Inspiring video

I think that the video speaks for itself. Maybe the only thing left to say is that we should spread the video, and more importantly, follow the example of Narayanan Krishnan.

If a dog were the teacher…

I received this a long time ago and thought it would be nice to share.

If a dog were the teacher, you would learn stuff like:

• When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
• Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.
• Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.
• When it’s in your best interest, practice obedience.
• Let others know when they’ve invaded your territory.
• Take naps.
• Stretch before rising.
• Run, romp, and play daily.
• Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
• Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
• On warm days, stop to lie on your back on the grass.
• On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.
• When you’re happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
• No matter how often you’re scolded, don’t buy into the guilt thing and pout… run right back and make friends.
• Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.
• Eat with gusto and enthusiasm. Stop when you have had enough.
• Be loyal. Never pretend to be something you’re not.
• If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
• When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by, and muzzle him or her gently.

The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

I keep receiving very inspiring messages, and this one lists the 10 concepts laid out by Dr. Joseph Murphy in his book The Power of Your Subconscious Mind.

1. Think about good things, and good things will follow.
   Think about bad things, and bad things will follow.
   You are exactly what you think at every moment of your days.
2. Your subconscious mind never questions whether you are right or wrong.
   It just accepts that which your conscious mind determines.
3. You have always the power to choose between the good and the bad.
   You can choose to be friendly or to be unfriendly.
   Choose to be healthy, joyful, helpful, happy, friendly, and sympathetic and everybody else will respond the same way.
4. Your conscious mind is the gate keeper.
   Its main function is to protect the subconscious mind from false impressions.
   Believe that something good is going to happen, and that it is already happening right now, in this exact moment.
   Your biggest strength is your capacity to choose. So choose that which makes you feel well.
5. The suggestions and affirmations of others don't have any power to affect you.
   The only power comes from your own thoughts about what others say and your reaction to it.
6. Be careful with what you say. You will have to answer for each irresponsible word you say.
   Never say "I will fail." Your subconscious mind don't know the difference between a joke and something real. It just accepts everything as being true.
7. Your mind is not geared toward bad things, and no force in nature leads to bad things.
   It all depends on how you use the powers of nature.
8. Never say that you can't do something. Overcome your fears, and use the following affirmation: "I can do everything through the power of my subconscious mind."
9. You are the captain of your (subconscious) soul; you are the lord of your destiny.
   Remember: "You have the capacity to choose. Choose happiness!"
10. Anything that your conscious mind believe to be true will be accepted by your subconscious mind which will make sure it becomes true.

We can make the world a better place by simply making ourselves better persons. (Paulo)

http://thoughtsandnoises.blogspot.com/2010/11/power-of-your-subconscious-mind.html

Light

Most of the times, it is our own prejudices that create the biggest challenges for us. I just came across a passage that says that what we consider as "evil" is just the absence of light. That's all. People who choose this path only do so because they have not seen or felt the presence of light. They are simply ignorant, in the sense of being unaware or naive about their thoughts and actions; they don't know what they are doing. Light--or enlightenment--is the presence of a higher and more meaningful knowledge which aims to benefit not the individual, but everybody and everything.

It is interesting to consider the case of a sunny day. The light of the sun reaches everybody with no prejudices. We are the ones who run for a shade away from this light. We try to protect ourselves no only from the light but from others as well. We build a ceiling against the sunlight and walls against others. We isolate ourselves and create our own world. Similarly to Plato's allegory of the cave, we start seeing the outside world as a theater of shadows, and from the partial knowledge we acquire from that, we create a reality that fits the experience we are having. The result is simple, and resembles the parable of the blind men and the elephant: we can only see part of the whole, and we assume that this part is the whole reality, the whole truth.

Once sheltered from the light, once our reality is set, it can be difficult to leave this situation, but not impossible. We just need to realize that there is one layer (or perhaps more) that separates us from the light. Our challenge, if we decide to leave the dark stage, is to find this layer and remove it. It is simpler said than done. Boethius, a Roman philosopher from the 6th century, writes:

The man who searches deeply for the truth, and wishes to avoid being deceived by false leads, must turn the light of his inner vision upon himself. He must guide his soaring thoughts back again and teach his spirit that it possesses hidden among its own treasures whatever it seeks outside itself.

Then all that was hidden by the dark cloud of error will shine. ... The seed of truth grows deep within and is roused to life by the breath of learning.

(Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy.)

As Boethius said, learning brings the necessary knowledge that sheds light on what was previously unknown or avoided because of ignorance. Furthermore, this learning is an action that comes from the person, and the answers are within the person. How to uncover, then, these answers? This is part of the process of self-discovery. Different people find the answers in different ways, and it is important in our journey that we find the ways that work better for us.

This is an individual journey, and there is no escape from it. However, there are many people that, as part of their own journey, want to honestly help us along the way. We too must assist those who need our help, but it is important to let them come to us when the time is right, rather than offering help when it is not needed or when it is not appropriate. The same way, we are always invited to take the initiative and look for help when we need, and we should do it.

We shouldn't, however, be too eager to go toward the light, as insects are attracted toward light bulbs. Too much light when we are not ready can be blinding. Learning, really learning, all of the lessons one step at the time, will bring the answers.

In this journey toward the light we need to be humble and curious, respectful and tolerant, and always willing to offer our hand to others with a smile on our face. How about if we start right now by offering ourselves a hand?

http://thoughtsandnoises.blogspot.com/2010/11/light.html

Restart

I lost a toy that made me company during my childhood, but I remember the love of the person who gifted it to me.

I lost my childhood’s privileges and phantasies, but I received the opportunity of growing and living freely.

I lost many people that I loved and that loved me, but I have the care that I received from them and the example of their lives.

I lost unique moments in my life because I was crying instead of smiling, but I discovered that to harvest love you have to plant it first.

I lost many times and many things in my life. However, along with this “loss,” today I try the value of “winning.” We can always fight for what we love, and there is always time to restart!

It doesn’t matter in what moment of your life you got tired. What matters is that it is always possible and necessary to restart.

To restart is to give ourselves a new chance, renew our hopes in life, and more importantly, believe in ourselves.

Did you suffer much during this time?… It was a learning experience.

Did you cry rivers?… It was your soul being cleaned.

Did you hate?… It was necessary for you to forgive.

Did you feel lonely in some moments?… It happened because you closed the door.

Did you think that everything was lost?… It was simply the beginning of your betterment.

Do you feel alone?… If you look around you, you will see many people waiting for your smile so that they can get closer to you.

Restart:

Today, it is an excellent day for you to start a new life project. Where do you want to go? Look up, dream high, wish the best, desire well being, because life brings us that which we ask for.

If you think small, you will receive small. If we firmly think about the best, the positive, and we fight to reach it, then life will bring us the best.

Today is the day to clean your mind. Remove everything that keeps you tied to the past and everything that hurts you. Throw away all impurities, clear your heart, and be prepared for a new life, and for a new love if you are alone. We are capable of loving many times because we are the manifestation of love.

Life calls you. It invites you for a new adventure, a new trip, a new challenge. Dedicate this day to yourself and do your best to reach your goals. Trust life, trust yourself.

 

        - I received this inspirational message and wanted to share with others. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Quotation Series: Be a Dreamer

This is a very motivational quote by Jim Rohn:

You’ve got to be a dreamer. You’ve got to envision the future. You’ve got to see California while you’re climbing 14,000-foot peaks [in reference to early settlers]. You’ve got to see the finish line while you’re running the race. You’ve got to hear the cheers when you’re in the middle of a monster project. And you’ve got to be willing to put yourself through the paces of doing the uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable, because that’s how you realize your dreams.

• Achieving Your Dreams by Jim Rohn

Quotation Series: Hope and Faith

I came across this passage in a moment of personal frustration and I liked it, and I wanted to share it with others:

Every successful man is a man of "faith," every successful man is a man who cultivates "hope." A successful man is always hopeful, is never a pessimist and he brings that which he hopes for, into being and reality, by the strength of his faith.

Therefore I want you first of all to cultivate Hope and Faith for without those qualities no one, no matter how gifted or clever, can ever succeed.

…

Cast your eyes over the lives of all men of great achievement, and you will see that they were all animated by Hope and sustained by Faith. They hoped for success and believed that they had it in them to achieve that success. In their darkest hours they hoped on, believing that soon the reaction would come, which would carry them on to the accomplishment of their ambitions. Nothing has ever yet been accomplished by man on this planet without the inspiration of Hope and the tenacity of Faith. Hope reaches forward and claims success, faith holds on until success is attained. Therefore seek to develop these qualities to their fullest extent.

…

When a man realizes his own interior powers and understands the vastness and wonder of his subliminal forces, and determines to make use of them, and thus become a king among men instead of a slave, then such a disturbance takes place that unless he possesses Hope and Faith he will be tempted to turn his back on the new life and to sink back again into the old sluggish drifting existence, which leads to disappointment and despair.

…

When the entities that cause the disturbance realize that you mean to keep on, and that you cannot be bullied into going back to the old life, they will quickly leave you. In any case there is nothing to be afraid of, because these entities are helpless if one does not fear them. In other words, if you have Hope and Faith you can win through. Hope for better times although the present may be discouraging. Faith in the sure belief that soon all the disagreeable symptoms will disappear.

Hope on; by Faith, hang on, and keep hanging on and you will win through. Do not be discouraged by seeming failure, nothing was ever won without effort. What can be had without effort is not worth having.

Take encouragement from the fact that this disturbance in your life proves that vital changes are taking place within, that the vast powers of your subliminal mind are beginning to awaken, and that the entities of your old erroneous beliefs and habits are taking their departure.

Believe now that you can conquer and win through, and you will conquer and win through. What you believe you can do, you can do, because all power is within you. There is nothing in all the world that can stop you, except your own doubt and fear.

• Hamblin, H. T. (1923). Dynamic Thought. Part I (pp. 12-16). http://sacred-texts.com/eso/dth/index.htm or http://magicmanifestation.com/books/DYNAMIC-THOUGHT-by-H-T-Hamblin-1923.pdf

Quotation Series: Theory

A short passage I found on theory:

"A theory does not have to be right to be useful. Nearly every action we take results from a workable convergence of misconceptions."

• Grow, G. O. (1991). Teaching learners to be self-directed. Adult Education Quarterly, 41(3), p. 127.

Quotation series: Knowles and organizations

This passage refers to Malcolm Knowles’ views on organizations and their roles (or effects) on adult learning:

“As if by some law of reciprocity, … organization provides an environment for adult education. In the spirit of Marshall McLuhan’s The Medium Is the Message, the quality of learning that takes place in an organization is affected by the kind of organization it is. This is to say that an organization is not simply an instrumentality for providing organized learning activities to adults; it also provides an environment that either facilitates or inhibits learning.”

• Knowles, M. S. (1980). The Modern Practice of Adult Education: From Pedagogy to Andragogy. Englewood Cliffs: Cambridge. Pg. 66.

Quotation series: Instruction II

Another great quote on instruction:

"Just as concepts and theory serve to connect the facts of observation and experiment in the conventional disciplines of knowledge, so the great dramatic themes and metaphors provide a basis for organizing one’s sense of man, for seeing what is persistent in his history and his condition, for introducing some unity into the scatter of our knowledge as it relates to ourselves."

• Bruner, J. S. (1966). Toward a Theory of Instruction. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Pg. 163.

Quotation series: Instruction

This is just a nice quote I found and wanted to share with others:

"Discovering how to make something comprehensible to the young is only a continuation of making something comprehensible to ourselves in the first place—that understanding and aiding others to understand are both of a piece."

• Bruner, J. S. (1966). Toward a Theory of Instruction. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Pg. 38.

Mortality and the Web

Strange thing… I had a colleague where I work, a friend. We didn’t hang out or anything like that. It was more professional, but at the same time, he knew how to reach people and bring out their good side. He believed in my work, he supported what I did. He opened good doors for me, and he was there when I needed. A friend. This friend was diagnosed this past semester with a form of cancer. After a few months in the hospital, a transplant, and some complications, he passed away…

What called my attention, and made things more “real,” was that he (and later his wife) maintained regular updates on a web site (CarePages). This commercial site was created exactly with this intention: to keep family and friends up-to-date with the development of someone’s health conditions. My friend and his wife have been very consistent in documenting the progress of the situation.

With the age of social networking sites, this site fits very well. After you register on the site, and add yourself as a friend of the person, you start receiving email messages every time a new entry is posted. Then you just need to go to the person’s page to check the entry. So far, so good; other websites and blogs do the same. What has been strange for me is that once you add yourself and start following the posts and people’s replies to them, you become part of the community (not anything new for a social networking site). You celebrate the victories with everybody, and with everybody you feel the pain of the losses. I didn’t know my friend’s wife, but as she kept his story alive through her words, we felt like we too were part of the story. It is almost like following chapters of a book, or a soap opera on TV. The difference is that you know those people on the other side are real. You know the main “character.” The events are happening in real time. You can’t cheat and read somewhere online the synopsis of the next episode. You follow the story as it happens; you live it as it happens. You are fighting along the characters… You become a character of someone’s story.

Keeping track of the development of some news events is a common practice. Keeping track of the developments of someone we know is not strange either. But following my friend’s updates on this site gave me a different feeling. Although I could not do much for his recovery, I felt like an active participant, and that my presence, even as an extra, has been important for his story.

Once I read that by reading a book, a tale, the story of the characters is passed down and through that we keep them alive; we make them immortals. Maybe that was the feeling I’ve had. Maybe the characters of this story are now immortals. But, by being a member of this community, doesn’t it make me a character too?… How much of it is still real?… The web now is making me question our own mortality…

Back on my own road

Have you ever been in a situation in which you gave yourself so much to others, that you put your personal goals and needs on the back burner, that you ended up losing the path that you so carefully chose and built for yourself? That has happened to me. I hear many people saying that I am a good person. A person who is intelligent, nice, polite, and always thinking about others. Well, it did reach a point that I strayed away from my original path for others. Life gave me many experiences that I had not initially planned, or even wanted, but I've learned so much with each one of them. The question that keeps haunting me is how to go back to the main road, to my path, and leave all of those who need my assistance or support?

It’s interesting. I said those who “need” my assistance or support. How do I know they need me? Maybe they don’t and I am the one who keeps this illusion that others need me. Maybe I want to be needed. Perhaps this gives me some excuse not to follow the path I chose. Helping others became my excuse not to help myself or complete those tasks that I, and only I, must complete.

I am an instructor. Throughout the years, I had to learn that after classes are finished, after the end of the semester, my job is over for a particular group of students. During the semester, there is too so much I can do. At the same time, I want to be there for each person until I see the “aha!” moment, until I see a smile. The same thing happens in my personal life as well. I want to be there for others, even when others are capable of solving their problems by themselves. This eagerness to help others has been consuming a lot of me, and my personal goals are still at the same distance from when I last saw them…

It is time to help myself. It is time to go back to that road that brought me here in the first place. The question actually is not how to get there, but how to stay there. This post is just a motivating piece for me. I helped so many. Now, I am ready to help myself. I am not saying no to others'. I’m just saying: not now; this is my time. I deserve it; I need it. As others say: I am a good person. It’s now time for me to be good to me too…

Windows Live Writer and Blogger

This is my first attempt using Windows Live Writer. I’m checking its connection with my blog at Blogger. For now, I assume it works well with Windows Live Spaces (why wouldn’t?), but I’ll test this later. So, right now I’m just typing some text to see what will happen.

I'm back!

After two years of silence, I am back to my blog. Not that I have a lot to say, but I needed at least to give a sign of life. I'll think about more things to say, but for now it's enough to say that I'm still building my universe...

Cyclical history

I was reading an article in BusinessWeek about trends that lead companies and the marketing in our contemporary society. The article is called "Scientific management is past its peaks." The author, Roger L. Martin, comments that current trends rely on highly developed statistical analysis and complex softwares that strongly influence the process of decision making. Martin points out that this over reliance on scientific analysis may have reached its developmental limit. That is, where else can this method go? If the computer performs all the analyses, it might-as-well make the decisions and carry them through as well. Why do we need managers and decision makers? Statistics can tell whether we need the brand new cell phone with all the works (and of course, advertisements will compel us and make us buy the phone). Well, I don't need a camera on my phone, so why should I buy one with such feature? This is exactly the point that Martin wants to make: different people have different needs and different uses for products. What we need to do is to understand more these people and their needs, and be a little less concerned on the numbers about them. Martin sees a come back of qualitative analysis.

Two things came to my mind as I read the article. First, it reminded me that history is cyclical. If we simply think in terms of historical periods, we can see that certain characteristics from a previous period, disregarded in the present period, return in the next period. For example, the Middle Ages were marked by a strong religiosity and spirituality. The Renascence valued the exactitude of scientific methods. The Baroque period saw an increase in religiosity. Maybe the scientific hype of the 20th century is reaching a point in which the person has to be reconsidered.

This leads me to the second aspect that came to my mind. I am involved in the field of education, and although it is taught that we need to consider the wide diversity of students, and provide them with appropriate resources for their learning and development, what is found in most studies is exactly what Martin mentioned in his article: statistics leading the decisions. The students may be diverse, but for the purposes of allocation of needed resources, they are just numbers. Standardized tests only reinforce this trend. I am not generalizing and stating that all that is done in education is number crunching; great qualitative studies provide the complement knowledge that the quantitative approach alone cannot provide. So, on the same lines as Martin's claims, I too would see education moving to a more humanistic arena. However, since the field of education is normally a little behind other fields in terms of methodological and ideological development, the scientific approach may not have reached its peak yet, but as I said, history is cyclical, and the wheel of fortune is always turning.

Medieval tech support

The technology might have changed, but the technical support is timeless...

Tech Support

Contributions of technology to my career

I've been thinking about how technology can contribute to my role as instructor and researcher, and the ideas keep coming and going. What makes such question somewhat difficult is the fact that technology is around us in our everyday lives, and this includes the classroom. It is in a way like conducting an ethnography, in which a participant observation has to be performed, and an objective eye used on the familiar tools that I, and many more, employ in our daily work.

Due to the well established written culture in our academic milieu, word processing tools of all sorts are not only helpful but essential. These tools include the traditional word processors; however, any other form of digital print is also fair game. For example, the internet in general provides immense resource of information, and most of it in written format. Although the format itself is well established, it is the exchange and editing of the information what makes the technological tools so important to my area. Simple email messages help connect ideas. Web sites present relevant (and irrelevant) information that can be used for complementing, contrasting, inciting, or simply entertaining thoughts. Web 2.0 is giving the reader the opportunity to participate in what he or she reads online. Blogs, for example, have been used as an interactive tool in classes, in which students not only comment and debate particular topics, but also help each other in their learning. On the instructor side, such digital tools have given the educators possibilities to organize and present materials in more efficient ways, and in ways that approximate to current trends among the new net generation. The increase connectivity seen in both students and teachers (as well as among researchers) has blurred the boundaries between the classroom and the "outside world," transforming both sites into an integrated learning environment. This raise a question, though: as an extension, does the classroom becomes part of the "integrated entertaining environment" that was part of the outside world? Since the same technology is used for both work and entertainment, how do we separate them? Do we want to separate them?

On a different note, the integration of pictures, videos, and words has created a new format for information to be presented, represented and manipulated. Multimedia is breaking the solid walls of the printing culture, and academia is giving in to this inevitable format. Presentations make use of multimedia, web sites, podcasts, video casts, even virtual office hours are possible. Academic journals are on-line and available to eager researchers and readers in general, saving trips to the local library in the middle of the night. I personally think that the embrace of multimedia could be a more emphasized in academia. Although we make use of different technologies, we still need to write a document that will be printed (even if only digitally). In other words, to inform our audience about the advances of knowledge we are proposing, we still resort to plain words (with some charts, tables, and eventual pictures).

As of now, I'm already using many tools to improve my classroom presentations, to contact colleagues and students, and to help with my own learning. I still need to explore more the Web 2.0 to create my network of contacts, and to carry more collaborative projects, but I believe I am on the right track for these endeavors. Here is my blog, a small contribution toward my connectivity to the world.

Educational Technology I

I'm going to stop for a moment with my tale and digress a bit. Last week I received a call from above reminding me that I am supposed to spread the word about my thoughts on educational technology. Well, in a way or another, I've been alway involved with computers and education, and sometimes both of them together... This semester in particular, I'm more involved with the topic, taking classes on it and making myself visible on the web.
It's funny to think that my final project of my computer science undergraduate degree (finished more than 10 years ago) was a multimedia tool for classroom presentation. Well, that never flew. After going to completely different fields for several years, here I am, interested in... multimedia tools for classroom presentation... The only difference is that I'm no longer programming their underlying code, but using prepackaged applications. My exploration now is on the many uses of technology in classroom from a cognitive and educational perspective.
Although there are several tools that can be used by themselves for classroom presentations (ppt being the current almighty first choice), there is a converging tendency toward on-line interconnectivity. Standalone presentations can be upload to the web, in any format, and be seen by millions. Necessary resources can be download from the web to be used in isolated presentations. The Web 2.0 is allowing ideas to become closer; integrated in various ways. However, besides ideas, are their authors also becoming closer? Are such connections made among people, or among parts of people? It seems like at the same time information is becoming more connected and cohesive, the individual is becoming fragmented. The parts of this person are scattered in different web sites, blogs, podcasts, videocasts, chat rooms, and so on. Interestingly, one place in which these parts are reconnecting into a new whole is on Second Life. It seems like we need to deconstruct ourselves before being reborn from the ashes. The irony is that such new whole is virtual. In the process of deconstruction, the body can be discarded, and a new, improved (?) one created in this no longer imaginary world.
But why all this blabbing? First, because I wanted to. My fragment in this blog still has agency. Second, and moving back to the classroom, because this makes us think about the new interpersonal dynamics in this learning environment. Are teachers still teachers or are they facilitators? How do students interact among themselves? Some (instructors and students) still refrain from embracing the technology, while others can only be found virtually. It is within ed. tech. that we try to understand and tame this colossal entity, but at the end, we are still at its mercy, and we are the ones who end up tamed.

Chapter 2

My quest begun early. I have always been interested in that. Throughout my whole life I've searched for it everywhere: in large cities, small towns, beaches, mountains, at home and in the streets. I've looked inside and outside buildings, monuments, fairs, meetings, classes, even in my closets and under my bed. I've accumulated some of it, but it never seemed to be enough. I had to to find more of it to fulfill this unexplainable inner need. I had to go beyond the boundaries that kept me tied to the ground, and continue my journey in this unknown world. In this adventure with no beginning or end, my quest for knowledge begun early.

I always knew that one day I had to go. I had prepared myself for that moment; at least I thought I had. I gathered all resources I had been carefully acquiring, organizing, polishing, and nourishing for years, put them into my brand new bag, and left. I was ready for it. I had never lived in a cave watching the show of shadows on the wall; I did peak outside several times, but now it was different. I was a little scared and nervous, yes I admit, but confident and excited. "How will this new world be?," I kept asking myself in anticipation. Although I wasn't sure of what people or events would cross my path (and be part of it), or even the places I was about to explore, I took a deep breath, gave the first step, and began to walk on that barely charted road with conviction and determination. I was after a dream. I was on my journey to find knowledge. I always knew that one day I had to go...