Category Archives: edtech

relacion que ira para EdTech research group

playing with kinect

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Week 38, 2012
Joensuu, Finland

Sorry I have been so silent in the last weeks. There are good reasons for it. For example: I went to a wedding from a dear friend of mine in Nice, then I recorded a lecture in WWEDU that is in Wels, Austria (I think I post something about it); then visited Gøvik University College in Norway; participated at the CIMUSET; and believe it or not my family and very special people were here, surrounding me for my doctoral defence.  Honestly, I had been learning A LOT in the last weeks and enjoying even more! =)  So, in brief I have to write much to catch up.

However, the aim of this post is to share a game, which I honestly want to try: Kinected Stories: The Interactive Storybook Series.

One thing I am very curious about in this game is the experience of using my imagination when I read a book and link it to the imagination of the creators of the game. When, we read a book, as we know, we use our imagination a lot, e.g., creating voices, describing characters, that this imaginative effort help us to immerse in the story. For one reason, it is known that first read the book and later watch the movie. At least in most of the cases, this is the flow to follow.

So, the video advice to play first and later read the book does not convince me 100% yet.  Nevertheless, I should understand it is a promotional video 😉

In any case, for sure I want to try the game!!!!! =) and when time comes, meet the developers too 😉

Getting vision for the future: One day, I think I will expand this playing curiosities even more….. getting ready for it!

school is not a synonym of education

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Week 33, 2012
Joensuu, Finland

Mónica, a friend of mine in México, sent me a link to a documentary produced by reevo.org which I highly recommend to watch. Specially for those who are interested in learning.

For me the documentary made resonance to my research in HCG. I confess this research has been my life, my dream. Maybe for that reason, when I watched the documentary some emotional tears escape, because it is full of truth:

  • Learning is fun and enjoyable.
  • We can do incredible things by enriching individual’s dreams, and desire to live.

There is much more, but my personal summary is:
Life is learning and learning is life,
and we can enjoy A LOT while we are alive! 🙂

 

book review – the girl with the dragon tattoo

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Week 33, 2012
Joensuu, Finland

Book: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Author: Stieg Larsoon
Theme: Crime
Thesis:  Solving a mystery that took place 36 years ago.

This is the first book of a trilogy writen by Larsoon that I read. I bought the trilogy last year when I was living in Bristol, UK, with no time to read them, but I have heard several comments about them, then I got the books when the opportunity showed up.  One day I will catch up, is always my hope 🙂 .At this moment, I am overload of things to do, which freezes me, then I decide to read the book as my escape and possibility to relax.

The reading for this particular book started last Sunday’s evening.  The book begins slow and it did not immerse me. It was boring. I pushed me to read it because I saw a movie trailer that convinced me to continue reading.

At the beginning two stories are described, which later converge. The one of a journalist, Blomkvist, who is hired to solve a crime which took place 36 years ago with the excuse to write the family memoirs. At this moment he is living in a turmoil of events.  The other story is with a girl in her early twenties which work as a private investigator, Salander. She has problems adapting into society, we do not know much of her past except an event that let us know that she has had a difficult life, and she was qualified as doomed and the state should take care of her.  She faces sexual abuse and learned to defend herself, loosing any trust on the police. She has photographic memory and it is very good with computers. She is a personality that one is discovering across the book.

When Henrik Vanger, who wanted to solve a crime in his family, starts to describe his family’s past the book turns interesting for me. As Salander said: everybody has secrets. It is when Blomkvist starts to decipher new clues of the old mystery and joins efforts with Salander when the book turns intense and addictive, at least for me. Then, all Thursday and Friday after work I could not stop reading until I finish it.

I got the impression that the book pays attention to different details, from the second war, to sado-masoquit mentality, to the psychological damage that children faced when they live in dysfunctional families independently if the family has money or not.

Summarizing, the book starts slow and boring,  but later it triggers a wide set of emotions such as intrigue, suspense, disgust, impotence, sadness, surprise and even some laughs.

First book from the triology

First book from the trilogy

Dresden Der Film

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Week 32, 2012
Joensuu, Finland

Film: Dresden
Language: German (original)
Genre: drama, war, romance

I just watched Dresden Der Film and it created  an impact.  I am not a moviegoer neither an expert on films. I watch films just when I feel like it and I rank them according on how much the film manages to get me involve in it.  I know a strange ranking system, but that is how it works inside me. If the film triggers my inner, then it is a good film for me. Once the film enters the category of a good film then I can analyze why and how it moved me. As I said, I follow a strange method or as Mónica tells me, I have my carolingio language 😛

As I am collecting in this blog, at some level, the things that influence me, after watch this film, I decide I should start to mention some films too.

By chance I start to watch Dresden. It turns out that this is the first film I watch from the WWII produced by Germans. For me the film was intense and let me thinking a lot about my Germans. During and after the film, made resonance what I have read in the book of Berlin at war.

My focus of attention in the film was not the romantic triangle, which is the fictional narrative in the film. I was astonished by the historical events that the film transmits, and its message in general. Later I found the review of C. Markuss explaining why the screen is excellent. In his words:

“I found the screenplay to be excellent, at times combining satire with pathos, and the more evil aspects of the Third Reich are cleverly woven into the film – the German nurse married to a Jew, both hoping the war will end soon, the corrupt Nazi Gauleiter and his officials long on rhetoric but short on integrity and political awareness as Germany slowly tips into the abyss, and the doctors who illegally trade morphine for tickets and passports to Switzerland for themselves and their families. The scenes of destruction and suffering make compelling viewing, and the use of British actors to play the RAF personnel and show their point of view makes for a balanced film, particularly the scene showing German civilians lynching enemy air-crew, something also done earlier both in France and the UK on occasions. The use of Britons to play the RAF personnel also avoids those irritating foreign accents.”

It is amazing to perceive our human nature in extreme moments. Also I experience an honest respect to get a glimpse of our history, to what our ancestors have passed. Still processing…..

Dresden

Dresden

Image from here

surprise: 8 pianos

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Week 30, 2012
Wels, Austria

The beginning of this story starts in a snug dinner hosted by Bettina and Bernhard.  I believe at the beginning I was mainly listening and making questions.  I was in a discovery mood. For those who know me, might not be a surprise 🙂

Listen to the passion and dreams from others,  allows me to detect life,  specially if I’m on the correct frequency.  Additionally, we say much beyond words, and when one expresses from one’s passion and dreams, the message is intense. When we learn to listen, I think our communication is enriched. But I am still a pupil on this,  I admit it.

Anyway, we started the conversation about what type of music we liked. Thus, at some point we were invited to watch the video from the Verbier Festival & Academy 10th Anniversary: Piano Extravaganza (brief clip below).

Humans.
Oh man!
Humans. We are amazing!  For good and for bad, but we are amazing creatures, and each individual is magic!

Unexpectedly, the evening changed for me.

I started, or continued,  my “reset” process. I refer to this, when one is able to re-connect with one’s internal happiness, when life makes sense again, and the outside world is not  important anymore.  The greatest thing of this reset events and moments, is that despite nothing outside me has changed,  my cheeks hurt of smiling 🙂 and I cannot stop it.

When one feels how life emerges from within and then it connects with the outside. All makes sense. It is just an awesome feeling 🙂 I wish everybody would live this constantly, including me 😛 .

Oh well! now to FOCUS 🙂 – yeap, I need to work – but with a BIG smile! 🙂

PS. Thank you to my hosts, for the evening and for sharing themselves with us. Also I want to thank to Claire who has enriched my life through the concerts, and she has taught me to appreciate music from a different perspective and also thanks to Mikko who teaches me constantly to care and to listen beyond words.

I need to write also about my crazy trip to Nice, which also let me smiling. Maybe my reset process started there 😉  Hmmmm… if I could live from reset processes to reset process I would not mind  😉 .