Planetfesto

A "manifesto" about our unique planet. I came across it this morning and couldn´t keep from writing about it. They say "Let´s build a ribbon around the whole world". The homepage of Planetfesto brings a beautiful presentation made of statements left from people all around the world proposing ways to improve and protect the planet. It´s wonderful to see so many people involved in this wonderful project. I left my statement too and now I invite you to do the same. To be part of the ribbon click on DO YOUR PIECE, select a picture and answer the questions.

The rain

I was having a look at slideshare to make a slidecast (pictures + sound) when I found this beautiful slidecast about the rain. It has been raining for days where I live and we end up complaining. It was great though to see the beauty of RAIN.

| View | Upload your own

My TWITTER experience

Twitter is used for microblogging and what is that? People write what they are doing at the moment in a maximum of 140 words. Not only do people write what they´re doing but they post questions and even reply to their friends. I decided to record my trip to argentina in TWITTER as I travelled and I´ve been told that lots of people enjoyed following my adventure. Mary Hillis an e-colleague (have I coined a term? guess not) from Japan has done a survey in twitter recently and this is another usage people are discovering for twitter.

What I like about twitter?

• I like the speed.
• I like the fact that you´re not expected to write a masterpiece but only something short.
• I like the asynchronous interaction it establishes.

You can also add a twitter widget to your blog so that your readers can follow what you´re doing and that´s what I´ve just added to my sidebar "What am I doing?". You can get a twitter widget for your own blog at http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/twidget
after you have a twitter account.

Screencasting for the fist time

This is the first time I´ve tried to make a screencast.

• First I tried to use screencast-o-matic, but I couldn´t get the audio.
• Then I downloaded Jing and made the recording but the speed got too slow (didn´t like it)
  
  Well, I still haven´t got what I wanted. I wanted to make a screencast with the speed of screencast-o-matic but WITH AUDIO! But it doesn´t work! I´m getting crazy!!!!!
  
• I´ve finally found a solution! I was working with the Firefox browser and the audio didn´t work but with Internet Explorer it did.
  This is the final result:

Reflections on learning

This is a post for EVO session: Blogging4educators, week 3, task 4. I´d have to choose one of the titles and write about it. My choice was "Reflections on learning" more specifically "learning online". These are a few things I´ve learned while blogging:

• People actually read what you write.
• Leaving comments in blogs is a great way to get to know people. It´s nice to leave your blog address after your name so that the person can visit your blog as well.
• I´ve discovered I love images. My posts HAVE to have images. :)
• It can be addictive and overwhelming at first. I had to organize my time very well so as to keep an eye on my family and I normally write a lists of tasks for that day in order to guide myself surfing.
• Become friends with technology: the more you use tools the easier and less scary they become. Use microphone, webcam, record yourself, BE BOLD.
• Visit other people´s blogs and ask questions if you want to learn how to do something they have done in their own blogs. People are very willing to teach and help.
• Share your knowledge with other people, involve other teachers and you can learn together.

And you, what have you learned with blogging so far? I´d love to hear from you.

Trip to Argentina

Going to Argentina was an adventure. We decided to take our kids on a backpacking adventure to Patagonia. The worries were many: would the kids get too tired? Would we get transportation for the places we wanted? Would we be able to get to the south and come back in 14 days?

Well, we started off in Buenos Aires, we got to the hostel 30 minutes before New Year´s day and joined a celebration which was going on at the rooftop of the hostel. It was amazingly hot (37ºC at night) and believe it or not the water had finished so we had to have a shower using a water bottle. That night we decided to move south as soon as we could. We spent a day in Buenos Aires (BA) and took a bus to Puerto Madryn in order to see penguins and sea elephants, it was not the whale season yet. The weather in Puerto Madryn was VERY WINDY and a bit cold. The tour to see the sea animals was fantastic, we had a great time. After Puerto Madryn we decided to move more towards the south, our aim was El Calafate, but as there were no direct buses we had to go to Rio Gallegos first and then get another bus to Calafate. The town is very charming and the hostel was very good with the only disadvantage of letting people smoke in the hostel. In Calafate we got a tour to see the Perito Moreno Glacier. The view of the Glacier is one of the most beautiful things I´ve seen in my life. Here we reached the middle of our trip. From there we started going north through the famous route 40, reaching El Chaltén first. El Chaltén is the capital of trekking in Argentina. People from all over the world go there for trekking and mountain climbing. The village is located inside a National Park and is a place I´d definitely visit again. As we were tired by then we went on a short trek (3 hours) up the mountain. Going up was hard but manageable and the view makes it all worthwhile. This was a long tiring trip north towards Bariloche. We got to Bariloche at 23:00 and to our surprise they had cancelled our reservation because we hadn´t confirmed it 24 hours in advance (How could we? On a bus?). The hostels were all full and we had to stay at the only hotel they found for us and pay 4 times what we had planned. The weather in Bariloche was incredibly cold for us (6ºC) but the kids loved it. We went up Cerro Catedral (a ski station) by cable car which was a highlight for the kids and a tense moment for me (hahaaha). We stayed there for 2 days and got another bus back to Buenos Aires to get ready to come back home.

All in all, I could say I saw wonderful things I hadn´t imagined. Although we spent many hours in buses (good ones by the way) we had a chance to really see and feel the Patagonia, its extension, its nature, its beauty. The only thing I pity was the impossibility to meet my Argentinian net friends (Gladys, Nelba, Gabriella and Carla R). With such a tight schedule we ended up not meeting :( . Well, maybe another time.

This is a slideshow I´ve made with pictures we took, hope you like them.