July 2006

Despite tons of great things I saw at the congress, like students and teachers presenting the work they do with very simple tools, I was very surprised by one thing: the lists, blogs, newletters, etc. I suscribe to and read online have been talking about social software like Blogs and Wikis in the classroom for over a year now.

Bob Tinker showed us some of the things that they do at Concord. It reminded of the days I had to take the commuter rail down to Concord to work with Janice, Barbara, Trudi and Amy in the Spring of 2005. It used to be fun, and was sure very interesting. He mentioned briefly how probeware for smartphones and handhelds can provide opportunities for students to measure all sorts fo things, interact directly with reality and build knowledge from those interactions.

Bob Tinker nos mostró algunas cosas del software que están creando en Concord. Nos mostró cómo funciona Molecular Workbench y nos mostró algunos ejemplos de sensores que se pueden usar con teléfonos celulares y dispositivos de mano. Además de lo interesante que puede ser el trabajo con este tipo de simulaciones como Molo, las ideas más interesantes que nos deja Bob son acerca de lo que debemos hacer con nuestros docentes.

While I have the time to reflect on Bob Tinker's ideas I will just post my notes on his conference.

Mientras tengo tiempo de reflexionar y escribir reflexiones sobre Bob Tinker, voy a poner mis notas desordenadas sobres su presentación.

Bob Tinker. Global Sharing of Online Educational materials Based on Open Access and Open Source

One of the most important changes in education due to technology are the introduction of:
? Active Learning
? Collaborative Learning
§ Online problem solving and sharing

With some limitations on my time and the limitations on access to connectivity I have down here, it has been a little slow to post about the congress. I still need to post about the second conference of tomorrow, mostly about the advances in educational computing.

Now Bob Tinker, from Concord, is starting his talk. I will try and listen with all the people who are talking around me and post about his ideas.

Estuve en dos conferencias esta mañana y en la tarde ya no pude asistir a ninguna por estar aprovechando el tiempo para tener reuniones que es imposible tener en Bogotá cuando todo el mundo está copado con el día-a-día.

La primera conferencia, la de la Argentina, fue interesante, pero sentí que no dijo nada nueva o espectacular. Las principales ideas que me quedaron de su rapida charla fueron:

The congress started a couple hours ago. I heard the talk by the Viceminister, Juanita, who talked about the ministry's program, the president of the organizing university and part of the talk by the president of RIBIE.

RIBIE, the Colombian Educational Computing Conference will start tomorrow. I am already in Cali, in a hotel near the place where the conference will be. There seem to be some interesting topics and talks. Bob Tinker, from Concord Consortium will be here. For some reason the organizers haven't yet published the agenda, so I don't know what conferences and panels I will attend. Hopefully I will know tomorrow.
If anyone wants more information, visit http://www.icesi.edu.co/congresoieribiecol/.