1. Presentación y Aplicaciones y Recursos TIC

2. Blogs

3. JCLIC

4. Hotpotatoes

5. Wikis

La sesión versó sobre la creación de Googlesites y cómo se podría utilizar en un contexto educativo y Picasa. Dejo la presentación y los tutoriales aqui por si a alguien le resultaran de utilidad.

El site en el que se pueden encontrar los materiales es: http://sites.google.com/site/cursotorredonjimeno/

La presentación utilizada fue esta:

Finalmente, si os interesa la utilización de Google en vuestras aulas, quizás encontreis de utilidad estas dos wikis (en inglés).

Googlizealesson

Googletools

Espero que encontreis los materiales de utilidad.

No me gustaría terminar esta entrada sin agradecer a los asistentes al curso su entrega y atención.

Here it is!

Rapunzel 2.0

Habia una vez una pareja que hacía mucho tiempo deseaba tener un bebé. Un día, la mujer sintió que su deseo ¡por fin! se iba a realizar. Su casa tenía una lenta conexión a internet a través de un modem de 56K a través de la cual entraban al correo electrónico y miraban páginas sobre el desarrollo intelectual del niño. En la casa de al lado, vivía una bruja con una gran conexión con ADSL con la que se descargaba peliculas y canciones y estaba en todas las redes sociales. Un día, a la mujer, se le antojó ver la última pelicula de Tarantino. El hombre esperaba que estuviera en el cine, pero no estaba. Intentó razonar con la mujer, pero esta seguía con su antojo. El hombre la buscó en el videoclub, pero este ya había cerrado por falta de clientela; después se lanzó a buscarla en el top manta pero tampoco la encontró. La mujer seguía con su antojo y el marido, desesperado decidió pedirsela a su vecina.

- Está bien, me la bajaré. Pero a cambio me darás al hijo que tu esposa va a tener para que yo sea su madre.

Y al hombre, que su vecina la bruja le daba más miedo que un inspector de la SGAE, aceptó.

Cuando la niña nació, la bruja se la llevó a vivir con ella. La llamó Rapunzel porque no se le ocurrió otro en ese momento y no encontró una web que le diera ideas (y yo no tengo ninguna razón 2.0 para afirmar lo contrario).

Cuando Rapunzel cumplió doce años, era hermosa e inteligente. La bruja, temerosa de los peligros de las redes sociales, encriptó con una clave WAP su conexión. Cada vez que Rapunzel tenía que mandarle los deberes a su profesor, lo grababa en un pendrive y se lo dejaba a la bruja. Entonces la bruja lo metía en su ordenador, le pasaba un antivirus (era una bruja muy precavida), lo convertía a PDF y lo mandaba por correo electrónico.

Un día, un compañero de clase, asombrado por los buenos trabajos que hacía Rapunzel (y sin copiar y pegar de la Wikipedia, lo cual tenía doble mérito) la invitó a unirse a Tuenti. Lamentablemente, aquella invitación nunca fue aceptada.

El compañero, siguió intentandolo e intentandolo hasta que un día el profesor de inglés los llevó a hacer una webquest al aula de informática. Consiguió que el profesor lo pusiera como compañero de Rapunzel y cuando acabaron (eran muy buenos haciendo su trabajo), la convenció para que aceptara su invitación.

Cuando la bruja encontró el perfil de Rapunzel, se enfadó muchisimo y casi denunció al colegio. Pero al final, entró en razón (y los profesores respiraron aliviados) y sólo hizo borrar el perfil de Rapunzel de la dichosa red social.

Pero Rapunzel había descubierto que había vida más allá del buscaminas, y aunque seguía haciendo los trabajos y pasandoselos en Pendrive la bruja, quería volver a las redes sociales.

Un día, su compañero le dijo que en Facebook había conocido a un cracker que por apenas unos eurillos conseguiría desencriptar la red de la bruja.

Una tarde, Rapunzel invitó a sus amiguitos a casa diciendo que tenía que hacer un trabajo sobre las cotiledoneas. Despues de varios intentos fallidos, el craker consiguió romper la clave.

Desde entonces Rapunzel se creó un nickname de al menos doce caracteres y puso una foto de Uma Thurman y anduvo feliz por las redes de Meetic con su amigo, y el amigo de su amigo (y el amigo del amigo de su amigo, y el amigo del amigo del amigo de su amigo). La bruja siguió pensando que Rapunzel era inocente en los mundos de internet habiendola protegido de cualquier riesgo que pudiera causarle (sí, ya sé que en la Rapunzel análogica, la bruja muere, pero ¿qué malo ha hecho la pobre señora en salvaguardar la identidad digital de su hija?

¿Ah? ¿Qué no era su hija? Bueno, vale. Eso me recuerda a…

Los verdaderos padres de Rapunzel, crearon una cadena de correo en la que pedian a todos sus contactos que le ayudaran a recuperar a su hija. Si hubieran tenido una conexión mejor, quizás hubieran hecho otra cosa, digo yo…

1. The Internet is different.
It produces different public spheres, different terms of trade and different cultural skills. Schools must adapt their work methods to today’s technological reality instead of ignoring or challenging it. It is their duty to develop the best possible education based on the available technology. This includes products and new educational methods.

2. The Internet is a education pocket-sized center.
The web rearranges existing educational structures by transcending their former boundaries and fields. The publication and dissemination of media contents are no longer tied to schools and educational institutions. Education’s self-conception is—fortunately—being cured of its gatekeeping function. All that remains is the education´s quality through which education distinguishes itself from mere instruction and memorization.

3. The Internet is our society is the Internet.
Web-based platforms like social networks, Wikipedia or YouTube have become a part of everyday life for the majority of people in the western world. They are as accessible as the telephone or television. If schools want to continue to exist, they must understand the lifeworld of today’s users and embrace their forms of communication. This includes basic forms of social communication: listening and responding, also known as dialog.

4. The freedom of the Internet is inviolable.
The Internet’s open architecture constitutes the basic IT law of a society which communicates digitally and, consequently, of education. It may not be modified for the sake of protecting the special commercial or political interests often hidden behind the pretense of public interest. Regardless of how it is done, blocking access to the Internet endangers the free flow of information and corrupts our fundamental right to a self-determined level of education.

5. The Internet is the victory of education.
Due to inadequate technology, educational institutions, research centers, public institutions and other organizations compiled and classified the world’s information up to now. Today every citizen can set up her own personal news filter while search engines tap into wealths of information of a magnitude never before known. Individuals can now informed and educated themselves better than ever.

6. The Internet changes improves education.
Through the Internet, schools can fulfill its social-educational role in a new way. This includes presenting education as an ever-changing, continual process; the forfeiture of print media’s inalterability is a benefit. Those who want to survive in this new world of information need a new idealism, new ideas and a sense of pleasure in exploiting this new potential.

7. The net requires networking.
Links are connections. We know each other through links. Those who do not use them exclude themselves from social discourse. This also holds for the websites of educational facilities, the relationship between them, and their educational communities.

8. Links reward, citations adorn.
Search engines and aggregators facilitate quality education: they boost the findability of outstanding content over a long-term basis and are thus an integral part of the new, networked public sphere. References through links and citations—especially including those made without any consent or even remuneration of the originator—make the very culture of networked social discourse possible in the first place. They are by all means worthy of protection.

9. The Internet is the new venue for democratic discourse.
Democracy thrives on participation and freedom of information. Transferring the training in democratic values and its discussion and debate from schools to the Internet and expanding on this discussion by involving the active participation of the educational community is one of education’s new tasks.

10. Today’s academic freedom means freedom of opinion.
The Internet overrides the technological boundaries between the amateur and professional. This is why the privilege of freedom of opinion must hold for anyone who can contribute to the fulfillment of educational duties. Qualitatively speaking, no differentiation should be made between paid and unpaid teachers, but rather, between good and poor teaching.

11. More is more – there is no such thing as too much education.
Once upon a time, institutions such as the church prioritized power over personal awareness and warned of an unsifted flood of information when the letterpress was invented. On the other hand were the pamphleteers, encyclopaedists and journalists who proved that more information leads to more freedom, both for the individual as well as society as a whole. To this day, nothing has changed in this respect.

12. Tradition is not a business model.
Money can be made on the Internet with educational content. There are many examples of this today already. Yet because the Internet is fiercely competitive, business models have to be adapted to the structure of the net. No one should try to abscond from this essential adaptation through policy-making geared to preserving the status quo. Education needs open competition for the best refinancing solutions on the net, along with the courage to invest in the multifaceted implementation of these solutions.

13. Copyright becomes a civic duty on the Internet.
Copyright is a cornerstone of information organization on the Internet. Originators’ rights to decide on the type and scope of dissemination of their contents are also valid on the net. At the same time, copyright may not be abused as a lever to safeguard obsolete supply mechanisms and shut out new distribution models or license schemes. Ownership entails obligations.

14. The Internet has many currencies.
Educational online services financed through adverts offer content in exchange for a pull effect. A reader’s, viewer’s or listener’s time is valuable. In education, this correlation has always been one of the fundamental tenets of financing. Other forms of refinancing which are educationally justifiable need to be forged and tested.

15. What’s on the net stays on the net.
The Internet is lifting education to a new qualitative level. Online, text, sound and images no longer have to be transient. They remain retrievable, thus building an archive of contemporary history. Education must take the development of information, its interpretation and errors into account, i.e., it must admit its mistakes and correct them in a transparent manner.

16. Quality remains the most important quality.
The Internet debunks homogenous bulk goods. Only those who are outstanding, credible and exceptional will gain a steady following in the long run. The educational demand has increased. Education must fulfill with it and abide by its own frequently formulated principles.

17. All for all.
The web constitutes an infrastructure for social exchange superior to that of 20th century mass media: When in doubt, the “generation Wikipedia” is capable of appraising the credibility of a source, tracking news back to its original source, researching it, checking it and assessing it—alone or as part of a group effort. Educators who snub this and are unwilling to respect these skills are not taken seriously by these Internet users. Rightly so. The Internet makes it possible to communicate directly with those once known as targets—students, readers, listeners and viewers—and to take advantage of their knowledge. Not the teachers who know it all are in demand, but those who communicate and investigate.

• Behaviouristic CALL is characterised by the amount of grammar activities (drills) and multiple choice activities. The student received instant correction and the computer also had the opportunity to show remedial work.
• Communicative CALL developed the use of computer for discussion, not only for grammatical content. It was in this stage when simulation programs were introduced. The word processor started to be  used to check both grammar and spelling. It was also the moment in which the first applications that send data to the teachers were developed.
• Integrative CALL: It is characterized by the use of multimedia and Internet. Thanks to Internet, a more realistic and flexible way of teaching is possible. The learner becomes the real protagonist of his learning process.

Image from Extraketchup in Flickr

Why is it free? Has it got a worse quality?

It is not true that all software libre is free as many software developers live on their applications and they can sell them. But as I have said previously the fact that is open source makes possible that a lot more people can modify and therefore improve it.

On the other hand, what I have checked when speaking with (my friend) a software developer is that many times they try to make such a good product that many times they forget about making it visually appealing.

Why should we use software libre in education?

From my point of view there are some reasons why we should use software libre in education.

• Economical

As we don’t have to acquire licenses for each terminal, we can spend our budget in a more efficient way. Instead of buying licenses we can ask software developers to make an application that fulfill our necessities, or we can spend that money in forming ourselves… As well, many high schools and universities have degrees on computerization; by using software libre, maybe the best students could be offered the oportunity to work for that university with grants in order to develop their studies in favour of the institution.

• Reachability

There are enough applications to fulfill any user request. As well, many of those computers that still work but are not very modern can be still used as there is the opportunity of using an OS that requires less potent machines. We can also save money here.

• Values

Last but not least, and from my point of view the most important one is the values on which software libre is based. Knowledge has to be reachable to anyone, we all build our knowledge and from my experience anyone can be benefited. Doesn’t sound fantastic as a learning principle?

I don’t know how to…

I can tell you that I use Ubuntu and there is only one thing I find really difficult to do: Installing some programs that are not design as packets. For the rest of my tasks I have found an application that fulfill my recquirement. And they are not difficult to use.

There is not much I can tell you. I have changed my mind into “software libre” mode before I actually jumped into Ubuntu (which I made by means of neccessity to tell you the whole truth). Nevertheless, as private people we should be free to use what we want, but as public entities in charged of education, we should think twice what we do and what we want to transmit.

This video was the starting point of my complete change of mind, I still have a lot to learn, but I hope that it also helps you as much as it helped me.

PRESENTATION:

Free e-mail service

• Gmail

• Msn/hotmail

• Yahoo

How to Use Good Email Etiquette

BLOGS

• Blogger: Tutorial
• Wordpress: Tutorial

Wikis:

• Wikispaces: Tutorial

ONLINE WORD PROCESSOR

• GoogleDocs: Tour

STORYBIRD

Examples:

• Quaver’s birthday
• There’s no such thing
• Back to school blues

OPENZINE

Examples:

• Updating ELT: A classic reborn

vimpela
Updating ELT: A classic reborn

Create Your OpenZine

• Twilight

smiley-sarah123
New Moon Special

Create Your OpenZine

GLOGSTER

Example:

Xtranormal

Tutorial:

Example:

Toondoo:

Tutorial:

Examples:

sudakar

Robert the Bruce by sudakar | Make Your Own At www.toondoo.com

Kyolo:
Example:

Twitter:

Twitter in plain English:

Some interesting applications:

• Twtpoll
• Twitpic
• Twubs (why don’t you have a look at #greta09)

Social networks

• Facebook
• Tuenti
• Ning

Tutorial Ning

Tutorial Ning

View more presentations from guest87df.

CLASSTOOLS

Examples:

Click here for full screen version

Click here for full screen version

Click here for full screen version

YACAPACA

NOTELY

Blubb.us

Example:

Knowtes:

Find the Spanish version of this entry here

Let’s imagine for a moment a place in the middle of nowhere, a nonexistent imaginary place. A place where ignorance reign on TV. A place where everyone was so proud to belong to only when their sport team won some kind of championship. A place where instead of investing on improving everyone’s life, free candies were delivered to shut everyone’s conscience.. at the end of the day, didn’t the first empire invent something named “Panem et circensis”?

But, what is that? Latin? Did any of our TV star come from there?

In a place of that nonexistent country, while some thought about he unfairness of the rising of taxes (they had known so much about economy for all their life) and the vast majority where angry because their favourite TV program was no longer broadcasted, some people thought: “We have to invest in ourselves and in our future”.

And just then, they thought they should investigate how to improve their life. They though that investigating would enrich them, not only economically but also in their future. How were they going to have bread tomorrow if they were only worried about today’s bread?

But the leaders of the country didn’t agree as it was much more confortable to keep on giving people more bread and more fun, so they wouldn’t think and ask what would happen with them. Because tomorrow will come, full of bread and empty of knowledge.

Maybe this nonexisten country does really exist and it is called Spain. The Spanish government has thought that the best way to help us in the middle of this economical crisis is reducing in a 15% the budget in R&D, giving us today’s bread but regardless of what will happen tomorrow.

For this reason, and to show my disconformity with this (simplistic from my point of view) policy, this blog supports the initiative La ciencia española no necesita tijeras (Spanish science do not need scissors).

(By the way, I+D is R&D)

If you are looking for the English version of this entry, you can find it here.

Imáginemos por un momento un lugar en mitad de la nada, un lugar imaginario, inexistente. Un lugar donde la ignorancia se adueñaba de la televisión. Un lugar donde todo el mundo se aglutinaba alrededor de acontecimientos deportivos que hacía que su patriotismo se elevara a límites insospechados y la gente salía a las calles a cantar su orgullo por hechos deportivos. Un lugar donde se enseñaba a seguir a otro y no a pensar por si mismo. Un lugar, donde en lugar de invertir en mejorar su futuro, se repartieran caramelos gratis para callar a la gente… al fin y al cabo, ese era un método de indudable efectividad, inventado ni más ni menos que por un gran imperio… el romano… ¿O no inventaron ellos eso de “Panem et circensis”?

Pero ¿qué es eso? ¿Latín? ¿No es ese el lugar de procedencia de los protagonistas de nuestros programas de la televisión?
En un lugar de ese imaginario país, mientras muchos se pudieran quejar por la subida de impuestos (dándoselas de entendidos) y la mayoría de que su programa de televisión hubiera sido quitado de la parrilla, algunos pensarían “Tenemos que invertir en nosotros y en nuestros hijos”.

Y fue entonces cuando pensaron que debería investigar cosas. Porque eso no sólo los beneficiaría economicamente, sino también al futuro. ¿De qué les serviría tener pan hoy si no pensaban como tenerlo mañana?

Sin embargo, los mandatarios de este hipótetico país no estaban de acuerdo y decidieron que les era más cómodo seguir dándole a la gente pan y circo, y que no pensaran y que el mañana ya llegaría, con más pan y con más circo y más gente sin criterio para cuestionarse su futuro, lleno de pan, y vacío de verdad.

Puede que este hipótetico país no sea tan hipótetico y sea real y se llame España. El gobierno español considera que la mejor forma de ayudarnos en mitad de una crisis ecónomica es reduciendo en un 15% el presupuesto en investigación y desarrollo. Dándonos pan hoy sin pensar que vamos a comer mañana.

Por eso, y cómo muestra de mi rechazo a esta política (desde mi punto de vista simplista), este blog se une a la iniciativa La ciencia española no necesita tijeras.

As well, they allow to work collaboratively which can make the learning experience even more enriching from the point of view as everyone benefited from collective work. I strongly believe that this helps to create as well, a sense of responsibility and respect not only for the own work but for the final collaborative result.

Contrary to the blog, where you can’t find the last changes but only the final result, you can use a log of those final changes and, if your students are registered (which I strongly recommend) who and when have made them. From the point of view of evaluation, this may be also helpful.

From the point of view of technology, wikis are quick and easy to create and their development are very user friendly. Most wikis created for educational purposes uses editors wysiwyg, that make them an useful tool to work with. Many people say, and they are right, that to work with a wiki you only need to master two buttons: edit and save. And basically that is true.

One of the interesting features that wikis as many other web 2.0 tools have is that they can support any kind of files, like audio, video, allow being a platform for downloading other archives, etc, so we can use them for helping all kind of learning students or as reference webpage for our students.

Nevertheless, there is not a clear way for evaluating wiki use: what should we evaluate content or/and form? So before start using it, you should think about how to evaluate it. Even though you think that content is more important than form, don’t forget to compensate the technical skills of your students.