Give it up to me

Actually I'm uploading this because it deserves to be mentioned. Shakira's new album SheWolf was the most expected release this year, but sadly, the expectatives seemed to be too high for such a horrible production. Even though I said I wouldn't listen to Shakira anymore, yesterday I found a beat that called my attention and, once I focused all my attention on it I couldn't believe my ears... It was Shakira again! redeeming herself for being such a silly wanna-be-gringa trying to become some sort of Madonna's imitator. Anyway, here it is: the song with no content but with an amazing beat "Give it up to me".

To blog, or not to blog

At the beginning of this month I had the chance to go to a seminary about education and blogging. It called my attention for a couple of reasons I’ll mention in a sec. As I said in my first post, blogging never called my attention but, since I found how interesting and fun this can be, my thoughts and opinions are being modified a bit.

Well, as I said before, the seminary called my attention because it announced blogging to be “the new way of learning”, interacting between teachers and students and also because it remarked the fact that technology is, nowadays, the only tool that many students have in order to study and increase their knowledge. Just think about Wikipedia which is an online encyclopedia. It has it all!

The lecturer said that teachers should include this methodology (blogging) in their teaching process in order to relieve all the work they have to do. Imagine how much a teacher has to do to mark tests and essays during the whole weekend because, obviously, cannot do it in classes, where he/she devotes all the time on teaching and planning new classes. I thought it would be nice to have all your pupils doing their homework, researches or essays online and then, at home (or practically wherever you are) check what they have done. That is amazing.

Some can complain that students will be even lazier because they won’t do an effort on reading and writing and analyzing most of the things they do and will only copy and paste everything they find. Actually, and contradicting this thought, if you Google something, you’ll have to read a lot before finding what you really need. Subsequently, to express what you want to say you’ll need to clarify your ideas and then post it… after checking that your other classmates haven’t posted the same in their blogs.

In addition, computing is what the students know the most nowadays. Therefore, why shouldn’t a teacher take advantage of this by giving them and bringing the students what they really like? The only drawback we can find when talking about blogging is the fact that only 50% of all the population in Chile has internet connection at home or at least, have access to it, which can be a major problem to face if blogging wants to be incorporated as a teaching and learning tool. Another problem is having students that don’t really want to do anything with it but that is up to every teacher and his/her teaching abilities.

Personally, blogging was and IS a good thing to be done. Firstly, it makes you think and be careful on what you post (you don’t want everybody to realize all the mistakes you make in a sentence). Secondly, you can write as much as you want of whatever you have in mind to write about. Isn’t that perfect? One of my assignments was writing about my favorite website but, as I didn’t have one, I wrote about my favorite music style and it was still accepted.

With no doubts, blogging should be used to teach in classrooms (or should I say everywhere?). I will do it for sure. I hate wasting paper in things that can be done in a pc. You see? There is another advantage: is environmentally friendly. To conclude, I have to admit that education has gone to old with its methods and techniques. Christopher Columbus was taught centuries ago just as we are being taught these years. We have to start a new way of learning, and blogging, who knows, may be part of it.

What a nightmare!

Cool!

That’s all I had to say after today’s class in which I had the chance to do whatever I wanted to do on Internet. Yeah, right! Whatever I wanted according to what the teacher told us to do (it doesn’t mean I’m complaining about it). If I have this kind of attitude is just because I had to face, once again, the reality of not comprehending crosswords puzzles at all. I mean, who do they think we are? How am I suppose to guess the word that fits in every blank space if there are many (not to say thousands) options?

How does this problem is still chasing me, when I thought test or quizzes at university were not based on this kind of methodology? I’m afraid that, instead of studying from English Grammar in Use, I’ll have to start buying crosswords magazines in order to train my mind and put my knowledge “up to it”.

I love taking pop quizzes on internet. I’m amazed of how many sources you can find to complement your classes as a teacher but, one thing I’m sure of: I’m not using crosswords puzzles ever. There might be more people around, like me, trying to hide themselves to the embarrassing truth of not knowing what to do with something like it. That’s something I desperately hope for.

Theater

Last week I had the chance to go to Teatro La Memoria to see the play “Rata de dos patas” (rat of two legs) and I had the impression that this good play would not become famous at all just because there are not enough chances of publishing such good activities anywhere.

It is interesting to see how the media tries to devote some time talking about culture and things connected with arts. The New York Times makes an effort on publishing about theater but, according to what I felt, they didn’t reach a good level of what commenting theater is about. They just talked about the event itself and how many people attended. The Brisbane Times website doesn’t even have a place to seek for such events, which tells us that, maybe, in Australia (or more exactly, the place where the newspaper comes from) people don’t even know what theater is.

What I’d highlight the most today is that The Guardian had in fact a good place related to the topic, and not only a place where they talk and describe about it but a place to blog your own opinion about the issue. What is more, apart from informing you about the play itself, they teach you some social concerns by including information about social concerns like Jean Charles de Menezes, who was a man confused with a terrorist and murdered by the police in England and that has became the theme of many plays within the city.

It would be very interesting to see at least one fourth of a page in Las Ultimas Noticias talking about good things like theater instead of gossiping about what this soccer player did last night with that brainless model. That is not culture at all but, if they sell that is because we’re asking for it, aren’t we?

Thank God

One of my most hidden dreams is having a kid. Actually, I’m not the one who’s going to have it inside, but my wife will. What I wanted to say is that I want to be a father and I think it will be the greatest experience ever. Even though I want to have kids I don’t want them right now, (despite the fact that I’m doing a big effort as if I wanted them now –joke-).

Nevertheless, I’m not here to talk about my wishes but to comment on something I saw today about pregnancy, population and birth control. It is a true fact that population worldwide has gone further than 6 trillion people (don’t know if that amount is ok, I have serious problems identifying numbers with lots of zeros) and, that that amount will duplicate itself within the century, bringing together lots of problems to our planet.

I can’t deny that the statement deeply called my attention. I totally agree with contraceptives, but since I’m a believer I know I have a fight against my ethical thoughts and contraceptive methods. Nevertheless, and not denying reality, I knew that about 60% of the active-sexual-life people are using one of these methods to prevent pregnancy. The interesting thing that called my attention is what would it be if we no pills or condoms where available nowadays? Would we have 12 trillion people worldwide already? Would our world be already destroyed or, in other words, eaten by ourselves?

Thank God somebody had the great idea of giving us the chance to decide whether to have a baby every time we make love or when we really want to have it. I think that, ironically, we have to add to the global warming definition that “it is also when people make babies without protection”. Taking everything into account I must say that my opinion is, ‘to save the world, make love... not babies’.