martes, 3 de diciembre de 2013

#edcmooc MY DIGITAL ARTEFACT!

This is it: http://mrl.li/18BApoR

I know I did not use any video edition or did not create a complex digital artefact but I thought that everyone would do such a thing so I decided to use another device: a digital wallpaper. In this kind of device, people can add comments and create a common poster sharing ideas and knowledge. The aim of the project was to create a link with my peers so, I also added the link of my blog and an invitation to join me in mural.ly. I have to admit that it has been the first time I have used this kind of medium and I am delighted. It is very easy to use and I think it also offers another possibility for the teachers to use it with their students in the classroom.

I also have to admit that in my project I have also been a bit more possitive about what technology involves but I really needed to leave an open question at the end as we cannot predict the future, we cannot state anything yet about how this new technological era will be.

These are my reasons and please, take into account that I had no idea about technology before starting this course so be lenient!

Thanks for participating in this course and I hope to fing you around in a future!

lunes, 25 de noviembre de 2013

#edcmooc WEEK 3 VIDEOS

It is amazing when I watch a new video, the way I feel: I have nothing to say about it... It takes time, a while, and then I start writing and lots of ideas come to my mind. Maybe it is not the way it should be, who knows, maybe I do not have an important background to give my opinon about a specific topic, but I finally do. And I feel great as I can do it and because I have things to say.

TOYOTA GT86

In my opinion, this advertisement shows the desire of men to escape from a world dominated by technology, where we, sometimes, see ourselves without our own identity, but being part of a technological world, depicted in the video when the man is living in a virtual world. In this sense, we feel the necessity to find our place in this kind of world. I don´t think this videos depicts a desire to escape from that society surrounded by technology and a break out to nature, but a break out to human nature, feeling real emotions and being humans. What we see at the end of the video is a real field but there is still a road which divides it into two, and the man is still driving a brand new car, so, what I think this video shows is that we can still use technology to live and still feel humans.

On the other hand, and as I see it, technology is made by humans, designed by humans and it is supposed to serve humans, as a tool to live more comfortably but nowadays, technology seems to have a great importance and our world is completely immerse in technology.
Regarding to technology-mediated education, I think that the controversial point rises from the discussion of those who think that we would lose our human essence if we even have to learn with the help of technological advances, as opposed to the traditional ways of teaching. What we used to teach in the past years were pens, books, notebooks, etc. and we still do it that way but we are involved in a world in which if you are not part of a technological world you are left behind, as you are not being modern enough and soon your resources will be obsolete. I think there are advantages and disadvantages when using technology for teaching but the core of the problem is that even books, notebooks, pens and pencils were human´s inventions and we have used them since they were invented. Now, there is a cultural shock in which most people are not ready to understand that things are changing and that we should adapt to that new situation. It happens in every period of modernization and I think it is completely comprehensible that people need time for that transition.



To finish, I would like to highlight that technology in any sense in our society is not something else but consumption. So, we are told to use it, to buy it and have a real need because is what we are expected to do to keep on buying and consuming in this capitalistic system. And I think that the video shows how the publicists want people to think that even if having a brand new car, we are still living in a world of nature and human environment but also make us think that we need high-tech products to be involved in the present society.



BT: HEART TO HEART ADVERT

In this advert, all the conversations maintained are through technologies: whatsapp, facebook and mobile phones. It sounds real for us, as if they were talking face to face and taking place in the same room. I think we got used to it and it is mainly the way we communicate.

The message is: talk on the phone as if you were talking to that person yourself, face-to- face. But they are not. Obviously the conversations are real but as most of us know, there are lots of aspects involved in communication that are lost when using a mobile phone or when we use social networks, for example the intention of our words, intonation and the sound of our voices, which can be really meaningful in some situations as they show the emotional state of a person at some points. That is why emoticons are used as part of the texts we send.

I think that we accepted using those means to communicate as part of our daily life, we changed our views on communications, but we still have face-to-face conversations so we still do it the way we have always done it.


I think that sometimes, we do not have the opportunity to talk to the person we want face to face and then we use the tools we have at the reach of our hands to make it possible. In the recent years, communication has been one of the most important features depicted in technology advertisements: mobile phones, web pages to find partners, computers, applications, pc programs such as skype, messenger… and then, we still have a way to communicate without using all these means but we have been sold the idea that the more you communicate, the more you are loved, cared and important for others. That makes us feel better and needed. So I think that lots of important values of humans are involved in this issue. 



WORLD BUILDER

On the one hand, I think the message of the film is that if you can feel emotions, then they are true, even if the input or what it makes you feel does not exist, in this case it is a virtual input.  

And on the other hand, this video wants to transmit how powerful we can become when using technology. We can even create a new world, we become creators and inventors, real builders of virtual realities, as the one in the film.

How is human depicted in this video? In my opinion, the human is depicted as an almighty being capable of creating and building life, in this case a tree and a flower, and he can do it with only a touch of his hand and using technology. He can select, change, build as a real creator. I think there is a comparison to what a god can do: he can create a world the way he wants out of nowhere.

But humans are also depicted as weak, our nature makes us weak as we pass away, become ill and can be quite vulnerable, portrayed by the woman who is in hospital. And technology cannot help with that, and the almighty human can barely do anything about it, just simulate that he can do it. Then, there is a dualism in what a human is in this video: everything and nothing at the same time. The means a person can have to play god is technology and science. In my view I think it has been one of the most desirable goals for a human being.


THEY`RE MADE OUT OF MEAT

"Omigod"!!! I really enjoyed this one! This is just fantastic! 

I think it is the first time I see how a non human being (even if it is fictional) talk about humans the same way we talk about animals.

What make us humans? We are just flesh... are we? Well, I think we are in a sense, of course. There are so many discussions about what will happen when we die, for example, and I say: we just die, our flesh will disappear and that is all. But we have got a brain, a brain which is so powerful that we can create defense mechanisms and say that we will go to a heaven where everything is just perfect and we will live in an immaterial way forever. We have a got a brain and we can think, invent, create, talk, communicate... But yes, it is also flesh, we are "thinking meat".

I think this story wants to highlight how basic we are. In the same line as the previous video, humans are depicted as weak and inferior compared to technology itself, even if technology is an invention by human brains.

And again, what makes us humans are emotions: "Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat (...)". We are just meat but we can think, we are concious and we can feel love, hate, passion, sadness... Our brain works as the technological device used in the "world builder" video, creating a common reality throught thoughts and feelings. 

I think that as humans cannot explain what we are, why we are the way we are, how things started and why, we just have to state something, a beginning, an idea which makes us feel humans, not just flesh, but something else, something which makes sense in our reality and identity. We think: there must be something else, we are not just meat... And then, the search for identity starts. There are religions giving acceptable explanations for those who cannot accept we are just meat. Some thinkers said that is art what made humans being humans, others say that nothing but us can think. In the video, technology is portrayed as the "one" which thinks, as the aliens wonder: how can meat think? Well, we do. Science explains the way a human brain works, and we were able to know that thanks to the improvements in science.  The same way we can also know more about ourselves, our nature and our world thanks to technology.

Let me say something else. I have read one of my partner´s opinion of this video I would like to share: http://pursuingmoocs.wordpress.com/2013/11/26/hey-lets-meat-up-edcmooc/ . Rajiv Bajaj is surprised by the way the extraterrestrial sees humanity because the alien chooses a ridiculous outfit to be unnoticed by humans. And I have just remembered one of my favourite speeches ever in a film. I shared the link where you can read the speech. The film is "Kill Bill Vol. 2" by Tarantino and it has the same core idea as Rajiv´s note.


I am sorry, people, but I had to do some research and share the original story. I think the writer deserves some recognition: http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html


lunes, 18 de noviembre de 2013

#edcmooc It´s evolution, baby!

I cannot avoid it... I love music and I specially like Pearl Jam. This video is a dystopian view of what technological improvements mean and what we call evolution is depicted in the next video as destruction.

When speaking about "Do the Evolution", Vedder stated, "That song is all about someone who's drunk with technology, who thinks they're the controlling living being on this planet. It's another one I'm not singing as myself."[3] Pearl Jam has stated that the novel Ishmael influenced the writing of Yield,[4] and according to the novel's writer, Daniel Quinn, this song comes the closest to expressing the ideas of the book.[5] Vedder stated:
This Daniel Quinn book, Ishmael...I've never recommended a book before, but I would actually, in an interview, recommend it to everyone....But this book, it's kind of the book of my ... My whole year has been kind of with these thoughts in mind. And on an evolutionary level, that man has been on this planet for 3 million years, so that you have this number line that goes like this [hands wide apart]. And that we're about to celebrate the year 2000, which is this [holds hands less than one inch apart]. So here's this number line; here's what we know and celebrate. This book is a conversation with a man and an ape. And the ape really has it all together. He kinda knows the differences between him and the man, and points out how slight they are, and it creates an easy analogy for what man has done, thinking that they were the end-all. That man is the end-all thing on this earth. That the earth was around even so much longer before the 3 million years. Fifty million years of sharks and all these living things. Then man comes out of the muck, and 3 million years later he's standing, and now he's controlling everything and killing it. Just in the last hundred! Which is just a speck on this line. So what are we doin' here? This is just a good reminder...And I'm anxious to see what happens. You know, I've got a good seat for whatever happens next. It'll be interesting. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_the_Evolution]

Click to listen to the song and watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDaOgu2CQtI


Throughout the video, a black haired woman (similar in appearance to the character Death from the DC comic book series, The Sandman) dances and laughs, representing "Death" as it follows mankind through all of its history. The video begins with the evolution of life, from the smallest cell to the extinction of dinosaurs and reign of homo sapiens. The video then cuts back and forth throughout human history, depicting man's primitive, violent nature as essentially unchanged over the centuries. Such depictions include a knight preparing for the coming slaughter during the Crusades, a ritual dance by America's KKK (the dance is repeated with other groups throughout the video), a rally by Nazi-esque troops (with a symbol reminiscent of the Sig Runeinstead of a swastika), concentration camp prisoners, a book burning, carnage upon a World War I-era battlefield (apparently a tribute to Peace on Earth, a 1930s MGM anti-war cartoon directed by Hugh Harman), the apparent virtual-reality rape of a woman, and the bombing of a Vietnamese village by an American jet, the pilot of which removes his mask to reveal a skull laughing wildly. Every scene portrayed complements the song's meaning and tightly follows the lyrics. When Vedder sings "Buying stocks on the day of the crash," a scene is shown where businessmen are committing suicide by jumping from buildings, a reference to the apocryphal suicides of Black Thursday during the Wall Street Crash of 1929.[13]
Other social and environmental issues such as slavery, whaling, Manifest Destiny, uncontrolled urbanization, vivisection, pollution, genetic modificationand techno-progressivism are included. The music video blames humankind's brutality on leadership; with various scenes depicting a judge, a bishop or pope, an Asian political leader and an American president candidate, who is being portraited as a puppet, controlled by someone unseen, from behind the scene. The video concludes in what seems to be future scenarios of the self-destruction of the human race, including the carpet bombing of a city of clones by futuristic aircraft, computers hijacking the human mind, and finally a nuclear explosion which leaves not only a city in ruins, but the planet damaged beyond recognition. However, near the end of the animation, the earth is briefly seen as an ovum, suggesting a rebirth and the perpetuation of the human condition. During the sequence of flashing images near the end of the video an image of a yield sign being smashed at the corner can be seen, which references the album title and cover art.  [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_the_Evolution]

Note: I just copied from wikipedia the video summary and Eddie Vedder´s words and I wanted to leave these two hyperlinks to have the possibility to go further.

domingo, 17 de noviembre de 2013

#edcmooc Salvation or destruction: metaphors of the internet by R. Johnston.

I have just read Jonston´s work on metaphors of the internet. I studied some of the authors mentioned in the text, specially Lakoff and Johnson, as I studied linguistics at university, but it was focused on language and not on technology. 

I think people use metaphors to understand the internet the same way we use metaphors to understand reality. As Johnston says, we created a great range of metaphors to refer to the internet as it is part or our lives and as a result, part of our reality.

So it is logical to ascribe time and space features to our concept of the internet as it is the way we conceive reality. And I also think we personalize the internet because, even if it is a tool we use everyday for different purposes, it seems that it is an independent being.

Depending on our view of the internet, we will use possitive or negative purposes, what it takes us again to the dichotomy discussed in the first week: we will consider the internet possitive or negative depending on our view if we see it as a utopian or dystopian element. Furthermore, we can also see the internet for different purposes within the utopian or dystopian point of view so we can subdivide these metaphors in many others such as demading, revolutionary, oppressing...

All these metaphors,as I pointed out above, respond to the main considerations expressed in the text: we can see the internet as salvation, which is the possitive and utopian point of view, or as destruction, which is the negative and dystopian point of view.

We express our thoughts and ideas on the internet the same way we express ourselves in any other area of our lives or reality and to understand such abstract idea of the internet, we use metaphors, but we will use ones or others depending on how we conceive it.

#edcmooc Conceptual Metaphors of the World Wide Web by Zach Tomaszewski

I  missed some practical examples in the article by Rebecca Johnston so I tried to find examples conceptual metaphors. I found this text by Zach Tomaszewski. I think it is quite interesting and I hope you find it useful too.

http://www2.hawaii.edu/~ztomasze/ling440/webmetaphors.html

#edcmooc SIGHT

This video is about a man who perceives the world in a very different way. He does not see reality as it is but he has got a digital data base so he can get extra objective information besides the information one can get when we receive sensorial input, objective or subjective (input through senses and the possible interpretations one can make depending on his or her own experience).

He sees the world as a game and he lives his life as if he was part of one.  He can interact and modify reality, changing what he does not like (the topic when he is talking to the girl), choosing features if he requires so (wine at the restaurant) and he has got the control at all times.  And everything he knows is what he can get from his database. He even got kind of annoyed when she told him something about herself (she was a vegetarian) and he did not know that in advance and he could not find that information in his virtual files. He has to have the control over everything as that is the way he can play a proper game.

This video shows how an addicted mind to virtual games works.  Everything he performs or does has an aim: to win the game. It is funny how he scores points when he is cutting cucumbers in the kitchen, but I think this vision is even scary when the video goes on as he does not only want to win in superfluous things like these but he only wants to control people.

I guess most of you will recognize yourselves in the following thoughts. When you spend a lot of time playing a game and you are not playing at a certain moment of the day, you can even see the screen and the moves you would do, or you can even imagine that real objects could be part of the game. There are so many addictive games nowadays and most of us know people who spend most of their time doing so. Therefore, this video is not that futuristic as I think that if we had the opportunity to make our lives a game, loads of people would accept.
There is another point in this video. It is related to virtual reality or games but the main actor also has a plain life and he does not need material things as we can see his house and it is almost empty. He supplies what he does not have with virtual objects, information and input. His life is merely passive as he cooks what “he is being told the way he is being told” or he talks about what the “game” tells him to talk for the conversation to be successful and he uses applications to make the date perfect.

To win a game means that you do it perfect or you lose, so he must not commit any errors, as it happens when he cuts the cucumber and it not perfect so he has to do it again). What he seeks in life is perfection and technology can help his life being as perfect as it can be, but that is not natural. Humans commit mistakes and must fail to learn, that is one of the basis for education, in my view. So, another question here would be: can technology make our lives perfect? Can technology provide everything we need? Can technology make us happy?

This is also a reflection of what virtual relationships work nowadays. Most people meet new people using technology:  internet applications or pages which connect people. Most mobile phones campaigns talk about communication: without communicating at all times, wherever you are or whatever you are doing you do not exist, or you will not have a successful social life. This video pushes this idea to an extreme but it is a metaphor of personal relationships.

Now the question is: how do you live your experiences?

miércoles, 13 de noviembre de 2013

#edcmooc GOOGLE I/O: How will our future be?

VIDEO: GOOGLE I/O 2011

I really loved this video and I want to thank the opportunity to learn from ideas like the ones expressed in the speech by Annalee Newitz.

Technology is portrayed as an independent individual with will.  Society is controlled by machines or technological devices and people are conducted to behave in a certain way. And what´s more, technology dictates how people must think creating a global thought, a common mind and a unique way of thinking.  Technology in these works is not depicted as a tool for the use of people but as an engine which thinks for you and set the rules of our way of life. And moreover, people is not aware of this fact, so society is depicted as a global being, completely alienated and without control of their own lives.

 In Matrix, some characters are aware of this situation but they have to fight “the machine” and they live unhappily as they know the truth, they know that people is being used and controlled, that technology is not a tool anymore and that people are the sustenance of technology instead, they have seen the “backstage” of the virtual world presented to be believed as the real one. The others, on the contrary, live alienated and unconscious, they “sleep” and let technology rule their lives as you can live happily and without preoccupations. This is the way I see society, there are a lot of people who are ignorant, but not in a disrespectful way, but in the sense some do not know, they ignore how the system works and what we mean for the system. I think The Matrix portrays the System, a global machine which controls society as a whole, not as a individuals with needs, a massive economic system, a fixed world political system and how humans are seen by it.

Whenever I use facebook, I realize how quick a piece of information is spread. People do not want to be left behind and most of them share and share the same picture, piece of information or video to feel they form part of a whole. The hive mind is on its way, and even if we are aware of that, we keep on doing it, and we decide that that is the way we live our virtual life, the way we communicate, we learn and we know about reality which, in my opinion, is not responsible. Actions like these foment the collective thought .I think we are part of a massive global mind so these fictional discourses, in their basis,  should not be considered fictional but a portray of society nowadays too.

She also talks about privacy on the internet and she states that we do not have any privacy but we can hide the information about ourselves expressed on the internet to those ones we choose. But the core idea is that we do not own any privacy at all. And I think this is quite accurate. We publish details of our lives on the internet every day. Anyone has access to that information, even if we do not know them at all. We are completely exposed to the mercy of control and surveillance.

I would consider these words as dystopian in the sense that what technology offers in these situations is not positive but negative for society and for individuality. I have always thought too that we consider as a real portrayal of the future what some fictional discourses describe. I mean, when we think about the future, as we cannot have an accurate vision of it (it is impossible as it has not happened yet) we take fictional discourses as a reference. So, in a way, we think that is the way our future will be. Let´s take 1984 as a reference. We do have surveillance, control over society is so established that we do not even wonder why, we can see our rulers on the screens and we listen to their speeches on television or pc screens, and many governments are nowadays as totalitarian and repressive as in the novel. So, is it a coincidence? Were these authors such visionaries? I do not think so. Therefore, it is logical to think that we accept technological progress as “natural” and a part of our destiny.




martes, 12 de noviembre de 2013

#edcmooc A DAY MADE OF GLASS 2 and BRIDGING OUR FUTURE

A DAY MADE OF GLASS 2 and BRIDGING OUR FUTURE

I think that this video wants to show that people can live a whole day interacting with technology. Technology is present in people´s daily life at all times.

Regarding to technology in education and how is education portrayed, I think they do not only focus learning at school but since you wake up until you go to bed in the sense that you can always find information at any time, knowledge at the reach of your hand, wherever you are or whatever you are doing. So, this video states that a quick and easy access to information equals learning. In my view, even you have the opportunity to access information at any time of the day, that does not mean learning. Learning is a complex process in which more than a simple access to knowledge is involved. For example: motivation, interaction with other people, explanations and a guide. Obviously, some may say that all these things can also be found in that kind of e-learning but I am not that sure about it. Knowledge is presented in a very visual way, the person who wants to find some information does not have to make much effort to get it (which has some other advantages as well; the faster you find it, the faster you get to knowledge) otherwise, people have to look for that information, in that case we are the agents of the action as the video shows but I really think that people are just passive agents and finally, the information given is presented in a way some others designed it, so research is reduced to a simplistic way of learning.

Activities at school depicted in the video are mostly interactive and dynamic, students just have to pay attention, they do not need to take notes, just listen or watch. You can also see them talking among them but in my opinion this is quite utopian vision of learning as most of us know, students rarely share the passion for learning or opinions at that young age. Then, motivation is fundamental here and technology hardly can provide that. The question is: why is it there still a teacher in the classroom? Why do they still need parents or friends? Why do they need a car to go to school or work? Why do we still need doctors? In my view, we are people and technology, contrary to what the video may show, can be used to make our lives easier but technology cannot be our lives, an important part nowadays but I do not think it will substitute social interactions, teaching, parenting or diagnosing. If knowledge is presented as it is and they have access to whatever they want and need, how can they build it? Well, they could search on the web, do some research, but what they need to find has been probably done by thousands before so, there is no need to build anything. We have access to whatever answer we have, so the process of learning and researching is not done by the student but by a computer.

I also believe that if we lived in a society like the one in the video, we would not develop our human skills as we should. I mean, we would depend on technology for everyday life and young people would grow up influenced by this way of life that they would not be able to live in a different way. The simple action of opening you wardrobe and choose your clothes, for example. I do not think we really need it, we can do it on our own and technology should be used for new things which cannot be done by ourselves. Improvement in medicine is one good option, if it helps saving lives or having a better life, I think it would be great news. But depending on technology for such things as opening a wardrobe is pushing a society think that we have that necessity and we do not have it. One further question: would we need to learn how to write properly?
 With this model of education, students would need to read and typewrite properly but what about writing? What about visiting places and experience? Students have access to live communication with real world, they can watch videos and have all the information you can find of anything you want (like the bridge in the second video)… but what if they arranged a trip to that place and talk to the people working or living there? Well, the idea of doing everything with only moving a finger is quite attractive but we would lose lots of experiences in the real world. For example: you can learn about weather via internet or using technologies but what about the smell of rain in the countryside? The wind before a storm? I think it is experience what we miss in these models of education.

The titles of both videos are quite revealing. Both mean the desire of building a new model of society and education. Technology is what rules our education and set the basis for a new model of society and learning. “A day made of glass” shows the necessity they want for us for a daily routine completely dependent on technology and the second video uses the word “future” and plays with the world: build and bridge. Technology companies aspire to model our way of life and society and one way to do it is through education. First, they set the new model and then they will make technology a first necessity for new generations.
Unfortunately, I think this is a very dystopian view of daily life and education. Although, I think it is idealistic in a sense… what this company would like life to become so they would be successful in their business. Both videos show optimistic and utopian learning models, they depict the way learning or society should be in order to build a whole system with dependent consumers of avant-garde technologies.


jueves, 7 de noviembre de 2013

#edcmooc 9

I have watched a great number of dystopian films, I am really fond of them but most of these films are not strictly based on technological domination of the world and deshumanization of humankind. Most dystopian films are based on chaotic and apocalyptic tyrannical and totalitarian regimes depicted in films such as V for Vendetta, 1984 or Fahrenheit 451; or decadent or alienated societies pushed to the limit in futuristic worlds, in films such as THX 1138, A Workclock Orange, Longan´s Run, Brazil or Children of Men. I know that there are many famous films which have technological domination as their core topic, but I believe that most of us have already thought about them too, for example Blade Runner, Metropolis, Ghost in the Shell or Terminator . I have checked lists and lists of dystopian films until I remembered the one: 9.

I will not describe the film or analyse the dystopian or utopian features of the film as I would like to start a discussion with my partners. I invite you to watch the film, so we can debate and learn together.

You can watch the film in this site: http://ultra-vid.com/watch-9-2009-movie-online-free

I hope you find it interesting and I will wait for your comments!





miércoles, 6 de noviembre de 2013

#edcmooc POPULAR CULTURES: Bendito Machine III, Inbox and Thursday.

1:  BENDITO MACHINE III
What is this film suggesting are the ecological and social implications of an obsession or fixation on technology?
Society demands technological devices for different purposes: it mainly provides entertainment, it also guides ourselves in our daily life: technology substitute going out for entertainment, doing sport, learning, looking for information- you do not need to look for it anymore, devices as internet or television also selects what you must watch or learn, therefore it also provides you the knowledge some consider you need (the video does not show who or what is behind the machines, it is presented as a divine being). As new technologies appear faster and faster, we feel the necessity to consume more and more, so we throw obsolete devices to buy new ones which implies mass production and therefore, the depletion our natural resources. Mass production means lots of factories manufacturing for tonnage consumers, and as a result, pollution and a world which not many resources left.
Do the film’s characters have any choice in relation to their technologies?
I think they do. They can always continue with their lives as they were before, at the beginning of the film. As their lives go on along with technology, they get used to it, they feel they really need it, they adapt their lives to technological devices and I do not think they even think in the possibility of having a choice. The fact that a supernatural being is the one which/who offers these machines to humans is also interesting as a rejection of traditional values being substituted by technological rites. This also leads to a further discussion: can we consider technology as the new belief in the 21st century?
What are the characteristics of various technologies as portrayed in this film?
Independent and autonomous machines. Machines with personality. Anthropomorphic devices with their own will and power.

2: INBOX
Depending on how you interpret the relationship between the two main characters, and the ending, you might argue that this is a utopian account, or a dystopian one - what do you think, and why?
As it is said in the question, this video can be seen from a utopian or dystopian point of view. I think I could argue both, the advantages or disadvantages of social networks or digital devices we use to communicate. According to the story, the main characters are able to communicate and interact thanks to technology, depicted as a magic red bag. Humans have got adapted to this situation, to this way of communication and for most of us, social networks and technology is also a widely accepted tool to create links. Technology has brought a new way of creating new relationships as acceptable as the ones we normally create in real life.
The dystopian point of view in my opinion rises when the boy accidentally tears the “bag”. In this case, technology does not fulfill its purpose and there is a communication breakdown. So, some may say that technology can never substitute human face-to-face relationships and that we should not depend on technology, that technology should serve us and not the other way round.

3: THURSDAY.
What message is the film presenting about technology? What losses and gains are described? Who or what has ‘agency’ in this film? [agency is the capacity of an agent (a person or other entity, human or any living being in general, or soul-consciousness in religion) to act in a world]
Since we wake up until we go to bed (and at the beginning of the video, even while we sleep), we are surrounded by digital devices. Technology is present in our daily life at all times. The video pictures a perfect harmony between nature and technology in a sense you can even distinguish them (described when the bird imitates the ringtone of the mobile phone). The video shows a checked pattern most of the time: the pattern of the duvet, buildings from above, floors, computer or television screens and offices.
People are depicted as automats or robots serving a global system ruled by technology.
I think this video shows just the opposite of most dystopian narratives. It shows a technological world in which a strange agent changes the system. The odd element in a technological world is depicted by a weak little bird, a metaphor of the natural world, where humankind really belongs to. Nature, as being represented by such a small and a priori weak animal, shows all its power bringing down such a powerful technological system, system which made humans slaves and dependents.  People serve the system but it is also completely dependent. The sunlight through the window annoys the man who is working with his computer and he also has to pay to enjoy the views from a tower. People in the video do not accept nature as part of themselves, they do not consider themselves as part of it but a part of a system and a network as they have become alienated beings.
For all these reasons here, I think the system itself is the one who has agency in the video.
As I was watching the videos, a lot of ideas popped in my mind. One of those ones is the one which follows, related to learning and understanding from reality.

We live in a digital era and our understanding, our view of reality and even reading has changed. In the past, people from the Western world used to read from left to right and reality was seen like that, that was our system to “understand and read” the world. We were the agents and it was our duty to find the input we needed. Nowadays, I think that pattern has changed: we are not agents anymore, we are passive beings and we receive the input via “flashes”: images from television or computer screens, interactive media, digital devices such as mobile phones and tablets or audio formats . Digital world has even changed that system and I really think schools should adapt new students´ needs to their teaching systems. The way we learn and get information has changed so we also need to change the way we present information so communication and learning can be successful. 

martes, 5 de noviembre de 2013

DYSTOPIAN FILMS

I am fond of dystopian films so I want to share with you a list of dystopian films that may interest you and which includes some of my favourite films of all times such as 12 Monkeys (!!!), Blade Runner, Brazil (!!!), Strange Days, Metropolis, Moon, THX 1138, A Clockwork Orange, Delicatessen (!!!), Mad Max (!!!), Planet of The Apes... and I could add a lot more but I think I made my point clear: I LOVE DYSTOPIAN FILMS! 

I must admit that Terry Gilliam is one of my favourite directors in creating future atmospheres and dystopian fiction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dystopian_films





#edcmooc Technology in dystopian novels

In my first year at university, we read and studied dystopian novels. We mainly worked on "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley, among others. It was really fastinating. Although future is pictured as negative and chaotic in dystopian novels, it was an issue that attracked me from the very beginning. Its basis is the fear of technology, not only because it could in a sense become a "self-sufficient machine", but the irresponsability of those who program and design those machines. Obviously, technology is meant to have many different purposes, they might be possitive or negative for humankind. Dystopian novels depict societies in which technologies are demonised, where machines develop more and more power and where people became slaves of technology. 

Now, technology is part of our lives but we have to take into account the fact that a century ago, it was a real threat. We got used to technology but some may say that the threat is still there. Furthemore, it might even be more threatening as most people don´t fear technology anymore.

I would like to share this .ptt file by Ivón Rivera which is both simple and clarifying to understand dystopian narratives.



#edcmooc THE TIME IS NOW

I have just watched the introductory videos by the lectures of the online course e-learning and digital cultures. It is so exciting to be part of it and to feel the lectures´ passion for teaching. I would like to thank the effort, the interest and the opportunity to learn under the guidance of such professional lecturers. 

I lived in Edinburgh for a time some years ago but unfortunately I did not have the chance to study at the Edinburgh university as I had already finished my degree in English studies. I learned a lot anyway: I learnt from the people I met, from my collegues, from a different culture and local customs. Now, I am looking forward to learning from people all around the world and from experienced lecturers. 

I would like to thank the lecturers for their words, their support and specially to Christine Sinclair who understands perfectly my personal situation, as I am an inexperienced online student. 

I cannot wait to develop my own personal skills during this course. This course is about learning, and motivation is, in my opinion, the most importan feature. I have good motivation for success and I am determined to achieve my particular goals.




lunes, 4 de noviembre de 2013

NEW GOALS

I have just created this blog because I joined an online course by the university of Edinburgh. As most of my friends know, I lived in Edinburgh for a few months but I had already finished my studies at university but one of my dreams was to study abroad. Now, thanks to internet I can do it and I am really excited. As far as I know this course will help me face my fear to new technologies and hopefully learn a lot for my teaching activity. In this blog I will be able to put my thoughts of education into words. Learning is what counts. Here we go!!!