tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-305014482024-03-05T08:00:01.175-03:00ELT notes(e-learning, ICT, further education , & co)Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.comBlogger126125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-42771525860297393702024-01-31T23:29:00.000-03:002024-01-31T23:29:04.033-03:00Bilingual Musings<p> The most difficult text to translate is the one you have written yourself. I have long ago given up the idea of publishing the same idea of a post here in my blog in English and <a href="https://addendus.blogspot.com/">the one I write in Spanish</a>. When I attempted the exercise once, I felt I was a kind of traitor to myself. It was definitely someone else's voice I was using. It just did not feel right.</p><p>So how do I decide to write in one language or another in the first place? I simply do not. There are ideas that come to mind in a certain language and they are to be expressed there. The trigger of the idea, though may have been an article I have read in another language. </p><p>There are states of flow to be considered as well. A thought will take a different road in English or Spanish. Writing is travelling your mind inwards. The beauty of bilingualism is that words and syntax wire your musings into different adventures.</p><p>I am quite sure that if I used the first sentence of this post in Spanish and carried on, it would take me to some unknown corner of the city of my mind.</p><p>The way you express yourself in a language is a synthesis of everything you have read, shared and lived in that language. Life has a coding. Language is your life.</p>Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-69270591662612202952022-09-07T10:26:00.000-03:002022-09-07T10:26:19.177-03:00A Pdf Babel<p>There are so many books and yet, so little time.</p><p>That could do. If I knew you understood that feeling, I could end the post here.</p><p>I have more than enough downloaded books to read. That does not stop me from finding an ever-increasing list of alluring titles to download. </p><p>My mind feels something itching at the sight of my pdf collection.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi8-yBNqYFeBan5ZqTXCZ0x0RwcDlze_mVdzEYnvzFKYPCO7xl8ycj10CbOnir4ZvhMuQTb-3EDBPwj3agyQQ1XCmYMMSbP6wCdV8ZaybWtR-Krw7hmQqusMXYoEX1JAoiFyPVVsF1V13ukOWHtWY-U7wqMP5k8VyrID8DCOnf8yfpnbwfedg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1536" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi8-yBNqYFeBan5ZqTXCZ0x0RwcDlze_mVdzEYnvzFKYPCO7xl8ycj10CbOnir4ZvhMuQTb-3EDBPwj3agyQQ1XCmYMMSbP6wCdV8ZaybWtR-Krw7hmQqusMXYoEX1JAoiFyPVVsF1V13ukOWHtWY-U7wqMP5k8VyrID8DCOnf8yfpnbwfedg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.creativityculturecapital.org/blog/2021/09/13/the-parthenon-of-forbidden-books/"> The Parthenon of Forbidden books, ephimeral art by Marta Minujín</a>, photo from the artist archives.</div><br /><br /><p></p><p>My reading habits have radically changed. Years of hopscotching among blogs that lead to a link to yet another land of online interestingness have drawn new reading routes. When it comes to books in any format, fictional or other, the number of pages I read per day has diminished considerably. How many books can read in a year? How to select them? How many days do I need to finish an average 300-page book? </p><p>If I did the math -no, I won't- I am fairly certain the remain of my lifetime will not be enough to read those books. A daunting fact.</p><p>Borges, aware of his old age, once wrote that he came to the hard realisation that there were books on his shelves that he would not open again. Ever.</p><p>Still. I download books. </p><p>What do I look for there? Why persist in a futile attempt, when I <i>know</i> I cannot read it all?</p><p>Maybe it's the thirst for answering difficult life questions. Finding a few answers reinforces addictive pleasure circuits in your brain.</p><p>Maybe it's the configuration of my learner mind -with a thousand atomised interests that need to be satisfied.</p><p>Perhaps the answer is something far simpler and deeply engraved in ourselves. </p><p>Just like that intermediate zone of light and shadows that occurs briefly before dawn -or when you write a blog post-, I can now take a glimpse at the root of my thirst for books and see that what actually lies there is a sense of hope. It is simply human to hope beyond your lifetime. Because in spite of all the negative news being flung at us on a daily basis, beyond the painful gradual loss of a family member health or the overwhelming reality of a not too distant war, you would still plant that proverbial tree and take your book to cuddle up under it and feed on a fruitful, soul nourishing, human-scale hope.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-79437168789695757752020-02-08T20:44:00.001-03:002022-07-15T20:46:06.268-03:00Iteration in the Teaching Practice<p> If there is one elusive thing about teaching is being successful. The nature of success is, for the most part, an intangible, a structure usually underpinned in magic.</p><p>The other obstinate aspect of success is its short shelf-life. Success tends to obsolete the very elements that take you there.</p><p>Teachers may not be aware of that. Yet, their subconscious knows better. Every teacher knows there are no recipes for the job: any degree of mastery obtained results from the iteration, the conscious revision of what worked or not. The job is never well done. The teaching job nature is a state of flux.</p><p>I feel the teaching profession is one of the most puzzling ones in terms of defining the profile of the teacher. There tends to be a yuxtaposition of tradition and innovation in most educators. We all feel that certain things are right and many times we look for scientific substance to back up our decisions. Practice overrides many read materials. <a href="https://thejournal.com/articles/2020/06/02/survey-teachers-feeling-stressed-anxious-overwhelmed-and-capable.aspx">The reality of the job is so many times overwhelming</a>.</p><p>The pace of planning, delivering and correction leaves little time for a teacher to wonder what skills are being developed, ditched or badly needed for the new context. One thing is certain: we are practicing high resilience levels on a daily basis. A lot of teachers have been wondering for years<a href="http://eltnotes.blogspot.com/2009/09/21st-century-skills-reply-to-bud-hunt.html"> what kind of experiences the new tools can bring about</a>. Others rely more on the face-to-face model of teaching: I still hear some colleagues argue that the classroom experience is impossible online. Perhaps many teachers persist in their vision of some in-between-days we are living until schools reopen. The time the pandemic is owning is not on their side. But why? Why can't teachers embrace change even if there is no way out?</p><p><br /></p>Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-49119371033079923702019-02-28T20:07:00.001-03:002019-03-10T22:49:21.590-03:00On Being Interviewed by Gardner Campbell<p dir="ltr">As part of week two of the <a href="https://framework.thoughtvectors.net/">annotation project </a>on <a href="http://dougengelbart.org/content/view/138/000/">Doug Engelbart's 1962 report - manifesto- Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework, </a>I was interviewed by <a href="gardnercampbell.net">Gardner Campbell</a>, the project leader.</p>
<p dir="ltr">This open project has aimed at going back to the the dream of <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_pioneers">the pioneers of the Internet</a>, to review the vision they had of where we are today in our fast paced connected existence. Amid the foreshadowing of the then imaginary future, the flashback of trying to imagine how a man <a href="https://via.hypothes.is/http://www.dougengelbart.org/content/view/138/#annotations:3dCE9jQCEemiRve--e2Efw">could accurately describe the way I can read him and write annotations </a>more than half a century later, annotators from diverse backgrounds have been expanding the scope of our understanding about a distant 1962 mirror showing what interconnectedness could have been. Engelbart's image remains intact, as a young portrait of a visionary artist.</p>
<p dir="ltr">To make this project/expedition go further, a set of<a href="https://framework.thoughtvectors.net/featured/"> 14 featured annotators </a>have been chosen to explore another level of reflection, a meta-annotation context of sorts where people can voice their connections to the work of Engelbart as well as their choices of paragraphs for their annotations. To reflect on how you reach those reflections while recording emerging ideas adds a layer of interestingness I have not experienced online before.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Following the meta-nature of this project, I would like to write a couple of backstage comments around this interview, actually my first video appearance online.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Allow me to express that when Gardner asked me to be part of this, I felt challenged, honoured and intrigued. I went <a href="http://eltnotes.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-power-of-words.html?m=1">why-me mode for a whole day</a> or two before accepting. My educational background is far from engineering or computer systems. How could my own teaching English as a foreign language intermingle with Engelbart's framework? Yet one thing was certain: Gardner trusted I could make a valuable contribution. Trust does it. It dissolves doubts.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Gardner and I have been reading each other on our blogs for about a decade. As we recall at the start of our conversation, it was probably <a href="http://www.gardnercampbell.net/blog1/?p=521">a brief twitter exchange</a> followed by <a href="http://eltnotes.blogspot.com/2007/08/?m=1">curiosity and reflection</a> that made us stay on each other's radar.  That was back in 2007. We had never had a synchronous talk until February 2019.</p>
<p dir="ltr">It was such a treat. I hardly felt it was a first conversation. It was the closest thing to collaboratively blogging out loud. It just flowed and I personally lost track of time. Time travelling towards Engelbart's context in writing, Gardner pointed out the links between my ideas and the research framework of 1962; at the same time, I think we also resumed a conversation paused a decade ago, with our blogging spirit unmarred by the present disbelief which pervades in teachers' staffroon around us these days. We have managed to maximize the window where our visions were projected back in 2007. Luckily, that link has not been broken. It is still well worth a bookmark to revisit.</p>
<p dir="ltr">And now I choose to think we have had a much delayed first meeting of old friends. What you will find in that video is two people enjoying the chance of synchronous thinking together, intensely exploring our layered minds with our ideas and <a href="http://www.gardnercampbell.net/blog1/?p=2694">accelerating augmentation.</a> It definitely went beyond my expectations.</p>
<p dir="ltr">It has certainly been one of those <a href="http://stories.cogdogblog.com/connections/">amazing stories of connectedness</a>, not remembered, but recorded as it developed. It makes me grateful to live at a time when the Internet can unite Virginia and Buenos Aires with a click. Such an everyday thing, you say? But for those of us who started writing with a lonely typewriter, we still recognize Internet <i>is</i> magic.</p>
<p dir="ltr">All I can add to end this post is a deep heartfelt thank you, Gardner. I look forward to more conversations.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Special thanks to my <a href="https://revealties.wordpress.com/about-me/">blogger friend Gabriela</a>, who hosted the web meeting in her home and shared thoughts and lunch with me afterwords.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Hope you enjoy<a href="http://www.gardnercampbell.net/blog1/?p=2924"> the interview</a>.</p>
Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-16455132415096375752019-02-19T21:35:00.001-03:002019-02-19T21:35:25.490-03:00As We May Remember<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: right;">
<i>“...the<a href="https://hyp.is/cmgdaC2REemjgauHqMggTw/dougengelbart.org/content/view/138/000/"> symbolic portrayal</a> of each
concept must be such that the human can work with it and remember.”</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: right;">
<a href="http://dougengelbart.org/">Doug Engelbart</a>, 1962.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
When you touch a deeply rooted memory
in your brain, you unperceptively alter it. Your mind is not the same
who had a starring role in the scene, it is a mind quickly shifting
to director's mode. Our most treasured memories -for better of worse-
suffer structural alterations every time we revisit them. So do our
brains. You think you link to a memory. You actually create a new
experience, which, in turn, you will evoke, like music, only to edit
loops of future memories. And round and round you go carving on the
vynil of your brain.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I secretely keep a couple of paper
photographs I took of my only brother about 25 years ago. They are
not on any portrait in the house. They are hidden. My elder brother
left this world in 2003. Since then, I have kept a lonely ritual of
looking at those two photos once a year only, on his birthday. Why?
Because if I saw them every day on a portrait on my desk, for
instance, his image would risk becoming as meaningless as any other
mundane object. But, most importantly, because the revival effect of
seeing that face again in all its details would wane and I would
forever lose the beauty of its effect, the sense of newness in those
highly evoking traces of who he was -as well as who I was behind
those lens. Those photos are like great poems for me: rereading them
surpases my best word by word recall of them. I do not just see them
again; I experience them again.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Yet, <a href="https://facundomanes.com/2016/03/10/asi-funciona-tu-memoria/">neuroscience would quicklycontradict me</a>. I cannot keep old photos in the hope of making an
instant eternal. Apparently, every time we revisit learnt or
memorized events, we alter them by making fresh neural connections.
Our autobiographical, episodic memory is not passive at all. It is
one of the most creative actions our brains can engage in. The
context of retrieval is key. We build new relationships with the
memory of the scents, voices and photos of our most cherished times
lived. Accepting that it is impossible to go back and relive, all
there is left is a hyperlink between past and present, which is by no
means less fascinating than the paradise lost we long for.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I think it was Virginia Woolf who said
in a book here on my shelves -alas, I cannot google in it, so I will
rely on my memory- that she could get a sense of sadness mixed with
anxiety every time she realised that a good sentence not written at
the first moment she conceived it could get lost in her mind forever.
All she could be certain about, all she could distinctly remember, is
that the never born sentence was a very good one, probably a great
one, but sadly lost.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Writing as <a href="https://hypothes.is/users/claudiaceraso">annotating is a process of taking snapshots </a>of your ideas here today. Many a note in this blog
has been written in an attempt to capture what my own thoughts were
before I got in close contact with someone else's mind. Something
important, something I did not want to forget. A prompt, a writing
plan, a road not taken in my brain. So that after reading what other
annotators say you may, after all, go back to your ownfledgeling -
private- thoughts looking for a spark of a lost direction. Like a
sepia photo that smiles back to us from a distant time, to foster the
illusion of revisiting ideas, yet imperceptively modifying the
deepest layers of our thinking around them, creating new paths of
thought, as we may remember.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-52297359053888440942019-02-05T16:36:00.001-03:002019-02-05T16:36:41.905-03:00Amid experts and augmented novices<p dir="ltr">Today marks my 12th Twitter anniversary. Actually, twelve years ago, I simply signed in and remained silent for a while. Then I surfed and read about twitter to collect my thoughts on it, which resulted on a post called <a href="http://eltnotes.blogspot.com/2007/04/this-twittering-life.html?m=1">This Twittering Life.</a> A post I remember enjoying the process of writing and the aftermath in its comments. The friendly, long lasting connections made with valuable people have stayed alive over a decade now. </p>
<p dir="ltr">So I go back in blogging time tunnel machine and reread my 2007 self in a relaxed, guilty-less procrastination mode. Actually a retrospective FOMO pang tells me I must drain time in there. I stumble upon a quote with the powerful voice of <a href="https://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/12/httpwww37signal.html">Kathy Sierra. Her blog is up and intact since then -lucky us. I click on a random 2006 entry and I come across a compelling quote </a>which I <i>sense</i> (for lack of a better description of that kind of certainty) might augment my neurons on the <a href="http://eltnotes.blogspot.com/2019/02/larger-than-note-augmented-attempt.html?m=1">Doug Engelbart report I am about to reread and annotate</a>. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Here is Kathy's insight:</p>
<p dir="ltr">"Flow means we need a certain amount of time to load our knowledge and skills into our brain RAM. And the more big or small interruptions we have, the less likely we are to ever get there.<br>
And not only are we stopping ourselves from ever getting in flow, we're stopping ourselves from ever getting really <i>good</i> at something. From becoming experts. The brain scientists now tell us that <a href="https://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/03/how_to_be_an_ex.html">becoming an expert</a> is not a matter of being a prodigy, it's a matter of <a href="http://scientificamerican.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=00010347-101C-14C1-8F9E83414B7F4945">being able to </a><i><a href="http://scientificamerican.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=00010347-101C-14C1-8F9E83414B7F4945">focus</a></i><a href="http://scientificamerican.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=00010347-101C-14C1-8F9E83414B7F4945">.</a>"</p>
<p dir="ltr">If you guess that in my procrastication mode I deliberately clicked on 'focus', you get me. Yes, I did. Only to find a broken link!! Please someone tell the Scientific American there is a beauty in keeping an original url...</p>
<p dir="ltr">Agrr. It seemed to be THE link on the whole Internet I needed to get out of annotator's block syndrome! Nevermind. It is possible to bring it back through The Wayback machine <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070202163415/https://www.scientificamerican.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=00010347-101C-14C1-8F9E83414B7F4945">here.</a> </p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The Expert Mind</i> by Philip E. Ross, written in 2006 <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://wimse.fsu.edu/media/expert-mind.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiQlu3XmKXgAhVqHLkGHTBgC2wQFjACegQIBxAB&usg=AOvVaw3KIeAnEzrClp54HFOBy0_B">(download)</a> is a fascinating read. Ross gives that instant knowledge type -I could not pin upon-  a name:</p>
<p dir="ltr">"...much of the chess master's advantage over the novice derives from the first few seconds of thought. This rapid, knowledge-guided perception, sometimes called <b>apperception,</b> can be seen in experts in other fields as well."</p>
<p dir="ltr">A quick consultation with <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=apperception+define&oq=apperception+define&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.9006j0j7&client=ms-android-samsung&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8">Google defines apperception</a> as "the mental process by which a person makes sense of an idea by assimilating it to the body of ideas he or she already possesses." In addition, the <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apperception">Wikipedia apperception article</a> breaks down the use into different fields:</p>
<p dir="ltr">-The term originated with René Descartes and Leibniz "used the word practically in the sense of the modern <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention">attention</a>, by which an object is apprehended as "not-self" and yet in relation to the self." </p>
<p dir="ltr">-"In psychology, apperception is "the process by which new experience is assimilated to and transformed by the residuum of past experience of an individual to form a new whole. In short, it is to perceive new experience in relation to past experience."</p>
<p dir="ltr">-"The whole intelligent life of man is, consciously or unconsciously, a process of apperception, in as much as every act of attention involves the appercipient process."</p>
<p dir="ltr">At this point all this attention and apperception process reading resonates with the act of annotating as inspired in the <a href="https://framework.thoughtvectors.net/week-0/roads/">thoughtvectors site by Alan Levine</a>. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Alan says,<br>
"Note a connection with other parts of the document, or with your world, or with the world in general, then or now."</p>
<p dir="ltr">That is the augmented road to follow amid experts and novices. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Alan adds,<br>
"Don't feel you have to know everything before you can say anything. Sometimes novices notice things that are less visible to experts."</p>
<p dir="ltr">...which takes me back to Ross' article:<br>
"experts-in-training keep the lid of their mind box's open all the time, so that they can inspect, criticize and <b>augment</b> its contents and thereby approach the standards set by leaders in their fields."</p>
<p dir="ltr">We cannot read it all and yet, our last century learning-studying habits still demand we do so before we bring our minds to conclude something. So this augmented learning approach Ross described is all about the challenge ahead. The past text, amid a community of novices and experts around the globe now looking on Doug Engelbart's findings.</p>
Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-69723854935001047992019-02-01T09:50:00.001-03:002019-02-01T09:50:59.731-03:00Larger than a note: an augmented attempt<p dir="ltr">I have been invited by <a href="http://www.gardnercampbell.net/">Gardner Campbell</a> to join him in an <a href="http://www.gardnercampbell.net/blog1/?p=2861">annotating project </a>which will bring together students, scholars and scientists to look deeper into<a href="http://dougengelbart.org/content/view/138/000/"> Doug Engelbart's research report Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework</a> (1962). I am humbled and honoured to join them. I am also curious and excited about this open-ended learning experience.</p>
<p dir="ltr">As I try to <a href="http://framework.thoughtvectors.net/">learn more about the project,</a> I thought it would be a good start to drop some notes here about my questions, fledgeling thoughts and links as I embark in a new inspiring online journey. Mind you, I am not planning to be organised. I just attempt to gather enough stepping stones to cross a river into an unknown text for me. In my years as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language and a Translator trainee, I had not heard of Doug Engelbart.</p>
<p dir="ltr">So the questions come along: Who is he? Why is he so important? Why does it matter to go back to a text written in 1962? How does his research relate to languages? How can I relate to this study field and work? </p>
<p dir="ltr">According to <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart">Wikipedia, Douglas Engelbart </a>(1925-2013) was an <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_pioneers">internet pioneer</a> who studied in the field of <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human–computer_interaction">human computer interaction (HCI).</a> He engineered his way to invent the computer mouse and hypertext. In 1968,  while working for the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), he made a demonstration of visionary impact, which came to be known as <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_pioneers">The Mother of All Demos</a>. </p>
<p dir="ltr">At this point of hyperlinked, fragmentary reading, I get the feeling Doug was probably a born-teacher.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Prior to exploring links, the first thing I did before accepting the invitation was to plunge directly into Doug's original 1962 text. I had to go down several paragraphs before I sensed the text had something old in it. It was the mention of a typewriter that had a sudden time travelling effect. For the most part, you would not guess it was written over half a century ago.</p>
<p dir="ltr">My first impression was that it is kind of difficult to read. Or perhaps it is the way Doug tries to address an audience and guide them into his matrix. I do not think there were EFL teachers there. They were probably busy getting organised as <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TESOL_International_Association">TESOL in 1966.</a></p>
<p dir="ltr">I learn from <a href="http://www.gardnercampbell.net/blog1/?p=1434">Gardner's conversation with Christina</a>, Doug's daughter, that his father wrote in isolation:</p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>"It’s never easy to sum up a decade’s worth of thought, especially when that thought has seemed dangerous to utter."</i></p>
<p dir="ltr">Reading on, Gardner reflects on the nature of the text's difficulty:</p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>"But now it’s time for a confession. When folks ask me if I, too, find the essay difficult, I usually mumble some kind of assent out of fellow feeling. Yes, I do find it a challenging piece of writing—but no more so than Milton, or Shakespeare, or Woolf, or Faulkner, or Joyce. In fact, in its complexity and playfulness, “Augmenting Human Intellect” resonates with me very strongly as a work of art, even a work of philosophy. I can’t claim to have gotten to the bottom of it. Perhaps I never will. Art is like that."</i></p>
<p dir="ltr">Beautifully expressed. It rules out any giving up on reading on.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I know Gardner expects my educator's insights in my annotating contributions. Yet, at this first stage to approach Doug Engelbart's voice, I rely solely on my translation instrumental reading skills. I remember my Scientific Translation teacher now. Many times you must translate a couple of paragraphs from a field you know nothing about and must achieve understanding and accurate expression in another language in a limited time. You needn't be a medical doctor to translate one, but you must interpret and speak at the same level. We complained about difficulty, of course. How could we decipher the original written by an expert not even writing in his mother tongue? She always answered:</p>
<p dir="ltr">"It is just <i>text</i>." </p>
<p dir="ltr">You grab that flag and march on.</p>
Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-80234429243926794652019-01-31T22:26:00.001-03:002019-01-31T22:26:35.304-03:00The Power of Words<p dir="ltr">Sometimes you get a feeling that things come out nothing. They do not. They are the result of our perpetual motion and it could be a great start to ackowledge that.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Every word read, heard in a bed-night story or lovingly uttered to us leaves a mark, a trace, a foundation to build upon. I have blogged about identity as we shape it with our online footsteps coupled with remote interactions, but it is just a few days ago after an unexpected line up of planets, namely, a deep wish to come back to writing here, an out-of-the blue meet up with a friend to see Turner's watercolours exhibition in Buenos Aires and a Twitter DM from a blogger friend, that I came to a realisation, an obvious one: that my whole world of identity and connections is one made up of language with carefully scaffolded words. </p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mouthful_of_Air">"A mouthful of air" in Anthony Burgess'</a> poetic mode. Silently breathed keystrokes would do as a translation into our present business.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Back to the post. </p>
<p dir="ltr">There is something about the writing mode or silent voice that dictates blog posts in your head that requires a peace of mind not easily found amid day-to-day obligations. Caring for a sick parent, losing part of your job, living in a country with 47% inflation (yeah, read that again), studying (successfully!) six subjects to become a translator, a tenant leaving grandma's home in a state that will demand months of work, work, work...and -I almost forget- my cat gets sick quite frequently...all at once requiring portions of my attention...well, it all gradually silenced my inner bloggers' voice. </p>
<p dir="ltr">When people argue they have no time to blog, I suspect something else, not easy to succintly explain is the real reason.<i> Life happens.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr">I miss my voice. Luckily, I have this diary to make close contact again with that essential part of myself. It is quite shocking to see where my mind was then. Rereading provokes a strange sense of wonder. <a href="http://eltnotes.blogspot.com/2011/09/some-thoughts-on-identity-particularly.html?m=1">Was that </a><i><a href="http://eltnotes.blogspot.com/2011/09/some-thoughts-on-identity-particularly.html?m=1">m</a></i><a href="http://eltnotes.blogspot.com/2011/09/some-thoughts-on-identity-particularly.html?m=1">e?</a></p>
<p dir="ltr">With a Turner's stroke.<br>
Sunday was a sweltering summer day in Buenos Aires. I went to the <a href="https://www.bellasartes.gob.ar/exhibiciones/j.-m.-w.-turner.-acuarelas">MNBA museum with a friend to see over 80 dimly lit watercolors portraying a lifetime of changes in Turner's style.</a> A visual diary. From academic, traditional, controlled strokes compositions to a free, far and wide spots of a totally personal direction. Observing in silence and awe, my friend suddenly laughed and concluded that, in the end, Turner came to paint and express whatever he wanted. Even when he was paid to paint.</p>
<p dir="ltr">You want to be Turner. Especially as a writer.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Then we went for a long conversation over lunch. As my closest friends know about my online life with its line-up of thought-shaping companions, it was easy for her to understand me. I told her I got a Twitter DM from Gardner to invite me to take part in an <a href="http://www.gardnercampbell.net/blog1/?p=2861">annotating project of Doug Engelbart's 1962 paper.</a> </p>
<p dir="ltr">"But why didn't you tell me this hours ago as soon as we met? This is great news!", she said.<br>
"Yeah, yeah, I know.", I answered. Then I went on to explain some sort of meta-reflection on how timely this invitation was for one thing, but also my amazement -it will never cease to amaze me- how people remember what I have written or the impression those words made on them years ago. The power of it all making its way to this present day after such a long blog pause. So long that I almost forget myself, my own inner voice and I wonder aloud, wrongly believing this invitation comes undeserved to someone who has stopped reflecting online, as if that meant a kind of extinction of rights..."Why me?"</p>
<p dir="ltr">"Because of all the road you've made by years of writing," she said.</p>
<p dir="ltr">At this point I not only know, but feel these conversations are such powerful stuff. I am blessed to have friends who through life-savers to me like that.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I answered Gardner "yes". </p>
<p dir="ltr">So, here we go!</p>
Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-40835196074862809142018-12-31T01:07:00.000-03:002018-12-31T01:07:07.540-03:00Studying TranslationWhen I started a second course of studies back in the year 2000, I said to myself I would take it easy. Yet, little has been easy. I never thought it would take me so long. Life obligations knocked on my door in three different moments and as much as I tried, divided attention is not the best road to academic achievements, so I had to choose.<br />
<br />
I am confident I chose the right path. I have been present where my heart signalled I had to be. I thought there would be plenty of time ahead to pursue personal goals.<br />
<br />
Yet.<br />
<br />
There have also been moments when I felt I had lost track of my studies. Moments I had a bit of guilt -maybe- that amid the loving act of giving so much time and mental space to a sick loved one (or two or three one after the other) I had abandoned directing my energy to go after a dream of mine: becoming an English-Spanish translator.<br />
<br />
Lots of questions. Lots of what ifs.<br />
<br />
I passed six subjects this year. I had not hit a mark like that since my young student days of the Teacher's Training College. Indeed there is something deeply rejuvenating about pushing the limits, the limiting voice inside that says it is no the same to study as you get older. A friend of mine says I look younger now than a few months ago.<br />
<br />
I passed my last exam in December. Next year I will have to do an internship for four months and that's it.<br />
<br />
I am relieved, exultant, happy. I have finished. Done.<br />
<br />
I am already thinking of a future study project...But that's another post.<br />
<br />Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-55106592613697299652016-03-08T13:19:00.000-03:002016-03-08T13:19:23.417-03:00Identity revisited. Exploring the boundaries of our online selves.<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">A
few Internet years ago I wrote a post about my own identity online. I
was trying to collect my thoughts around what I show and not show in
various online spaces. I lingered on hyperlinked ideas of how up
close and personal blogging can be as well as the certainty that you
may be quite private and still reveal who you are. At least, the bits
of yourself that can fuel these connections we make online, even
nurture them into sincere friendships. </span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">My
mind was drifting along with some tweets the other night, when I felt <a href="http://eltnotes.blogspot.com.ar/2011/09/some-thoughts-on-identity-particularly.html">this 2011 post </a>and the idea of how I network online needs revisiting.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Alec
Couros posed this question: </span>
<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
What is your personal/professional policy in terms of what you talk about on Twitter and what you avoid talking about? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/edchat?src=hash">#edchat</a></div>
— Alec Couros (@courosa) <a href="https://twitter.com/courosa/status/706268614983335937">March 6, 2016</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Further
down the thread, Alec focuses his thinking camera lenses:</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">"well,
perhaps not policy but tendencies over a given time that
retroactively provide your usual limits."</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I
heard myself drafting a few responses in my mind, which I never got
round to tweeting. </span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Why?
-you ask.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">My
not responding fluently and confidently could be, at first, charged
to some degree of shame or fear suddenly surfacing to silence me.
Perhaps, this silence could be hinting at some gender issue. My guess
-or my preconception- is that men tend to be more prolific and brave
to speak their thoughts online. I lack serious statistics but, a
bird's view of people I read and follow gives me the impression it is
mostly men doing the talking. There are women bloggers I know who
gradually post less, much less frequently than slow male bloggers. Of
course, you cannot generalise.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Back
to my own silence. I think it's due to a simpler issue. In order to
answer that tweet I should've had to bullet point topics I do not
mention online and break my own rules. Frankly, I feel quite good and
safe sticking to boundaries of my own making whether online or not.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I
do not regret those unwritten tweets. I am more fascinated by digging
into a mysterious source of trust in myself that tells me something
is very important in that question which definitely needs answering,
yet -all at once- I feel something, at first elusive to
classification, needs rewording to make sense. At least for me. So I
go into pause mode.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">When
the ideas and words suddenly sound as if I were listening to music
from the bottom of a swimming pool, that is the moment I know an
important issue for me has been touched. I need not lose myself in
the stream. I need out, out where I can do some slow thinking far
from the twitter race track of responses. My version of slow thinking
looks like a blank page, a proper keyboard and my cup of tea.
Offline. And time, oh yeah.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Now.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">What
makes Alec's question so compelling?</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Five
years ago I pondered on </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>what</b></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">
I post online. What you get to see of me as a result of my decisions.
Alec's question points at </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>how</b></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">
personal or professional you choose to be online. It was the slight
perspective shift towards the process that kidnapped my thoughts the
other night.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">How
you post is often taken for granted. If you become fluent online, you
may easily skip this reflection and go straight to what should be
discussed. It is important to mark the omission because what you
skipped (hey, what you inadvertently silenced) could point to the
cogs in a broken online machine that need assessing and replacing.
How do you get to respond or not to important human issues online?
What drives you? What triggers you? There's a starting point for
fruitful conversations about topics still unnamed and hidden behind
the hype, the flashlights of the tech being used. If we thought about
alternatives to framing questions like...</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Is
(name the tool) good or bad for (pick your interest), what would we
be discussing instead? </span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The
tool is a mere anecdote, not the story. </span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">People
who do not have an existence in social networks speak of Facebook or
Twitter as places you go to and contaminate yourself with the
surroundings. Really? Are you a different self when you change online
space? A simple Google search can be so telling.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">How
personal or professional you choose to be online and why is no doubt
a great question. </span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Yet.
</span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">What
kind of bells did the original question ring to trigger my suspicious
mind and bring me to a response halt?</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Now
I clearly see it was the word Twitter that stopped me. Twitter used
to mean a gathering place we go to. To me Twitter is just paper
sticky notes, the Internet is the place. </span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Most
people (me too) use Twitter for goofy stuff, Phatic function role in
communication (I know, Roman Jakobson's theory is dated, but it helps
my point here). That trivial, seemingly unimportant use of the
platform is so, so human. Until Twitter first appeared, edubloggers
were experts I profoundly admired and responded to in fairly formal
blog comments. Today, a few of those experts are friends I hold very
dear. How did that happen? </span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I
see the point that if we can discuss important social issues on
Twitter, we can discuss them on the blog. But why wouldn't the
reverse also apply? The idea that certain media (social networks or
good old letters) are a more appropriate means depending on the
message is worth exploring. There is a huge difference between
clicking a love button on Twitter or spelling out to the other person
that you love them. Those are choices. It is not the tool but how you
privately position yourself in front of it. Even before that, you may
have already decided how open or reserved you will be on Internet
mediated contexts. Through time that can change.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Common
sense and literacy can help you in online interactions, but
ultimately you decide how you involve yourself publicly.
Self-awareness (or lack of) about your drive is probably at the root
of understanding/misunderstanding intentions or telling honest people
from scammers online. It is a safety issue. How we go online is
probably what we should be talking about to our students. We will
never be able to test how much they learn from it. Learning proof is
probably not that important. Focus shift is. If we just focus on the
measurable </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>what</b></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">
and skip the subtleties of the elusive </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>how</b></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">
we construct our experiences and relationships online, do we qualify
for teaching students today? </span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Discussing
contents to guarantee our students secure an employment in the future
is far from enough. Most of our students are going to first meet
significant others on the Internet. We do not want them to fall prey
of catfish. We are not experts ourselves, we are learning. We need to
discover and accept our retroactive steps and feelings towards the
people we have friended online. Students google us. They crave for
our own stories. The answer to that is not a power point with safety
rules before you post. An honest account of what we believe are
possible ways of building relationships across continents is ever so
powerful. That's teaching, the kind of teaching we do when we simply
open up and share ourselves in casual conversational style.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Can
you do that?<a href="http://readlisaread.edublogs.org/2016/03/04/privacy-revisited/"> Lisa can</a>.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">***</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Hey,
if I had answered the tweet, I probably wouldn't have written this
post. Ah... the carrousel a woman's mind can be while we stay behind
a screen voraciously reading while still silent.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I
find that fascinating.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Credit
where credit is due, i.e. inspiration attribution: </i></span></span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>This
post was powered by the online presence of <a href="http://educationaltechnology.ca/couros/">(the real) Dr Alec Couros</a>,
whom I strongly recommend following. You can count on his answer if
you reach him with your thoughts anywhere he dwells online. Far from
closing your thinking with irrefutable conclusions, he'll provide
further food for thought, which can distract you from the job you
should be doing. Consider yourselves fairly warned. </i></span></span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-12781363722422222602016-02-29T23:14:00.001-03:002016-02-29T23:14:44.541-03:00Writing it over<p dir="ltr">There is a special connection inside us that is activated every time we decide that our thoughts must be written down.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Why do I need to write? </p>
<p dir="ltr">To answer this, I should dig in my early offline writing days. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Yeah. I remember.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Time traveling back to the days when I first started writing my own experiences.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The first time was in story mode. I was six or seven years old and I had lost a pet -a cat. That was my first encounter with death, losing, missing. It felt devastating. A few months later, I realised I was also losing details of what were once vivid, beautiful memories and I could not bear it. I simply could not bear the thought of losing those stories as well. </p>
<p dir="ltr">I wrote to make sure I would remember. I wrote the main adventures shared with my pet from day one to the last one. He lived only eight or nine months. I did not have any photos of him. I wanted to embrace the experience by writing, to protect it from the passing of time or my own growth with its inevitable change in perspective. I wanted to save an emotional snapshot of myself being six years old.</p>
<p dir="ltr">It is a long story why, but I destroyed the manuscript a few months later. That is probably the single act in my life I truly regret. </p>
<p dir="ltr">I still write in that private way sometimes. A diary of sorts. Sometimes it is just a collection of prompt sentences, not a detailed story. Just enough to trigger the memory I want to cherish. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Facundo Manes, an Argentine neurologist who frequently publishes articles on how memory works, says that everytime we go back to a memory, we change it. Something in the brain is kind of coded again on the original episode so that the next time we remember, what we actually do is to go back to that last time we remembered and slightly edited our past. </p>
<p dir="ltr">So I understand this process is repeated until the original moment is gradually gone far back into ourselves. We lose their reality by remembering. But if we write about it, don't we stop the distortion of our past? If you re-read your own posts from a few years back, can't you reach back to yourself?</p>
<p dir="ltr">When I write here in my blog, I usually start by some ideas that spring while reading others. Something that touches a nerve of mine. Something on the surface trivial, but I simply know it is worth exploring in writing. For example, a few minutes ago I had to stop reading a blog post because the triggered thoughts of the previous one were flashing in my mind making it impossible to concentrate on the new post. So I decided to write to let it out or else it would not let me go on reading. </p>
<p dir="ltr">I can recognise that special sensor that identifies a unique moment to take a selfie of your thoughts. A recording of a precise way of expressing an idea that may drown into the daily routine and never surface like that again. So you jot it down before breakfast if it must be so.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I need to record the process -as I best remember- of the thoughts I am having, which are, of course, gushing out faster than I can touchtype. They may be gone quickly! Sadly, saving these thoughts is to no avail: science says I just keep making new memories by writing over old ones.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Snapshots of assorted focal points of me while reading. That's what has kept me on this blog for a decade now.<br>
<br>
I think I am far from seeing it end. </p>
Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-4301275783496468472016-01-31T23:33:00.001-03:002016-01-31T23:33:05.708-03:00Another Turn of the Daily Photo Carrousel<p dir="ltr">I am back at it. I started a daily photo project for 2016/366. Checking out my albums in Flickr, I found that I have never been able to complete the daily yearly album. That is challenging. Can I succeed this year?</p>
<p dir="ltr">I take or blink photos very often. It is something that I started doing in 2010 with the stimulus of the dailyshoot (snif, I miss that) as well as the photographers who commented my photos and published their own, they still do, on their blogs.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I found that I needed to find a new internal challenge this time. I was never pleased with shooting with my Samsung phone, so I decided to explore that as a way of getting out of my comfort zone. That is one push for me. Another thing I had always refused to do is to touch my photos with post editing, except for cropping, which is part of composing for me. So now I am making it a point of altering my photos, at times, beyond recognition. I try to see the image as an inspiration to draw and my photo as a model in the making. </p>
<p dir="ltr">A good old photo is still my love, though. It took me quite a few days to obtain a decent shot at these White Petals. The photo is not postprocessed and although it is not perfect, it satisfies me.</p>
<p dir="ltr">So far, I have completed my first month of daily shooting. I know that once my holidays are over and I get back to the teaching and studying routines, it is going to be harder to keep it up. What keeps me going now is trying to learn to see things differently, very differently. So I guess that when photo subjects seem scarce or I cannot find myself in the zone for inspiration, it is not about the objects around me being too familiar, it is about shifting the way I see them. </p>
<p dir="ltr">That seems to be all the prompting I need, at least for now.</p>
Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-13381801269515975002015-09-19T12:34:00.001-03:002015-10-04T09:41:57.151-03:00Reality Check<p dir="ltr">We often hear the adagio. In an age when the forms of communication have multiplied we tend to communicate less and feel more alone.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Mmm. Reality check needed.</p>
<p dir="ltr">We live in an age when you may be asked to work with someone based in a far off country. The company you work for says he is a member of your team. You are supposed to have the literacy for that.</p>
<p dir="ltr">We live in an age when people share their thoughts just for the love of blog and patiently build connections that light up their brains, create meaningful dialogues and, perhaps, valuable friendships.</p>
<p dir="ltr">We live in an age when a person could be forever grateful to a family who in the middle of the deepest pain decided to donate an organ.</p>
<p dir="ltr">If science and technology have allowed us to...</p>
<p dir="ltr">-make a living working remotely,<br>
-have an online home where people from every corner of the world can come for thoughts or conversation,<br>
-continue living although the heart beating in your chest has not been with you since you were born,</p>
<p dir="ltr">then...</p>
<p dir="ltr">We should be ready to accept that some of the people who will mean so much in our lives are always going to be far from reach. </p>
<p dir="ltr">We might never share a cup of coffee at the same table.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Sadly.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The saddest part, though, is not to accept this reality and limit our most meaningful experiences only to those who we can meet and share in f2f communication.</p>
Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-42965796006913101282015-09-18T21:34:00.001-03:002015-09-18T21:34:17.135-03:00Tales of the real, the imaginary, the online and the face-to-face<p dir="ltr">Some considerations on a missing link.</p>
<p dir="ltr">One of my favourite novels ever is <i>The French Lieutenant's Woman </i>by John Fowles. I just fell for the way it is written, the links between past and present all seasoned with beautiful use of language by a writer with a wide culture who can relate Victorian dresses to Egyptian <i>horror vacui</i> if he needs to make a point. I was so moved by the novel that I secretely began to dream that one day, some day, I <i>would </i>visit Lyme Regis to see the sights where the movie was shot. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Many years later my dream came true. I took an early morning train from London to Exeter St. Davis and a bus to Lyme. I remember the bus driver greeted everyone by their first name. He said to me, "Hello, dear". I felt at home.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I spent six hours travelling from and back to London and only two hours in Lyme. I could speak about those two hours for ages. I have never, ever forgotten it. Being in a place I had read and re-read about for years while I was much younger and then being there -I was in my late 20s- was as if past and present borders had become blur, but not with the effect of confusion at not being able to tell one from the other. It was the blending of my present and past into something new that resisted the language prison for lack of a name or another experience to compare.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I took photographs with my father's camera. I asked a stranger to take one of me on the Cobb looking just as Meryl Streep on the movie. I spent 20 minutes of my short visit silently sitting on th edge of that old Cobb looking into the sea. I thought about how small whatever problems or challenges I had back in Argentina seemed. I convinced myself it was so. They were far. Far away.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The main street in Lyme seemed taken from a childhood story book illustration. I stood at the door of a fossil shop and noticed some postcards on a metal holder at the door. I took one sepia photo which had been taken from the same spot I was standing at. It was marked <i>Broad St., 1900.</i> I held it up against the real street to confirm my suspicion. Yes, there was hardly any architectural difference between the sepia copy in my hands and the real, present street behind. I noticed a traffic light that broke the spell. I decided I would not take a new photo. I couldn't take a shot more faithful to the reality of me there and then in front of that sight. I bought the postcard.</p>
<p dir="ltr">One of my best friends back in Buenos Aires, after hearing me pouring all the details of the trip and my sensations, said that I had found out there in Lyme something that had always been <i>inside</i>. That made sense to me at the time, for most of my feelings in London were not just about the surprise of my first visit, but the confirmation of something I had always known. It felt more like <i>coming back </i>there.</p>
<p dir="ltr">This blogging journey -with interruptions and all- has been like reading a novel I like so much that it leaves me with a willingness to travel. Only this time I know that if Idid travel, the differences between the real world I could see there and the novel I've been reading and writing here will not be that many. I should not be so surprised to confirm that what I read is real.</p>
<p dir="ltr">But <i>how</i> real?</p>
<p dir="ltr">In that book, John Fowles makes a kind of experiment pretending he is writing a novel that he, as a writer, cannot predict the ending. He is discovering it all along. Far from an omniscient narrator decreeing what should happen, he is respecting the integrity of the characters of his imagination and following what <i>they ask</i> him to write about them.</p>
<p dir="ltr">An illusion broken? Far from it. Fowles draws you in with his technique. His famous Chapter 13, an essay on writing includes many quotables, I would like to bring just one:</p>
<p dir="ltr">"But this is preposterous? A character is either 'real' or 'imaginary'? If you think that Hypocrite lecteur, I can only smile. You do not even think of your own past as quite real; you dress it up, you gild it or blacken it, censor it, tinker with it...fictionalize it, in a word, and put it away on a shelf -your book, your romanced autobiography. We are all in flight from the real reality. That is a basic definition of <i>Homo sapiens</i>."</p>
<p dir="ltr">I believe that most of my edublogger friends around the world have started writing because they needed to create a spot of their own where they could be more themselves than in a real staffroom -staffroom where, for the most part, they have been seen as revolutionaries, idealists or, at best, edtech pioneers. I think I can sense a touch of loneliness in the voices from the trenches that reach out in blogs and voraciously read others in order to find echoes of themselves buried and resurrecting in someone else's penned thoughts. When you read <i>that</i> which you wish you had written yourself, then a potential connection is made. It begins with <i>resonance</i> in lieu of a shake of hands. The difference between meeting someone for the first time face-to-face or online is that the shake of hands is voluntary; <i>resonance </i>is not.</p>
<p dir="ltr">When offline-only people wonder why anyone would spend so much time and emotion growing a blog and responding to comments, they simply miss the point. There is no why, there is no purpose. Yeah, I hear you. Of course <i>there is</i>, but not in the <i>a priori sense </i>of creating a purpose. Not in the fashion of first I know what I want and then I go find it. If I do, success. If I don't I lost my time. Nope. It is a la John Fowles: you need to respect the integrity of the characters you meet, relate to what attracts you from them and find something that moves a muscle in your mind. Let that otherness play hopscotch with you jumping from the blog, across the tweet to you tube. Once you find these friends, they may continue writing about your favourite topics in common. They might just as well change interests. They may go silent and only post photos. They may share about their offline lives or not. They may live close to you or far, far away. They may disappear altogether. None of that is under your control. We do not know the ending. We <i>cannot tell</i> if the main characters will finally reunite.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Pure <i>resonance.</i> There's the missing link. And then?</p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Flow</i> with it.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Scary? Yeah.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Purposeless? Maybe.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Say more.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I do not know. I cannot tell you because I am too involved in the experience. I have -long ago- been drawn into a powerful game that never really stops. It's gone way beyond the blog. Way beyond how frequently I show up at the usual online spots. At this point, I wonder to what extent the words, the expressions Iam using here in this post are coming from me. There are far too many butterflies in my mind to tell the attribution of the words of others yuxtaposed with my own.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Let me try:<br>
The idea of "growing a blog" comes from Konrad (@teachandlearn). No doubt.<br>
The image of the "voice from the trenches" -David Truss(@datruss). That's how he described me the first time he linked to my blog.<br>
The "butterflies in my mind". That's from Alan's (@cogdog) beautiful, vibrant <a href=" http://cogdogblog.com/2015/09/14/connection-trick/">post.</a><br>
The "say more" is an echo of the many tweets from Bud (@budtheteacher) when he wants me to expand an idea. I think I have internalised at what points of my talking he would like me to explain what I mean.</p>
<p dir="ltr">You see, my friends are sometimes more myself than I am.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I struggle to express it better. I feel a frustration when I consider that only those who are already part of this reality can make sense of it while many more will frown at this rant (if they get this far). As a foreign language teacher, I wish I could teach you about it. Yet, I have always been and will be endlessly trying to overcome a barrier of <i>expression.</i> And every time my voice resonates in someone's head and they let me know, I feel miracles exist and I am deeply satisfied.</p>
<p dir="ltr">All I can teach you is the truth of my experience: I would not try to find anything too specific when reading and relating to people online. I go for <i>resonance</i>. If our natural frequencies are dissonant, I  simply stop reading until it evokes a genuine connection again. No worries about reading you on and off or whether you read me at all. If there was resonance once, I know it will bring us together again. For real.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzG5pQAzvMngnvz602yxXHm85VFeMOBY30zWw2zg8aBhvyFLl9ye-eE5Fg_0xBVlyrDdQaCJn8BhejFEfTx2EmlZO-w4OeeQzhpegqD909d-cAa7NmYQ1QkFPhN4GLWY4CwQCF/s1600/20150918_205046.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzG5pQAzvMngnvz602yxXHm85VFeMOBY30zWw2zg8aBhvyFLl9ye-eE5Fg_0xBVlyrDdQaCJn8BhejFEfTx2EmlZO-w4OeeQzhpegqD909d-cAa7NmYQ1QkFPhN4GLWY4CwQCF/s640/20150918_205046.jpg"> </a> </div>Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-978529465204523792014-02-06T11:38:00.001-03:002014-02-06T11:38:28.776-03:00Will you read this longer tweet of mine?<span style="font-size: large;">One thing I've noticed lately is how my writing/talking style in Twitter or Facebook became the same. I used to feel there were differences, but whichever they were, they are gone. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">For the better or the worse, the variety between the two social platforms is certainly disappearing. There has been a slow twitterization of Facebook and an even slower facebookization of Twitter. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm not sure I like this, but Twitter has started showing the context of your "conversations" by including your new tweet in a thread of what you are answering to. </span><br />
<br />
<img height="211" src="http://blog.reyjunco.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/twitter-bird-saying-facebook.001-e1326558542892.png" width="320" /><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I find it quite noisy to see those complete stories coming up over and over whenever you add to it. But what makes me reflect now is how that is affecting the way I speak/write. Tweets are even more succint and I assume people will go and read me in the context of a thread of exchanges. Why should I expect a reader in Twitter to go that extra mile for me?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I wonder how you find it or if you just flow with it. Yet, I like to tell the difference between writing less because my friends are wise enough to get it and writing less because the machine is making my own context redundant. So, why say more?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Thank you.</span><br />
<br />
Image borrowed from <a href="http://blog.reyjunco.com/college-students-prefer-to-use-facebook-in-their-courses">here.</a><br />
<br />Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-37262867806773780242012-09-02T06:06:00.000-03:002012-09-02T06:06:21.950-03:00My answer<br />
The question is: <a href="http://cogdogblog.com/2012/09/01/the-question/" target="_blank">Why are you not blogging</a>?<br />
<br />
I read, I agree with some points:<br />
-blogging is part of my thinking process.<br />
-sometimes ideas make you feel so full you need them out.<br />
<br />
I disagree with other points and wonder lots about the rest.<br />
<br />
I wouldn't say my blog is a diary and yet, it is not a conversation. Not always. To begin with, I think there are few readers of this blog. At least when I am writing, I cannot always picture a wide audience. Maybe a few friends. I don't think I write to say aloud what I am thinking and probably start a conversation. I write because I may choke if I don't. I may feel overwhelmed by a well written post. I cannot just nod. I need to make contact with my own perspective.<br />
<br />
I do lots of revisions of what I write. Prior to that, I allow myself to write as fast as I can. I leave grammar in stand-by. I even invent words or dig them up from a long-time-I-haven't-seen-it landscape, so I need to check whether they exist in English or Spanish or neither. Most of the time I am pleasantly surprised to find they do exist and they are even more precise and apropriate to the situation than I had thought. This is intriguing. I believe it's part of the thinking process. A linking from the present to whatever you may have learnt before.<br />
<br />
Writing here on the blog is miles away from writing an email -in my experience. My emails, I mean my work emails, tend to be three lines, maybe four. Maybe less if they are to arrange a Skype call or meeting. I am far more talkative here and, no doubt, wordier. Emails are more like talking fast; blogging is more like slow-motion thinking. It's about going down and further down into deep waters, challenging my diving skills. Success is not guaranteed: I may not get anywhere with my ideas. I many times feel as if I were drowning. Writing is a half-pleasurable sensation. I struggle to discover how I truly think about an issue as well as how to say what I mean. Stopping writing means not thinking it through. Not to dare think it through. That's not an option.<br />
<br />
I cannot think my post over before on the bus, or while preparing breakfast and then sit down and write it out. That would be too late. A good wording, a sensible ordering of ideas may be lost forever in those precious minutes. If right now my browser crashed and this had not been saved, two things would most certainly happen:<br />
a) I would never be able to write this again. It would sound rehearsed in the re-rewrite, perhaps, lose effectiveness.<br />
b) I may have clarified it in my mind already half-way down my writing and then it would not make any sense to write it again. I would lose motivation to do so.<br />
<br />
You say, what about sharing?<br />
<br />
You see, I am selfish, I blog for myself. I do not desperately need you to agree. I will not be any happier or sadder if you don't. Feel free because I am. I may be ashamed at my grammar mistakes or spelling mistakes and that's as far as I will give room to those limiting feelings. I have more important things to do.<br />
<br />
While I write, I have to dedicate my undivided attention to learning to swim in a new tide. After I review this and publish it, you may even be misguided into believing it a fully planned paper. Far from it. The truth is I know where I start the post; I have no idea where or how it will end.<br />
<br />
I do know how I feel when I start: I get a sense that the idea is important and a certainty that someone out there will also find it important. I know how the post ends: with a feeling I have surficed something that would not otherwise have come to the surface from my dark sea of thoughts. It's hard to describe. It probably feels like a hunch or an pang of intuition. It just feels that it is well said, well expressed. Not that I have arrived to the absolute truth. I have simply arrived to a peace of mind I get from being more accurate and honest about how I think. It kind of feels safe to read other people's blogs again.<br />
<br />
Then, the job. Review, polish, decorate with photo or not and press publish. All of this should be done at a sitting for me. Reviewing on a next day is something I would do if I feel that the issue is sensitive and I fear I may hurt someone. I know that when I feel it is my truth, I may sound too final and not leave much room for conversation. Not my nicest side, you see.<br />
<br />
In all honesty, I can hardly say I feel I contribute to the world. If I do, it's so much less than what I have learnt surfing the Internet. Anyway, here's my drop in the ocean.<br />
<br />
I have no control over you and what you'll do with these words. Quote them, ignore them, learn a line by heart. Comment, no comments: it's none of my concern while I write. It would interrupt me to imagine your reaction. As much as you will be welcome if you show some form of published reaction to these thoughts, the <i>value</i> of this post for me does not depend on you.<br />
<br />
The question of time to blog.<br />
I can relate to the idea that we make time for the things that are important to us. Because this kind of writing is important, I like doing it with time -free from the deadline imposed by the next commitment. Because , in my experience, blogging doesn't have any planned result as an email does; because it is the process of thinking I am sharing and not some final result I discovered to retell ten minutes later, I need to make sure I will have time to end it or risk it to drown under a pile of drafts. Blogging takes quality time.<br />
<br />
Should everybody, i.e. teachers, do this?<br />
Probably not.<br />
<br />
Should everybody try to experiment to discover what writing and publishing does to their minds?<br />
Most certainly.<br />
<br />
What's next? What if they like my blogging voice? I imagine a newbie asking.<br />
<br />
It doesn't mean you need to marry the outcome. You may shift to photography, drawing, telling stories of your own to your children and podcast them...<br />
<br />
You may hear people would like you to continue blogging, you may hear others who do not blog tell you their projections of what they would do with that literacy.<br />
<br />
So sorry. My blog is simply about my thoughts in the making. It is not about taking over the world or apologising. Least of all pleasing people. I'll write it as long as it makes sense writing it. This is the only diary-like aspect I find in it.<br />
<br />
However, if you discover in your blogging experiment that you <i>grow</i> by writing, getting tired of it will be hard. A hiatus may be necessary. Abandoning a learning path for good will feel awful.<br />
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-10955531360147677312012-08-24T13:07:00.000-03:002012-08-24T13:14:30.195-03:00Comment on Chris Lehmann's Blog<br />
Here is a comment I posted on Chris Lehmann's inspiring blog post <a href="http://practicaltheory.org/blog/2012/08/23/genius-v-expertise/" target="_blank">Genius vs Expertise</a>.<br />
I am trying to respond to Chris when he says,<br />
<br />
"It can take some really smart people — maybe even geniuses — to innovate. Let’s be sure of that. But the true gift lies not in coming up with the idea, but in developing ways for others to own it. We aren’t going to get four million geniuses to teach in our schools. (I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t want them anyway, the teachers’ lounge would become even more insufferable.) We also have to understand that expertise can become a prison of its own creation if it locks out new ideas and creates a hierarchy of “expert” that causes resentment, stagnation of ideas and entropy. And in the end, what both genius and expertise need is a healthy dose of humility because we should never fall in love with our own ideas, no matter how we came to them."<br />
<br />
My comment:<br />
<br />
I think I can see where you synthesis comes from. I would add that geniuses -moments of genius some of us could have- may just as well cause resentment among experts. Experts at their job as a result of having made a sustained effort over a number of years tend to feel slightly threatened by sparks of genius. Yes, I agree we should not fall in love with our ideas. Neither should we fall in love with our sustained effort. So humility does it both ways.<br />
<br />
On a side note, I can’t help enjoying the fact this post is written between two conversations with your f2f friend. I assume, perhaps I’m wrong, that your friend does not read your blog.<br />
<br />
When you friend says “The coming change in this country...”, the deictic “this” points to my own reality in Argentina as I read it. Perhaps we are not that far. East/West could be translated to Capital city and the provinces. I think we need to understand the coming change is unloading our speech from trying to decide which way is best for us, seen from where we come from, and making sure we provide students with a context to decide what is best for themselves, freed from our own dualities because we have solved them before taking action in front of them. If they can come up with dualities of their own making in the future, there’s an interesting change to look forward to.Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-92125900107705692992012-06-19T21:50:00.000-03:002012-06-19T21:50:18.843-03:00Identity: Re-inventing yourself one post at a timeHiatus over. Sometimes you need to stop the inertia that keeps you going without questioning. What I've been up to and, most importantly, what triggered it is subject for another post. Here I just want to say that coming back from the hiatus is easier when your friends unite in conversation about a topic that interests me a lot: identity.<br />
<br />
<div>
</div>
<div>
The virtual meeting is at David Truss' blog post: <a href="http://pairadimes.davidtruss.com/blurred-identity-lines">Blurred Identity Lines</a>. The words that trigger my thinking have to do with something I know David believes, since he had many times expressed so in tweets. Something along the lines that meeting f2f or seeing each other's portrait is not a condition to build these connections. It has not been our case, at least.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
I tried to summerize that idea in my comment on his blog.</div>
<div>
<blockquote>
"David, you’re probably the closest person to my thinking that meeting f2f is something that needn’t happen to make connections. I would like to extend that thought. I think that it would be rather limiting to think that the only meaningful connections to our learning and weaving the fabric of our beings are the ones who we might meet f2f one day. The world is too large to leave so many people and their uniqueness outside."</blockquote>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
The expression <a href="https://twitter.com/datruss/status/213974407201300481">"the fabric of our beings" is David's</a>. Isn't that plain beautiful? (Warning: I suffer from an instant adoption of that expression). We are weaving a fabric one post at a time. It doesn't matter where, it could well be face to face. The point is that learners like us are into building that fabric, which needs the connections to happen.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
An aside to these thoughts. Perhaps a word of warning. I'm not saying meeting f2f is not necessary or not as valuable as it is. I'm saying that online encounters for people who are committed to learning is revealing new aspects of identity building I would not have associated with Internet before. I mean, to the vast majority of f2f people and friends not connected to my profession leaving all or most of our interactions to online spaces or text messages is a sign not to overlook. When meeting f2f or a phone call has a local cost, not doing so is a red flag that tells me we are not that close friends. If I think about my adolescent students, their constant distractions with the mobile phones in class, the overload of importance (and amount of thinking) given to a text message from a significant other can make me shudder. However, this post is about people committed to keep in touch, not merely relying on lazy forms of near synchronous communication. It's about making a large word smaller. It's about drawing materials for the fabric of our identity with a far wider freedom of sources. That's what's new; that's what we have never been able to do before in the days prior to the Internet. I think it's worth exploring what it entails and enables.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Now, I believe David Truss and Alan Levine are attracted to another twist of the same topic: being one, being yourself, no matter where the connection is made. Alan would say (see <a href="http://eltnotes.blogspot.com.ar/2011/09/some-thoughts-on-identity-particularly.html?showComment=1315180179924#c6743900964902266457">his comment</a>) he is one Alan everywhere. Of course not all of Alan goes online. Privacy always exist, but he has been able to do away with pre-conceptions that being whoever you are depends on context -offline or online as if it were another place.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
For me, "going online" has been somewhat similar to becoming a citizen of another country. Not a new place, but a country -or more precisely a culture- I had been studying for years while becoming a teacher of English. College does not guarantee you'll get some aspects of a culture blended into the fabric of your being. Many teachers of English I know would never "feel" the language in the same way as your mother tongue. But for me, I started having a voice online in English; it was much later that I started blogging in Spanish. I do change the topics I blog about when I shift languages. If you think translating them is easy since I am the writer as well as translator, you might as well delude yourself. Nothing is as difficult as translating words passionately written. A language is not a tool. Translation has limiting effects; there are what we call degrees of translatability and localization of the message to a different culture in an audience. Just as in friendship, are you sharing and being in exaclty the same way with each and everyone of your friends? See? Those are translated versions of yourself at work.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
A language change is to your identity development something quite close to choosing connections which are outside your echo chamber. A comfort stretch exercise. Do it or not, it's your own choice and peril. Once you "speak" that new language from your heart, you need interlocutors. Isolation of important aspects of who you are, and what you believe in is death to the development of that richness within you. In a nutshell, don't try to learn a language if you are not going to have significant people around who would interact in it as a <i>preferred</i> means of communication. Same goes for ideas about education: you need context and people to make them flourish, people who share your learning direction, not the findings. Even if you don't do a project together, even if you never meet face to face these people are very important. I can say no one in my staffroom except <a href="http://revealties.wordpress.com/">Gabriela Sellart</a> understood fully what my blog writing implies. I could have never become so clear about what I believe without interlocutors who take me further. That's the value of blogging and connecting to me. The essence is in those shared values and directions, not in meeting face to face.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
I know it sounds harsh when I say it so bluntly. Allow me to go back to the word of warning above and extend that idea. Think of this scenario: your daughter has a boyfriend who only texts her, but doesn't see her much. Wouldn't you clearly see something is not committed there? Wouldn't you feel like advising your daughter there is so much more imaginary stuff than a real thing potential in that relationship? Sounds like short lasted, right? You'd probably agree with me that text, chat or other forms of communication are a nice I've-been-thinking-about-you message to support a well founded f2f relationship.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
I argue that the opposite happens online for committed learners. Why is that possible? Because in the day-to-day flow of so many bureocratic aspects of teaching, complying with syllabuses and the like, we have lost the disposition to have reflective conversations in the staffroom, which has turned into quick plastic cup coffee places and the odd catharsis about being occassionaly feeling overwhelmed by the profession and parent's or manager's misunderstanding of our job. We make friends out of sharing some circumstances, but not out of shaping together our most valued beliefs. Blogs are not immune to trivia exposing, but let's be realistic: who would spend time writing, transcribing those mundane staffroom conversations or let alone reading them? We are too lazy to create that noise online. Besides, writing is permanent. People may quote you. So when teachers write, we tend to have something to say or we go hiatus. <br />
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
To build relationships over online spaces as a primary means of communication takes time. I don't know if more or less than physical spaces (I can't bring myself to use the word "real" spaces). I think it might take as much time because it is more relative to how aware you are about what you are after, how much you know yourself and how much meaning you ascribe to isolated words as opposed to words supported by consistency of previous blog posts, transparency about how you got there, etc. Writing about learning as a profession complicates it, because our "business" is change, innovate, then expand and change a bit more. In my case, dedicating so much effort to sharing my self teaching photography and dealing with issues of identity now has made me shift the topics in my writing and it most definitely made me lose contact with teachers who want fun activities or ideas for their lessons. Everything has a price, right?<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
If you are more "practically minded", I mean, if you set out to write a blog to make connections who might end up collecting partners around a f2f project or collaborate from a distance on a regular basis, then of course, all my talk about thinking and reflecting with online friends sounds too much bohemia to spend your time on. But with that criteria, why ask your students to read a short story by an author who is dead and will never interact with your students via Skype when there are so many authors alive? I wouldn't miss reading Shakespeare because I need a translation of bits of his language, understand his composition and poetic rules and know some historical facts to fully appreciate what I am reading. How could I say diversity is important in front of a student if I am not willing to go the distance to Shakespeare's context? How can we say our blogs are global just because they are online? <br />
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Speed of connections as well as instant publications make you think you can get wherever you need and learn instantly all the time or make a thousand friendships with so many followers on Twitter. Mind you, important learning, great ideas and good relationships still take a lot of time. Internet hasn't changed things much there. <br />
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
I'll remind myself to <a href="http://eltnotes.blogspot.com.ar/2009/08/sounds-of-silence.html">do the hiatus</a> again sometime. It's a sanity check of my ideas, of myself. I once was told I should care about my online "reputation" and post more often. For those who blog on as if they ran a business or promote it, as if they sold themselves to be called to presentations and build a reputation, it will be hard to grasp what I am trying to say about forging and identity, a presence and from there, build your relationships to end up with a nice fabric of ideas you can rely on. I don't expect to do this with thousands of people. A number that would seat around a good Argentinean coffee table will suffice for me.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yet-one-more-pic/5351561825/" title="Lectura by claudia.ceraso @fceblog, on Flickr"><img alt="Lectura" height="480" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5044/5351561825_3d70944ac0_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 85%;">Photo by me, at a café in Monserrat neighbourhood <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yet-one-more-pic/5351561825/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/yet-one-more-pic/5351561825/</a></span>
</div>
<div>
<br />
If you get the habit of speaking, shaping your thoughts and revealing the process online as a natural thing to do (i.e you blog), then, only then, I think something magical happens. There is a you that exists (or was born) online and that not all of the people in your face to face world know about. More dramatically put, they wouldn't care to know about. In a previous <a href="http://eltnotes.blogspot.com.ar/2011/09/some-thoughts-on-identity-particularly.html">post on identity</a> I framed the question in a way my friends <a href="http://cogdogblog.com/2011/09/05/the-vague-line/">Alan</a> and <a href="http://pairadimes.davidtruss.com/blurred-identity-lines/comment-page-1/#comment-9847">David</a> have considered significant. </div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<blockquote>
"Let me ask you once again: Who are you when you write online? Think of it conversely. The offline-only people in your lives who have never ever cared to read what you passionately write about, who do they actually know?"</blockquote>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Don't get me wrong. Don't rule out the f2f people who would not read your blog! Go inwards and ask yourself where you choose to reveal what and how to imbue each space you live in with the nature you've acquired in the other.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
There you have some learning exercise to spend a lifetime to master.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
</div>Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-57257949345674312262012-03-24T15:42:00.004-03:002012-03-24T16:24:25.834-03:00Identity Revisited<div><br /></div><div>I won't play around this. So let me say it straight: I simply want you to watch <a href="http://cogdogblog.com/2012/03/22/we-our-digital-selves-and-us">this 15' video</a>.</div><div><br /><object width="640" height="360"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/9ziS3mpjgvI&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/9ziS3mpjgvI&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="640" height="360"></embed></object><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>If you don't have the time, or rather, <a href="http://www.jabizraisdana.com/blog/2012/03/a-day-in-the-life-the-making-of-time/">you *think* you don't</a>, then read my post,which is loaded with the hope you will watch that video later.</div><div><br /></div><div>The story goes back to 2007, but given the fragmentary nature of snippets of writing spread all over the Internet, I am confident to say that this post could well make sense without too much background.</div><div><br /></div><div>What is more, it could even be worth it without a reader. I actually write this to make sense of my fledgeling thoughts around the experience of meeting people online.</div><div><br /></div><div>If I had to be precise, I would say it was <a href="http://cogdogblog.com/2007/05/01/tweety-bird/">Alan's post linking to my post where we truly first met</a> (see comments there). What happened to me the day I read his post was very similar to what happens to me now after watching that video. </div><div><br /></div><div>At the same time, the immediate reaction after watching it was a mental link to a lesson I taught the day before yesterday as well as something I've read in the (online) paper this morning. </div><div><br /></div><div>The image of one of my students came to mind as I watched. He has heard me speaking in class about RSS readers and blogging and tweeting making email quite a basic and moderate technology compared to all that powerful combo. You can imagine what I was talking about, but the point is his eyes and body language were showing uneasiness until he bursted: </div><div><br /></div><div>"Oh you are a geek. I hate social networks". </div><div><br /></div><div>The evangelizer in me was about to go on a rage of passionate thoughts about my online experiences, but fortunately I said nothing there and then. After all, my student had already declared war to Internet possibilities without any prior experience -good or bad or indifferent- to account for it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Why my link to all this? Because I wonder about the people who do not share the same experiences of the web. People who have never read and felt deeply moved by Jabiz or Gardner also mentioned in the video. What do they understand from Alan's keynote?</div><div><br /></div><div>What I wonder is, can meaning be made without a prior connection to those people mentioned there? I am sure the intended audience of the video -<a href="http://flatclassroomproject.ning.com/video/we-our-digital-selves-and-us">the Flat Classroom people</a>- already have an idea of who Alan is, probably they've read a post or two of his and heard wonders about him from Vicky and Julie. </div><div><br /></div><div>Probably someone is now clicking on my blog, not because I am who I am, but because I am who I became for Alan, whom they "know" already.</div><div><br /></div><div>Two sides to this coin: how to express this concept of Digital Selves and how to grasp it. </div><div><br /></div><div>Whenever I need to teach (whatever that entails) any skeptical student about being yourself online, I am faced with that feeling of being in a prison I'd call "wordless". Talking about these elusive concepts emerging from my online experiences, I know I simply go around the idea, but I do not always hit it. On the other hand, I am glad there are good storytellers out there who can summarize it in 15 minutes of video, from <a href="http://cogdogblog.com/2011/08/30/dreams-cookies-epic-radio/">the experience</a> of loss and receiving my email to <a href="http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume44/APersonalCyberinfrastructure/178431">the concept</a> of a Personal Cyberinfrastructure. As you can guess, that's not an easy story to tell. Talk about literacy.</div><div><br /></div><div>I said my thoughts also <a href="http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1458422-aspero-debate-entre-islenos-ingleses-y-argentinos">linked to the paper</a> this morning. I read an article about the Malvinas/Falkland conflict. There was an online, perhaps via Skype, communication from a bar in Buenos Aires with another bar on the Islands. People, not governmental authorities, but ordinary people voiced their feelings about the most controversial issues around the conflict. In spite of the tension of the dialogue, some agreed both our cultures love spending time with friends at a pub. An Argentinean war veteran sympathized with a woman who lost her husband in the 1982 war as she still feels hurt. Neither of them knows the feelings at that moment had been foreshadowed by <a href="http://virtualreader.wikispaces.com/The+Man+He+Killed">Thomas Hardy's poem</a> long ago:</div><div></div><blockquote><div>"Yes, quaint and curious war is!</div><div>You shoot a fellow down</div><div>You'd treat, if met where any bar is,</div><div>Or help to half a crown."</div><div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>Would a war have taken place if people had been able to talk online like this 30 years ago? A participant in that conversation said that it will be difficult to solve the conflict while there are people who remember the war, who suffered the consequences and have too many emotions around it. It'll take new generations freer from the pain to really have some dialogue. And that's what I link to my feelings after the video. Alan made me play a big role in his story. I am so moved I write this right after watching -still exploring my thoughts about it. So how can I be the one to have distance enough to make sense of this for the audience of my blog or for my students? Can I? Really?</div><div><br /></div><div>It seems incomprehensible for those who dread the idea of being online. But then again, <a href="http://www.nicholasgcarr.com/info.shtml">Nicholas</a>, who is online, is far <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_Google_Making_Us_Stupid%3F">too negative about it</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'll try.</div><div><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yet-one-more-pic/6289941688/" title="A bit of fresh air by claudia.ceraso @fceblog, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6213/6289941688_06cf05d8b9_z.jpg" width="640" height="480" alt="A bit of fresh air" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>After watching the video today I felt something very similar to what I had felt when I first read/met Alan. It was the first link to my blog, I think. Definitely the first meaningful link. Because Alan had expressed how my idea triggered his thoughts and he developed it with a graph and all. I thought: he is teaching me what blogging means. There is a learning conversation starting here. This is good.</div><div><br /></div><div>But now, five years on, I see that he was not just modeling what blogging means. He was reiforcing a blogging direction I had already taken. I was *becoming* a blogger. And this is the point: One thing is to simply read and get informed, perhaps learn something, and quite another is to become, to expand who you are. <a href="http://eltnotes.blogspot.com.ar/2011/09/some-thoughts-on-identity-particularly.html">To revisit your identity</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, quaint and curious the Internet is.</div><div><br /></div><div>How else could it have happened? I mean, I had been reading blogs and seeing people linking to each other by then for sure. Yet that had been reading, not becoming. Blogging can be a loss of time to the outsiders while it feels perfect time spent to the bloggers. It's magic. We are so positive about it, but blogging just doesn't happen unless you make friends, folks. </div><div><br /></div><div>We are who we are because of those people who care to read and react, let their hearts rage a little with your words and then -this is key- they *do* something about it. Maybe write a blog post, tweet, shoot a photo or edit a video. Even if they feel overwhelmed by your words, they do not comment as fans, but as friends sitting with you at the same coffee place. Only then you can go back to writing emails that make more sense that the ones you used to write before these open writing experiences. </div><div><br /></div><div>I am so grateful to every <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/courosa/status/183017422163410946">reader</a> who has been touched by my words. My voice, my digital self reaching out here to you has grown on echoes of all of them. There are so many potential friendships out there. It's just so much more than I can express.</div><div><br /></div><div>So do go and watch that video, OK? </div><div><br /></div><div>It's a video in which I have had the surprise of unexpectedly meeting face to face with a meaningful part of who I am. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-54641037960679578322011-12-31T13:58:00.001-03:002011-12-31T14:04:30.858-03:002011 365 Photo ProjectSo here it comes to an end, or a new beginning. It's time to reflect what this photo project means and what it does, to me at least.<div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yet-one-more-pic/sets/72157625775405170/">Here</a> are the collected photos of the 365 photo project. I had<a href="http://eltnotes.blogspot.com/2011/09/what-ive-learnt-with-dailyshoot.html"> reflected before about the Dailyshoot</a> project in another post. That was more about technique discoveries. Now I have other questions on my mind:</div><div><br /></div><div>What does this project say about learning? About photos in my day to day routine? </div><div><br /></div><div>I think that the learning can go on daily as long as you make very, very personal. Technique goes to the background sometimes. It probably must do so, or perfection mania could take you to a photo paralysis.</div><div><br /></div><div>As much as <a href="http://eltnotes.blogspot.com/2011/09/some-thoughts-on-identity-particularly.html">I like being kind of private online</a>, at least compared to many of my friends, there comes a point where you simply show yourself (not literally, I'm not talking about self-portraits). I mean, if you have a keen eye and imagination, I guess you can see myself or even be here with me. Learning, the kind of authentic learning we passionately seek in edublogs cannot help but reveal the learner, it's the the process that remains elusive.</div><div><br /></div><div>What do my photos say about me? Let's see.</div><div><br /></div><div>I love food. I wish I were better at cooking. Registering the process or moments of success like this one keep me encouraged.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yet-one-more-pic/5601609521/" title="Pizza by claudia.ceraso @fceblog, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5306/5601609521_293d2e0254.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Pizza" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I simply cannot get enough of these tomato photos. My father takes care of these from his chair. They mean a lot to my mind, my heart and my mouth. Best tomato salads evah. Food for the soul.</div><div><br /></div><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yet-one-more-pic/6604479123/" title="Lots of Tomatoes by claudia.ceraso @fceblog, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7023/6604479123_6bf36a2a9b.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="Lots of Tomatoes" /></a><div><br /></div><div>I like football. Particularly at the Bombonera Stadium, the day Boca Juniors, my team, wins the championship :-) Anyway, there is always time to pause the cheering and look around to capture the faces of the most passionate fans.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yet-one-more-pic/6457594219/" title="Los hinchas by claudia.ceraso @fceblog, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7175/6457594219_444ef029ae.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="Los hinchas" /></a><br /><br /><div><div><br /></div><div>Now, what new habits have I learnt? What has this year in photos done to me?</div></div><div><br /></div><div>I have learnt to see beauty possibilities in the things I would normally simply throw away, unnoticed.</div><div><br /></div><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yet-one-more-pic/6221684542/" title="Gather Ye Rosebuds by claudia.ceraso @fceblog, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6216/6221684542_8b5f01cfe1.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Gather Ye Rosebuds" /></a><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>For the love of shooting, I have gone back to playing childhood games.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yet-one-more-pic/6066448517/" title="Play by claudia.ceraso @fceblog, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6090/6066448517_0b97fb842c.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Play" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I've become more bold and now regularly approach strangers for permission to take photos of their pets. Particularly when their eyes are begging for making new friends. Wouldn't you?</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yet-one-more-pic/5833482641/" title="I'd like someone to play with me... by claudia.ceraso @fceblog, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3142/5833482641_296b985ac6.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="I'd like someone to play with me..." /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>I've learnt to interrupt myself from my lesson preparation and endless correction pile to mark the magic sunset hour and rush to the terrace on the 27th floor to see what the light does to my corner of the world. I cannot believe I used to miss this.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yet-one-more-pic/6006578119/" title="My Corner of Town by claudia.ceraso @fceblog, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6022/6006578119_e88ae86b8b.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="My Corner of Town" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>There is something I have learnt that does not come out in any photo. It's the perspective you gain when you switch your eyes to photo mode. It's a decision to watch things differently, under their real light, a pleasant obsession with details, a new perspective, something that had never before been seen quite like that. For a few minutes, nothing else is.</div><div><br /></div><div>I heard someone say the other day that when you are on holidays, you cannot be taking pictures all the time because you miss seeing and enjoying being there by putting a lens between the scene and you. I think I get their point of being more concerned about having a record to show your friends, to prove that you actually were in, say, Paris, because you appear in a photo with the Tour Eiffel in the background. An artificial and over constructed photo. And yet, little do they know how much they miss out. </div><div><br /></div><div>I think I haven't shot any of the examples here for an audience. Not even to exemplify a photo technique. I did not detour from my daily obligations or wait for the weekend to have time to do them. I have done this for myself and for being there in the flow of things as they happen, making a half-concious decision to capture the vision. I think I would have regretted not taking them, although I am not sure why. </div><div><br /></div><div>So far, so good. I'll keep shooting. Expect more tomatoes, sunsets, dogs and food in my next excursion of 365 photos. I will probably not vary the photo subjects. You see, they are so worth it. They are intertwined with who I am as well as who I want to be. They are part of my overall learning, not just acquiring a few skills. This photos amount to something bigger than I can understand today. There'll be a day for pattern finding. Today I just want to pause before I go on.</div><div><br /></div><div>There is a lot in the way I've learnt photography that I wish I had a clue about how to teach it to my students. All I can do is write it out and share. It feels so not enough although I know this is important. </div><div><br /></div><div>Happy New Learning Year, friends. May you be surrounded by beauty and a camera to show me the way you see the world. </div><div><br /></div><div>Look forward to your thoughts.</div><div><br /></div>Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-34434880227758424032011-11-12T15:22:00.008-03:002011-11-12T17:17:24.801-03:00Voice as EdTech and a PoemThis is a short reflection and a little story about the use of my voice in a poetry class. I felt like telling you aloud more than writing to you silently. It seemed a more natural medium for what I had to share.<div><br /></div><div><br /><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashvars="audioUrl=http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6202949/Podcast%20-Amends%2012-11-11.mp3" src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3523697345-audio-player.swf" width="400" height="27" quality="best"></embed><br /><br />Duration: 8:42</div><div><br /><a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6202949/Podcast%20-Amends%2012-11-11.mp3">Audio Link</a></div><div><br />In the recording I mention my podcast Posterous site called Voice-Overs. Here is the <a href="http://voice-overs.posterous.com/adrienne-rich-amends">direct link to the reading of the poem</a> mentioned. <div><br /></div></div>Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-3455811663579178872011-10-20T13:23:00.002-03:002011-10-20T13:27:30.177-03:00Why I WriteI cannot resist the temptation to write about this. It's the <a href="http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/3663">national writing day</a> in another country, but when online, those boundaries are blur. I'll join the celebration. Here are my thoughts on why I write.<div><div><br /></div><div>I write to be and become a self that is nowhere else found.</div><div><br /></div><div>When my mind thinks in 'writing mode', I become a more organized and hopeful self.</div><div><br /></div><div>I write to make sense. I write because if I don't, bits and pieces of varied, so far unconnected dots, come to overwhelm me and intrude with every new idea. They have been waiting in line and look forward to coming into the light, shining and giving me a sense of peace and balance.</div><div><br /></div><div>I write because it's a read write web. The gems I find in my RSS create an anxiety or positive stress that urges me to write or let it die unsaid.</div><div><br /></div><div>I write in the here and now. I write in a way that cannot be left for later. Just like a landscape will yield a different mood and tone if photographed at different hours of the day, when I blog, I need to be an impressionist.</div><div><br /></div><div>As much as I write to reach out and connect to others with my links, I also write to shut out all the other voices and be in contact with me. No music in my room, no peeping into the Twitter stream. In my silence I write in the hope of being genuine. </div><div><br /></div><div>I write for my own selfish reasons. If they touch your own, if they erode a sinew of yours, then go on and leave a comment, o RT or write in your own blog about it (I'd much rather you did that). Otherwise, move on: it's all right.</div><div><br /></div><div>I write because, whether it ends up online or not, I cannot not write. (Believe me I keep as many drafts as you do, or more).</div><div><br /></div><div>I write to know where my mind is at and also, most importantly, where it is going. I write to know where my mind is before (before is the operative word) I read someone I admire, because, sadly, that could corrupt my own thoughts. It's a shame not to think for yourself. It's a shame to read somebody jotted down what you merely -lazily- thought about or hinted at. It's OK to find that somebody can articulate it better. I'd much rather comment "well said" than "I agree".</div><div><br /></div><div>I write because if I left this post for later, you may never see the like of it again. I write and publish to make sure that words will not be marred by my over thinking and prevent me from being faithful to my draft conversation style with you, dear readers, as I do now and today.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY3EqCR3dFFR1SULeGXf42jD0BT8rUzIa5d3wmW9c_WTAXE9luFQQEiSuar69JqaJDDyfNMEaZ5NG5HgtWfTjDNyK5gclq0-E2BiSC28XpK0R0ovPcSQqTH2pkzo-ckvJrVIhA/s1600/IMG_0091.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY3EqCR3dFFR1SULeGXf42jD0BT8rUzIa5d3wmW9c_WTAXE9luFQQEiSuar69JqaJDDyfNMEaZ5NG5HgtWfTjDNyK5gclq0-E2BiSC28XpK0R0ovPcSQqTH2pkzo-ckvJrVIhA/s400/IMG_0091.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5665609535479826194" style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-60520557895093971352011-10-16T13:36:00.002-03:002011-10-16T13:46:22.902-03:00Onwards and Outwords<div>This is another chapter in my informal learning of photography. It could be called:</div><div><br /></div><div>Looking for New Learning Paths.</div><div><br /></div>The sudden come to <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/dailyshoot/status/122231735864926208">an end of the Dailyshoot assignments</a> has set me into looking for alternatives to drive my visual creative journey. As uncle Whitman would say, <div><br /></div><div><i>All goes onwards and outwords</i></div><div><i>nothing collapses </i></div><div><i>And to die is different from what anyone supposed</i></div><div><i>and luckier.</i></div><div>(The word's are Whitman's; the line arrangement is the way I read it today).</div><div><br /></div><div>I admit I do miss the <a href="http://dailyshoot.com/assignments">Dailyshoot</a>. <a href="http://eltnotes.blogspot.com/2011/09/what-ive-learnt-with-dailyshoot.html">I've learnt a lot with it</a> as well as from the fellow players. Oddly enough, I welcome this end, because it is pushing me further into refining what I value about creating images and proceed to seize my learning in my own hands. </div><div><br /></div><div>I've been exploring what other former dailyshooters are doing now and I've found the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/scavengechallenge/">Scavenge Challenge </a>to be a nice twist and trigger for those who found the repetition of the photo assignments was a bit of a turn off. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yet-one-more-pic/sets/72157627777509877/">I'm giving it a try</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here's my first post-processed photo with <a href="http://picasa.google.com/">Picasa</a>. (Maybe one day I'll regret posting this for bad quality, but it's a start, a stepping stone.) The box of photo tricks wants to be opened.</div><div><br /><div><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yet-one-more-pic/6247752359/" title="Cubic by claudia.ceraso @fceblog, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6057/6247752359_544ec52ea2.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Cubic" /></a></div><div><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yet-one-more-pic/6247752359">Cubic-CC licensed</a> shared by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yet-one-more-pic/">Claudia Ceraso @fceblog on Flickr</a><br /><br /></div><div>I kept looking for prompts. I found that <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/lizinitaly/">Gwen</a> came up with a project of her own creation. It is simple and powerful. </div><div><br /></div><div>Her project is called a <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lizinitaly/sets/72157627839935976/comments/#comment72157627905761824">100 Possibilities</a> and it is basically to shoot a book in diverse creative contexts. Variations on a theme was also used by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/bztraining/">BZTraining</a> , who solved <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bztraining/sets/72157625826603246/">every single dailyshoot assignment with his two dogs</a>. It rendered great results in spite of (or with the help of) his self-imposed rule of the game. The most important thing is, as Gwen states it, to help yourself "push boundaries for a while".</div><div><br /></div><div>Browsing the project, I came across <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lizinitaly/6233307257/in/set-72157627839935976/">a poetry quote</a> that someone else provided in full in the comments. Funny that what had actually made me click on it was the image of the magnifying glass, which I thought I would use for one my own photos.</div><div><br /></div><div>The interesting thing is that Gwen has found a way to prompt herself. She is to find new contexts for her favourite book for a 100 days. Talk about keeping it simple, with a constraint that enables creativity. Her take away from the Dailyshoot is not just about photography, but about autonomy.</div><div><br /></div><div>Inspiring.</div><div><br /></div><div>Why not? And why not combine it with bits of the poetry I love so much I thought of those long Song of Myself catalogues that could easily become postcards and then, perhaps a video. So in my fledgeling thoughts of mashing up interests that drive my passion, I stopped to think that it couldn't be me the first one to have come up with that idea. After all, Whitman is cosmic.</div><div><br /></div><div>A quick <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?w=all&q=Walt+whitman">search in Flick groups for Whalt Whitman</a> led me to <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/1197487@N20/">a group by students </a>at a university with a link to the full project called <a href="http://lookingforwhitman.org/">Looking for Whitman</a>. The site is full owesome bits of inspiration that can move a brain muscle or two. More about it later, for the project is worthy of a separate post.</div><div><br /></div><div>I recently read somewhere that according to stats (so it must be true?), it would take three lifetimes to read all of the Internet content available today. Why do we stay on the same circles of friends then? Is it because they are the <a href="http://eltnotes.blogspot.com/2011/10/curation-between-you-and-me.html">best curators we have found</a> or because we are sometimes a bit lazy to push ourselves away from our comfort zone? </div><div><br /></div><div>And yet.</div><div><br /></div><div>Today, as I set my mind firmly into going away from the recommendations of my Twitter stream this morning, convincing myself that I am trying to pursue what I'd like to do with my creativity, I land on a project where Jim Groom, who is in my trusted network of curators and inspirers, has played a part. </div><div><br /></div><div>Wait a second. I was on <a href="http://bavatuesdays.com/its-a-friday-macguffin/">his website</a> last night to create my first <a href="http://eltnotes.blogspot.com/2011/10/messing-with-macguffin.html">MacGuffin assignment</a>! How come I've been going round in circles? My intention was to sail the vast open web, to go elsewhere, far out. This doesn't seem to follow the logic of serendipity. Six grades separation maybe? </div><div><br /></div><div>I'd call it an online dream.</div><div><br /></div><div>Over a month ago, I know Jim read and liked something I said to Alan about the mysterious nature of our connections, about the Internet being like a dream, only it's a real one. </div><div><br /></div><div>Jim <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/jimgroom/status/110519199260098560">responded</a> via Twitter:</div><div><br /></div><div><br /><!-- QuoteURL styled embed start --> <blockquote class="quoteurl-block" style="margin:0;padding:0;"> <ol class="quoteurl-quote" style="background-color:#fff;color:#000;padding:.4em;border:1px solid #888;-moz-border-radius: .5em;border-radius: .5em;width:90%;max-width:700px;margin:auto;"> <li class="hentry status u-jimgroom" style="clear:both;list-style:none;padding-top:.7em;padding-bottom:.7em;border-top:1px dashed #ccc;position:relative;background-color:#fff;"> <div class="thumb vcard author" style="float:left;margin-right:1em;margin-left:.5em;"> <a class="url" href="http://twitter.com/jimgroom"><img width="48" height="48" style="border:none;" src="http://a0.twimg.com/profile_images/422171253/3520162738_9d1359e37a_o_normal.jpg" class="photo fn" alt="Jim Groom" /></a> </div> <div class="status-body" style="margin-right:30px;padding-right:1em;"> <a class="author" style="font-weight:bold;" title="Jim Groom" href="http://twitter.com/jimgroom">jimgroom</a> <span class="entry-content" style="font-style:normal"><a href="http://twitter.com/fceblog">@fceblog</a> Dream a dream for me :)</span> <span class="meta entry-meta" style="font-style:italic;font-family:georgia;font-size:0.8em;color:#888;"> <a rel="bookmark" class="entry-date" style="color:#888;text-decoration:none;" href="http://twitter.com/jimgroom/status/110519199260098560" onmouseover="this.style.textDecoration='underline';" onmouseout="this.style.textDecoration='none';"> <span title="2011-09-05 01:06:45" class="published">05 Sep 2011</span> </a> <span>from web</span> <a href="http://twitter.com/fceblog/status/110518734535405568">in reply to fceblog</a> </span> </div> <div class="actions" style="position:relative;clear:both;"></div> </li> </ol> </blockquote><small class="quoteurl-cite" style="float:right;"> -- <a href="http://www.quoteurl.com/uhq9d">this quote</a> was brought to you by <a href="http://www.quoteurl.com/">quoteurl</a></small> <!-- QuoteURL embed end --><br /><br /></div><div>Come to think of it, it might have been a disguised assignment... </div><div><br /></div><div>Done.</div></div>Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-57059133835381533602011-10-16T00:17:00.003-03:002011-10-16T00:30:26.191-03:00Messing with the MacGuffin<div>I have found this digital storytelling <a href="http://ds106.us/2011/09/22/messing-with-the-macguffin/">ds106 assignment</a> interesting enough to stretch myself into learning some Picasa.</div><div><br /><blockquote>Wikipedia defines the MacGuffin as "a plot element that catches the viewers' attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction." For this assignment forever change the plot of a movie, tv show, etc. by changing a single line of dialogue. Put this new line of dialogue below a screen-cap of the moment in the movie you're changing. Credit to Tom Woodward for posting an example of this idea in the #ds106 Twitter stream.</blockquote></div><div><br /></div><div>The moment I <a href="http://cogdogblog.com/2011/09/23/a-night-not-in-the-box/">saw</a> a <a href="http://letsmakesomeartdammit.blogspot.com/2011/09/submitted-as-part-of-messing-with.html">few</a> <a href="http://www.samsonsays.net/2011/09/23/the-matrix-story-ends-quick/">examples</a> I got the idea for my own. I would have loved to have the fluency to create this as fast as a tweet, but I needed to get my fingers muddy in an image editor. Today I found the moment to play so here is "some art dammit!". Or so I hope.</div><div><br /></div><div>What if...</div><div><br /></div><div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnWwoKMIXojpe7kTJhDu7P7snRn8spClQTIf27G8TIGiWmhJZx51SxPv7eE2jL4b5JtraBZDulnTfon1W3iWXSznN_W0tGlHTDvV9_h9pTV-KQsWKRa89_lkKwcjerm8L9Xr_U/s400/MacGuffin-Bridges.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5663915034187937922" style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 222px; " /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Call me romantic for thinking Francesca had pretty good reasons not to get off the car and let Robert go away instead. I like the movie the way it is. I love watching that long, almost silent scene again. As if Meryl could surprise me by twisting the plot and doing a MacGuffin of her own creation.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/kOYk4LEsWak?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>My MacGuffin version is a stretch of the original assignment, for the words in the caption are not a change of any of the bits spoken. Granted. But hey, who hasn't thought of or even protested those words while watching <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112579/">The Bridges of Maddison County</a>?</div><div><br /></div>Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30501448.post-14758409547822314312011-10-14T10:22:00.000-03:002011-10-14T10:23:53.216-03:00Curation Between You and MeThe curator is as important as the information.<div><br /></div><div>At least, that's the conclusion I can draw from my reading and bookmarking habits. It's a pattern: whatever is shared by one of my trusted learning buddies has far more chances of getting my attention, of being saved for later or getting links in my blog.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nothing new under the sun in that first paragraph. What I wonder is:</div><div>a. How did that happen?</div><div>b. How valuable is that?</div><div><br /></div><div>a. It happens one link at a time intertwined with bits that tell me who the reader is and how close we are in views. Or not. The healthy tension of disagreeing is a fertile learning ground. I like and welcome a complete opposite view that makes it necessary to understand my own in depth.</div><div><br /></div><div>b. Value of curation. Lots of course. I'd say it has an "economy value" and a "rainbow value". When the same link starts pouring your Twitter stream as if it were a call for a fire brigade, it is good to see the different shades of colours in the views people you trust have about the same issue. It is instant. You get the main synthesis in 140 or even the questions that will need careful exploration in blogs. But the synthesis on its own might create a lasting impression in your view of the topic even before you decide to click on a well thought out analysis. This is how bias can shut your own voice up. Yet, I can confidently say I do not <i>become</i> my network, although I share many views. I just build my identity in their presence.</div><div><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/68259253@N00/2327329232/" title="Rainbow by Gail Johnson, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2244/2327329232_1098159607.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Rainbow" /></a><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/68259253@N00/2327329232/">CC licenced photo</a> shared by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/68259253@N00/">Gail Johnson</a></div><div><br /></div><div>What concerns me now is the "economy" value. By economy I mean the time and effort saved by not finding the information yourself. The value you can ascribe simply because of the source of information. A lot has been said about the time it takes to create a (personal?) network. But when you don't have the habit of reaching out and following new people not followed by anyone else, you risk getting a choir full of echo. You easily become interested in what concerns the (massive?) network. </div><div><br /></div><div>A detail I do not want to forget. Curation is mediated by tools. The tools we use come and go depending on the priorities of business people that have little to do with the idea that learning is a serious job. Anyway, we cannot even agree what learning is, so it is not fair to expect Delicious or Facebook or Twitter to facilitate it for us or help us to sustain it.</div><div><br /></div><div>When we evaluate a new link or tool, when we need to assess it again after using it for years, how do you know to what extent the curation is done by the network, the tool or you?</div><div><br /></div><div>In the meantime, who do you believe is doing it?</div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Claudia Cerasohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09303462904334693919noreply@blogger.com0