Che cosa si può fare con le tecnologie

Credo non occorrano molte parole.Creatività,emozione, stupore davanti alla bellezza. Due ragazze di quindici anni, una poesia, un computer...

Il blog entra a scuola

Vi rimando ad un capitolo del volume "Media e tecnologia per la didattica" edito da Vita e Pensiero, Università cattolica di Milano, 2008 , che si può leggere da Google Libri
Il contributo di Chiara Friso è utile a riflettere sull'utilizzo del blog in chiave didattica; fornisce elementi di riflessione e link interessanti.
Vi chiedo, perciò, di leggerlo, e , come compito per il prossimo incontro, di postare un vostro commento su ciò che di quell'articolo vi sembra interessante all'interno della vostra attività didattica. Sperimenterete così in concreto come devono lavorare i vostri studenti, assumendone per una volta il ruolo.
Aspetto i vostri post!

Ed ora, il tuo blog!

piattaforma wordpress : in cinque minuti, il tuo blog
se invece preferisci blogger, ecco qui da dove partire.

Alcuni link sui blog

Una breve selezione di link , per navigare tra blog didattici.

Un articolo sui blog (in inglese)


IL blog degli educational blog awards


Alcuni esempi di blog didattici italiani

Alcuni esempi di blog ... di principianti!

“Applied Science Research” per la categoria "Migliore Blog di attività didattiche per studenti"
- “Assorted Stuff” ( http://www.assortedstuff.com/) per la categoria "Migliore Blog di attività didattiche per insegnanti"
- “EduWonk” (http://www.eduwonk.com/ ) per la categoria "Migliore Blog di gestione per la scuola dell'obbligo"
- “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” (http://www.speedofcreativity.org/) per la categoria "Migliore Blog sulle teorie educative

Che cos'è un blog?

A chi viaggia...

ITHAKI- Itaca

Σα βγεις στον πηγαιμό για την Ιθάκη,
να εύχεσαι νάναι μακρύς ο δρόμος,
γεμάτος περιπέτειες, γεμάτος γνώσεις.
Τους Λαιστρυγόνας και τους Κύκλωπας,
τον θυμωμένο Ποσειδώνα μη φοβάσαι,
τέτοια στον δρόμο σου ποτέ σου δεν θα βρεις
,αν μέν’ η σκέψις σου υψηλή, αν εκλεκτή
συγκίνησις το πνεύμα και το σώμα σου αγγίζει.
Τους Λαιστρυγόνας και τους Κύκλωπας,
τον άγριο Ποσειδώνα δεν θα συναντήσεις,
αν δεν τους κουβανείς μες στην ψυχή σου,
αν η ψυχή σου δεν τους στήνει εμπρός σου.
Να εύχεσαι νάναι μακρύς ο δρόμος.
Πολλά τα καλοκαιρινά πρωιά να είναι
που με τι ευχαρίστησι, με τι χαρά
θα μπαίνεις σε λιμένας πρωτοειδωμένους·
να σταματήσεις σ’ εμπορεία Φοινικικά,
και τες καλές πραγμάτειες ν’ αποκτήσεις,
σεντέφια και κοράλλια, κεχριμπάρια κ’ έβενους,
και ηδονικά μυρωδικά κάθε λογής,
όσο μπορείς πιο άφθονα ηδονικά μυρωδικά·
σε πόλεις Aιγυπτιακές πολλές να πας,
να μάθεις και να μάθεις απ’ τους σπουδασμένους.
Πάντα στον νου σου νάχεις την Ιθάκη.
Το φθάσιμον εκεί είν’ ο προορισμός σου.
Aλλά μη βιάζεις το ταξείδι διόλου.
Καλλίτερα χρόνια πολλά να διαρκέσει·
και γέρος πια ν’ αράξεις στο νησί,
πλούσιος με όσα κέρδισες στον δρόμο,
μη προσδοκώντας πλούτη να σε δώσει η Ιθάκη.
Η Ιθάκη σ’ έδωσε τ’ ωραίο ταξείδι.
Χωρίς αυτήν δεν θάβγαινες στον δρόμο.
Άλλα δεν έχει να σε δώσει πια.
Κι αν πτωχική την βρεις, η Ιθάκη δεν σε γέλασε.
Έτσι σοφός που έγινες, με τόση πείρα,
ήδη θα το κατάλαβες η Ιθάκες τι σημαίνουν



As you set out for Ithaka hope the voyage is a long one,full of adventure, full of discovery.Laistrygonians and Cyclops,angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:you’ll never find things like that on your wayas long as you keep your thoughts raised high,as long as a rare excitementstirs your spirit and your body.Laistrygonians and Cyclops,wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them unless you bring them along inside your soul,unless your soul sets them up in front of you. Hope the voyage is a long one.May there be many a summer morning when,with what pleasure, what joy,you come into harbors seen for the first time;may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things,mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,sensual perfume of every kind—as many sensual perfumes as you can;and may you visit many Egyptian cities to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars. Keep Ithaka always in your mind.Arriving there is what you are destined for.But do not hurry the journey at all.Better if it lasts for years,so you are old by the time you reach the island,wealthy with all you have gained on the way,not expecting Ithaka to make you rich. Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.Without her you would not have set out.She has nothing left to give you now. And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

Instructional design:a back-door entrance to learn?

The readings of this week were very interesting, but complexes, so I need more time to reflect.
But I was impressed by a topic on the elearnspace’s weekly blog summary email, by GeorgeSiemens, which affects so much the matter of this CCK08 week, instructional design.
“You know why a student would prefer to look at a picture or watch a video? Because it’s way easier than reading something that would nearly always be more informative about the subject at hand. You know why a student would be more interested in producing, say, a video than writing a paper? Because writing well is DIFFICULT and it’s far easier to gloss up poor research by packaging it in a video format that appears to involve a lot of work. Yes, older people who think that games, social networks, collaborative learning environments, and the creation audiovisual mashups are the future of education, the basic message I’m sending here is that young students don’t want to learn, they want to play, and presentations like the one I saw today essentially seem to be saying that we need to support this play (masked as educational needs) as much as possible in order to try to get some learning in there."

I see the matter in another way.
Learning has always been viewed as a difficult,tiring, hard work.
So, since antiquity, it has been masked. Education has been masked in order “to try to get some learning”. But, how it has be done?

Greeks used mithology to reflect on human life, on ethics. Homer, tragedy writers, lyrical poets.. they all did it. They told stories, to get some learning.
Lucretius, the Latin author of “De rerum natura”, tried to teach Epicurean philosophy by poetry. He wrote:
“nam veluti pueris abstinthia taetra medentes / cum dare conantur, prius oras pocula circum / contingunt mellis dulci flavoque liquore - lib V vv. 11-13”. Poetry is like honey used to sweeten a medicine that a child must take…
Jesus Christ taught by parables. He also told stories, to teach.
And what we can think about little zen stories?Clean, but intense and deep, they was told in order to reflect and for a deep learning.
All these are ancient strategies for learning, which involve fun and prepare for gaining knowledge.
Now the technology, with his multimedia, allows multifaceted approaches, compared to those offered by the narration (in the aural societies )or by poetic writings. But it is simplistic to believe it is only a masked learning, a game played in the hope of producing learning, or in order to fit with Millennials distinctive features . It has to be a conscious strategy.
I and a colleague of mine have considered this issue, and we are thinking about an approach what we called B.E.T Theory (back-door entrance theory). This- not direct- approach, often reached by means of technology, is more effective than a direct approach, and not only because it is more attractive for students, or because learning, in this way, seems to be less hard.
But because it adjust to more learning styles, (i.d. visual, kinesthetic, diverger, accomodator…),because it makes learning closest to the reality, and above all because it involves emotion , emotional intelligence and motivation, thus breaking down cognitive barriers, prejudices, mental blocks that can delay or stop learning. Emotion is a strong key for learning: an effective instrutional design could increase it a lot.