My last lesson: an ICT lesson

For our intensive practice period, we, teachers to be, were asked to design and teach an ICT lesson. All of us were well aware of the theory related to the topic: an approach to teaching which involved the introduction of Information and Communication Technologies. This sounded great, and as students we have been part of this type of lesson but now it was our time, and we had to put into practice what we knew about this acronym. This is what the practice period is about, isn’t it?
The name of the unit I was dealing with was “The Media” and we have been working with lots of articles and the passive voice structure so, the most appropriate task to assign was writing an article. The approach to writing was process writing but the question was how to transform an ordinary writing lesson into an ICT writing lesson. Arriving at the answer was not so difficult. The first thing I did was look for an online tool to create newspaper articles. This meant googling “how to create a newspaper article” and the answer was there. I was lucky enough to find a tool which was not only effective but also incredibly easy to use. You just needed to type inside the blank boxes and after a click your article was there, ready to be downloaded and printed. I created a short article myself to be used as model for the writing. This was the most interesting part of my lesson: my students reading a newspaper article which seemed to have been cut out from a real newspaper and the topic of which was how the performance of class 1st A had improved, how their performance in the English class had improved. They found it really funny and their faces showed their astonishment. The lesson went on as an ordinary process writing lesson up to the moment in which I wrote the name of a website on the blackboard and my e-mail address. Students were supposed to create, with what they had written, a newspaper article alike the model they had been working with. They weren’t used to be asked to work with their beloved computer very often. So, they were really excited about it. They created the articles, attached them to an e-mail and send it to me. It was group work so the articles were not many; I created a slideshow with them and sent it to my students. All of us enjoyed the experience. ICT lessons are easier to design than what we think and they are remarkably effective. TOOL

Survival

I had thought about “Survival” as the topic for my presentation but I had never thought that I was going to explore the topic from this point of view: tribal peoples struggling to survive. It was when I googled the word that I found “Survival”, the International Organization for Tribal Peoples, that I started reading and reading and I realized this issue deserved to be dealt with.
The first thing I was shocked by, was the number of indigenous that lives in our planet. About 150 millions across the world and in 60 different countries. Of course this is a minority in relation to the world population but I used to think about indigenous people as a minority of hundreds, never of millions.
Another factor that I found really interesting was that “they” and “we” are affected by the same things: deforestation, pollution. All these things are destroying the places tribal peoples dwell in and as a result, these people are being displaced. But, if we stop to think, that is exactly the same that is happening to our planet, I mean, we live in the same planet and we are all well aware of global warming, pollution, etc and their negative consequences on the biodiversity, soil, environment. Of course, as I mentioned in my presentation everything that is done is done in the mane of progress and is disguised as positive and prosperous.
They are different in the same way you are different from you neighbour: you wear different clothes, listen to different music, have different lifestyles, have different tastes but tribal peoples and you are both human beings, something that goes beyond those differences that I previously mentioned. So, their rights should be respected in the same way your rights should be. It is not fair that they need to be continuously struggling to survive in a world that belongs to them in the same way that it belongs to you. Besides, they were the first to be here, weren’t they?

Here I leave you the link to the Survival webpage. I hope you enjoy it. It is really interesting.

SURVIVAL

This is a painting by Ernest Descals. It is part of a series of paintings which illustrate a story about some strange beings -Anunnaki, Annunakis,Anunnakis,Annuunaki- coming from another planet(Niburu) and who settled on Earth and are among us. The name of the painting is ANUNNAKI-ANNUNAKI-DNA-ADN-GENETICA-GENETICS-NIBIRU. I chose it because at first sight I could relate it to science and technology.
Research on DNA has been carried out for decades, and findings have been applied in different fields in technology and science. For example, genetic engineering is one of them. It is also called genetic modification and it is the human manipulation of the genetic material of organisms. Genetic engineering techniques have been applied to various industries, such as medicine and agriculture with great success.
Another field in which DNA findings have been of great importance is in forensics. Blood, semen, skin, saliva, hair, all these can be found at a crime scene and contain DNA information. This information is used to identify a matching DNA of an individual and as a result, crimes are solved much more efficiently than in former times.
DNA information is clearly applied in many fields.

Do we speak the same language?

“Gender differences in communication” was the topic for a presentation I delivered in my phonology class and, as I found it so interesting, I wanted to share it with you.
It is said that men and women not only think differently but also speak differently. How is this explained? Just read and I am sure you will find plenty of examples from your own experience to illustrate each point.
Men and women are considered equally intelligent (of course) but they tend to see the world from different perspectives: men think compartmentally and women think globally. This means that “they” (men) store information in different compartments which resemble a file cabinet drawer system. When one drawer is open the others are closed. When they are spending time with friends they completely forget about their girlfriend/s. Women, on the other hand, tend to see life from a more global perspective, thus, making connections between different things that belong to different aspects of her life. A women looking at a men t-shirt in a shop window may associate it to a similar t- shirt that her boyfriend wore in their first date and as a result she may text to tell him that she loves him.
As I said, men and women also speak differently. While women speak in paragraph form supported by lots of details and the bottom-line (sentence that summarizes the idea) at the end, men tend to speak in phrases without a lot of detail and with the bottom-line at the very beginning. Another characteristic of women is that they use “hint language”. They tend to express needs, whishes or desires framed in the form of questions, raising their shoulders as if they don’t know what the answer is. Something men will not decode since hints are not part of their language. Men tend to take language very literally, focusing on the content rather than in the hidden meaning.
So, I hope this helps you understand why sometimes, when talking to a man, things may not go as expected. When you are communicating with the opposite sex, try to bear in mind all these differences.

My cartoon

The topic
It was like “hate at first sight”. Since the very beginning, when he appeared in the mass media, Ricardo Fort was an individual who evoked a feeling of disgust on me. Always showing off, always talking about himself and considering himself a hero just because he is a millionaire. Let alone his falling in love with a different girl every week so as to avoid people suspecting him of being gay.
As weeks went by, he was becoming more and more popular. People everywhere- at the bus stop, on the bus, at the supermarket, at the butcher’s- talked about this “material” man who not only fosters materialistic values but who also seems to be made of plastic. Who his current girlfriend was, who the following one was going to be, his clothes, how much money he spent shopping in Miami, his Rolexes, his Rolls Royces, his play, who he quarrelled with: such were the bizarre topics on which many Argentinians keep their mind. I couldn’t believe it! A character like this one deserved a cartoon about him.

Being a cartoonist
This was the first time that I dared to create a cartoon and I really liked the experience. The design software was very easy to use. Maybe, options as regard drawings were not that varied but, I was lucky enough to find a character that fitted Ricardo Fort’s personality: a lion.
Cartoons enable you to express yourself and convey different meanings just by using pictures and a few words. They are a powerful an effective tool when it comes to criticise or support any aspect. Besides, they do not demand much effort on part of the reader and they are very easy to create. It was a great experience.

Hachiko

Last week I saw a film during the end of which I could not avoid crying. “Hachiko: a Dog’s Story” was released in August 2009 and was directed by Lasse Hallström and Richard Gere as its main protagonist. This film portrays the story of a dog which faithfully waited for his master at the train station for 10 years even after his master’s death. At the end of the film there is a notice which claims that this story is a true story. So, I decided to find out more about this dog. Hachiko belonged to the Akita Inu breed. He was born in 10 November 1923 and was adopted by Hidesaburō Ueno, a professor at the University of Tokyo. The professor commuted to work every day, during Hachiko’s early years, he accompanied his owner every day to the Shabushy station and when he arrived back to the station at night the dog would be there, at the same place, at the same time, waiting for his master. The daily scene of the dog and the professor became so familiar to the people working in the station and other commuters that all of them greeted, fed and took care of the dog.
One day the awaited train arrived but, every time the doors of the station opened the dog saw someone else passing through them, not the professor. That day he did not came back. He had suffered from a cerebral hemorrhage at the University and had died before coming back home. But this did not prevent the dog from going every day, at the same time, to the same place, for the following 10 years to wait for his beloved master. Hachiko was finally found dead at that same spot on 8 March 1935.
Hachiko has become an icon of loyalty to the local people. Every year a ceremony is conducted in his honor. This ceremony takes place at Shabushy Station where a life-size bronze statue of the loyal animal has been erected. Hachiko has also become the protagonist of many didactic books for children. Hachiko is a local hero.

Culture

Dog meat
Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)

Energy: 1,096kj (262 kcal)
Carbohydrates: 0.1 g
Dietary fibre: 0 g
Fat: 20.2g
Protein:19 g
Water: 60.1 g
Vitamin C: 3mg (5%)
Calcium: 8 mg (1%)
Iron: 2.8 mg (22%)
Potassium: 270 mg (6%)
Sodium: 72 mg (3%)


I can imagine the baffled expression on your face. A strong feeling of disgust must have aroused on you while you were reading the table above. What is this girl talking about? You must be wondering. Is she kidding?
Well, everything started some months ago when I received an e-mail. This e-mail had been created by an animal rights group who was fighting against the slaughter of dogs. Yes! Dogs are considered livestock in many countries, mainly Asian countries. So, that animal that is playing in your back garden or lying on the floor next to you or sleeping on your lap while you are reading this may be delicious for some people. In the e-mail you could see a lot of pictures which illustrated how dogs were killed and later prepared in a great variety of dishes. It did not matter to whom I showed the pictures, reactions were always the same: Disgusting! Revolving! I can’t stand seeing them!
As I consider myself an open-minded person. I decided to find out a little more about this issue. And, I discovered that dog meat is consumed in a surprising number of countries all around the world and it has been consumed in almost every region at some point in history. But, this is not what I wanted to concentrate on. What I am interested in is in showing you to want an extent the place you are born and grown up in and the culture you belong to shape your view of the world. What is accepted for you and what is not. Which things are edible and which are not.
As I said reactions to the idea of eating dogs were always the same. But what makes a dog meat barbecue so disgusting and a meat or lamb or chicken or pork barbecue so tasty? And for me the answer is only one: culture. I admit that the pictures were revolving. Cruelty was depicted in each one of them. But, have you ever seen any picture taken at the slaughterhouse? I looked for some and the only thing that I found different, between those in the e-mail and these ones, was the size of the animals. I am afraid I may come over as a promoter of the killing and consumption of dog meat. By no means! I love dogs: I actually have got 5 at home. The fact is that I have always been interested in culture and tolerance.
If you are susceptible just do not click on the link below. I am including some of the pictures. Sorry...

PICTURES