Happy Xmas 2009

Happy Xmas 2009
Originally uploaded by carlaarena

I hope for a Xmas with more laughs and gathering than ostentation
I hope for a true Xmas spirit with children running around the house and laughing
I hope for a Xmas that unites
I hope for Santa's generous spirit for all

I wish you all a wonderful holiday season.

Testing Scribblar

Online

This topic is certainly dear to me. Just making a retrospective of my own blogging, I can see how many times the words connections, interconnected, relationship, connectivity appear in my writing, not to mention my talk. I can see how connectivity is part of my life in every sense of the word. In the past, I used to be connected face-to-face with people and that already fascinated me. Nowadays, besides the daily encounters with family, friends, co-workers, students, I´ve added my online connections as part of my routine and just as essential to it. There´s not a single day that I don´t turn on the computer, talk to people, learn from others, interact, join different tribes, smile and get excited with the tremendous possibilities I get from these digital encounters. They are no less important and real than every person I talk to, hug, laugh and interact.

The way I´ve linked and hyperlinked in cyberspace has changed how I view my profession and my sustained development as an educator and human being. I wouldn´t be here if it weren´t for a tweet from Dave Cormier.



I could be writing about any ed tech happening, but wouldn´t know about Darcy Norman´s project. Through my online circles serendipity is learning, a tweet surprises us, blogging adds to our voices and comments become the heart of these humanly ties that we start to cherish and long for. Through Slideshare, I pass on what I´ve been up to, even Facebook has its own connective role.

However, in an interconnected digital space, I´d say that my darling is Flickr! Not that the others aren´t essential hook ups. They are, and all the apps make a difference in the way we relate to others. But Flickr has just such a powerful appeal, and that´s exactly why tomorrow I´ll be sharing some of my ideas about it to a group of educators, and I think it has a lot to do what I think about humanware and connections. Flickr is visual and vibrant. Its dashboard shows who I am, whom I connect to, what makes me tick. Flickr reminds us of the power of an image. It empowers me to communicate, share and learn from my network. Flickr is part of my interconnected learning cycles about life, people and my profession.

Flickr - Design that Connects

View more presentations from Carla Arena.

I connect online through my learning communities, I thrive because of them. Technology is just the invisible hands that make all this possible and desirable.

WooHoo! Surfing Google Wave

The wave is huge, here to stay and to change the way we communicate. I was glued from the start. when I got there, of course there was a Webhead Wave! More than expected from this wonderful group of international educators who are always taking the lead when it comes to what's emergent, new...I had a lot of fun talking to my Webhead friends and testing things around.

Google Wave's interface is clean and user-friendly. The drag and drop feature to create a wave with your contacts and to add photos is fantastic. You can see everybody typing in real time and conversations just flow as if you were chatting with friends.

I can see a big wave of change in the way we'll be creating groups, nurturing communities, interacting with our students, and even teaching online. Can't wait to find more about the WAVE.

Rewarding Networks

Yesterday was delightfully exciting. Never have I worked so hard and intensively in different projects for the school I work for and my volunteer work in the communities I'm part of . No complaints. All the effort has been paying off. First, I got to know that our proposal to present in the TESOL international conference. More than being happy that our proposal had been accepted, we were thrilled to know that we will be able to share a bit of what we been doing in terms of language online learning. In fact, we don't want to show what WE are doing, but what our learners are producing, their content, their making sense of the world and the language.
http://listeningplus.pbworks.com/1o2008
http://www.pageflakes.com/edutechtools/24766454

Another highlight of the day was the e-tutoring online training session we are facilitating for the state of São Paulo educators. What an interesting, diverse group that emanates energy and curiosity about the digital possibilities they see ahead. It's a challenging mission because for most of these educators elearning is a totally new experience. However, I can see that they are into this new stage of their professional development. Uplifting.

Visit Online Start


Last but not least, as I was interacting with the participants of the training session late at night, I got to know first hand on twitter that I had won a nice blogging competition proposed by the inspiring Sue Waters. It was a simple task and one that everyone could contribute to create a mosaic of useful blogging tips.

All in all, the lesson of the day was that the best reward is being part of a network, a hyperlinked network of people who share, dare and help put together the pieces of our digital educational world. Thrilling.

Very Talented Co-Workers

Day 273 - Very Talented Co-Workers
Originally uploaded by carlaarena

Jazz it up Event. My friends at work, besides being great teachers, are amazingly talented. They sang for a full auditorium of EFL adult students, entertained them, engaged them and told them a bit about the history of jazz. Amazing guys!
I am proud to work with them.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LArGvQO2HK8

Do you or your co-workers have any special talents? How could you show it to us?

Cool Tool of the Week - DeepZoomPix

http://bit.ly/BBd8Y

Microsoft is testing an online tool called DeepZoomPix, which gives us an interesting overview to our photo albums. I chose to connect it to my Flickr account and grabbed some of my food photos. Here's the result. Pretty neat way of visualizing images.

Which of your pictures would you choose to test DeepZoomPix? Would love to see them, and I invite my friends Luiz Claudio, Rick Monteiro, Dani Lyra, Ronaldo Júnior, and André Netto to test it.

Blogging with Students in 5 Tips

Much has been said, written and commented about blogging for pedagogical purposes. However, never has it been enough. There's always more reading, more experimenting that can take blogging with students to another level. That's exactly what a group of new educator-bloggers has been discussing in an online session, Webtools4Educators. So, if I were to give any piece of advice, I'd stick to some ideas that have been part of my own blogging experience:

1. Be personal. Write a post that inspires you first and then one that compels others to interact with you, your ideas, your thoughts. Here's one fantastic example of what I mean. Luiz Claudio is one of the participants of our educators' online session, and I challenged the group to blog for interaction. Here's his post that makes us get back in time, retrieve dormant memories and feel like sharing with others. So, when were your first bitten by the music bug?
   
   
2. Challenge the mind and the senses of your audience by adding an element of surprise, unpredictability. Vary the way you post even if you've found your tone. If you blog with your guts, chances are you will stimulate others to interact with you, to express themselves. There's no formula, just a million different ways to awaken people's gregarious tendencies. One example? This post my student wrote about being a clown doctor. It was totally out of the common sense of what pre-intermediate adult students learning English would share about their lives.
   
   
3. Promote intercultural exchanges. Blogging is about getting from the inside to the outside, pouring words out, letting yourself be carried away. Many times it has been said how blogging gives the chance for students to connect to a real audience. However, more than a real audience, I'd add the idea of a real mixed multicultural colorful audience. Find online partners that are willing to commit to your blogging projects with your students. It makes a whole difference to learn about the world having your perspective as the starting point and spinning the globe with other cultural-enriching views of the world. I just love this blogging interaction I had with a group of students in Russia and some of my former students joining the conversation. And, certainly, one of my most dear international exchanges was with a dear friend. Different groups of ours interacted on a blog for one year and a half. Not only did the students write, interact, reflect, had fun, but we, the educators-facilitators guiding the blogging experience were the ones who probably gained the most from those exchanges.
   
   
4. Create passionate users. Ones that blog with passion - heart and soul.
   
   
5. And closing the blogging cycle, be personal by becoming a great storyteller. That's what blogging is about - a story told, another retold, conversations blooming everywhere.
   
   

5+1 . If you let me close with this +1 bonus tip, read these two stimulating posts that inspire us to give blogging a try with our students:

http://bit.ly/KubWL
http://bit.ly/vmx4p

And thanks Sue Waters for once again inspiring me to go beyond, to reflect and add a bit to this online community that helps me become a better person and professional every single day.

Thanks to the wonderful group of educators who have been inspiring me every single day since our online session started 5 weeks ago.

Empathizers, Educators

I must confess that I tend to go against the new buzz, trendy book, film, fashion. Seems even a bit paradoxical as I work with Ed Tech and am always tuned to the latest developments in my professional area. However, I try to give books, films some time after the excitement of their release to see if it is really worth it exploring the new concept mentioned, the new aesthetic idea...

Well, all that because of the book "A Whole New Mind". It was very much commented when it was out in the bookstores. I thought I should get it, but only now I'm delving into its ideas. Perfect timing! Wonderful read for any professional.

One concept that is worth exploring in any workplace. The idea that we need more "empathizers". That's exactly what educators should be working on. What are our abilities as educators that cannot be outsorced? How can we be meaningful in this conceptual age that arises?

Will keep thinking about that...

Facilitating Online 2009

Last year I tried, but was so full of projects, commitments that I could not really follow it. Now, I'll give my best. Though I have even more to do in terms of work, I think that the Online Session Facilitating Online is such a wonderful learning, networking opportunity that I can't help it, but to sign up again. And if I fail, I'll persist and keep insisting on taking it again, and again.

Well, a bit about me. I work as an EFL educator at a Binational Center in Brasilia, Brazil. I'm an EdTech Supervisor and am lucky to work with a wonderful EdTech team. I'm involved in teacher training, which I just love. I'm also in charge of the eLearning at Casa Thomas Jefferson. eLearning is an area my school has been investing on, and I'm learning tons. However, what really helped me get started in all this online world of explorations, networking and moderation was being part of the Community of Practice, the Webheads. These guys are my big source of inspiration and passion. Without them, I'd still be tied to my restricted physical educational space. More about me and the projects I'm involved in at BrazilBridges.

I do hope to learn tons from this online endeavor, the Facilitating Online 2009. I still have to figure out how I can effectively organize my time. Any suggestions are more than welcome!