare the school festival; July or August would be most welcome. I’ll do it again because it enlarges my horizon and turn me to others, it makes me a better blog citizen.

4. What do you think you will do differently now?

R. I will share my e-learning endless quest, as I’m not alone any longer; my personal effort to put into practice what I’ve learned and admired will be more effective and systematic; I will use social bookmarking as a means of organizing my work while sharing it at the same time.

5. Top Five Lessons:

R: 1 - The use of several web2.0 tools.

2 - A more acute sense of duty, of commitment towards others and the joy that comes with it.

3 - A greater awareness of rights and duties implied in the exposure and building of our on-line identity.

4 - A growing sense of responsibility concerning on line possible issues for young students and more effective knowledge to counteract.

5 - The most subtle lesson, the most hard to express: the lesson on humanity that irradiates from such wonderful posts I’ve been honored to freely read and friendly comment.