Saturday, April 26, 2008

I lit 2048....

I just learned about the Darfur wall... a very interesting way to be able to donate to the people of Darfur.
Stella Porto - the darfur wall - 2408


Visit http://darfurwall.org and be one to light one more number and choose to remind everyone that all these lives do have a meaning.

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Thursday, April 24, 2008

Despite the setbacks, OLPC is achieving its goals in pockets around the globe

I think I have mentioned this project before to some of my classes... It is the "Negroponte project" that was in the media for a long time, and once in while more recently is reported as facing problems from competition (!) and skeptics. I for one, participated in the 1-month Get one, Give one campaign late last year, when for $400, one could get one machine and send another to any of the developing/underdeveloped countries participating in the project. So did my brother, through me - He lives in Rio and picked-up his machine last weekend when he visited us on his way back from a conference in Las Vegas. The machine is pretty incredible for its size and weight, and my boys use it for class work and amusement (although it certainly can't compete with the Wii...).

In any case, I was happy to read the following report today from Technology review...
Technology Review: Una Laptop por NiƱo

The machines are in fact getting to the places where they need to me. I just hope that this idea is not forgotten, and this kind of investment continues into the future. One more thing: we also need to concentrate in preparing those teachers. The teachers, who like the children, lack any support to become effective teachers and be able to employ these incredible machines.
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Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The urgent need to prepare students for a web 2.0 reality...

While in the universities we are still debating the validity of Web 2.0 technologies, those technologies are moving forward and engulfing the enterprise.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Web 2.0 is set for spending boom

Shouldn't we become more proactive in preparing our students for this new reality? In the e-learning arena, not only these tools will be available as part of organizations' infrastructure for learning, but professional will be required to understand and use them in an effective and productive way. Trainers, for example, will  be required to not only know how to use such tools, but also be able to teach others in the use of them in their daily jobs.

We are passed the early and near-sided conclusions that that social networking, blogs, wikis are a simple manifestation of individuals and affinity groups over the web. We are also passed the phase where this is considered as business model to sell and make a profit over the Internet. These tools are becoming part of processes and operations within organizations. Institutions committed to preparing the workforce need to take this change into consideration now, and avoid one more time the gap between what is taught and what is practiced and expected from professionals entering or re-entering the labor market.
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Learning by reading and interacting via blogs

Tony Karrer's blogpost from yesterday talks about blog learning. And shows several examples of not only learning new things through reading blogs, but the interaction can be very rich. This is especially important, give the reluctance that so many people have when setting up their blogs to allow comments from others. This post is worth checking out. Blog Learning : eLearning Technology
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