English Virtual Community

I will write about my second experience in SL ... here is a picture of me at Gavin's session in Edu Nation III on Dec 2nd. Well, that Saturday SL experience was an adventure. I will tell you why: As I have told you I cannot enter SL from my PC because it does not have enough memory and the graphics card is not good :( So I had to go to a cybercafe. I entered SL from a cybercafe near my house twice without any problems. In one opportunity I had a wonderful chat with Vance and Gavin... Well, I had dinner early that Saturday because the session was at 13hs. and went to the cybercafe... but it was closed!!! First problem, so I took my car and drove to another cybercafe ten blocks from my house. Second problem: the Internet connection was down!!! I drove to town center and went to the best and biggest cybercafe, but to my suprise it also had problems with the Internet connection !!! oh , my God. I went on driving looking for cybercafes but no luck. Finally I found one on the other end o...

Last Tuesday Jennifer and I finished a course on Computing Tools given by Intel Educar in Buenos Aires . We really had a great time sharing ideas, knowledge, laughing, projects . We really get on well, I hope we'll do something together in the future.

I am very happy to announce that I became a Second Life citizen. My name is Nelba Aeon. Why did I get my Second Life Citizenship? On one hand I want to explore this 3-D virtual World everybody talks about and on the other because Gavin Dudeney kindly invited me to one of his sessions in Second Life. ( Thank you, Gavin!). Unfortunately I cannot enter SL from my PC because it does not fulfill SL' s requirements ( You need a strong computer specially for the graphics), so I went to a cybercafe. I had my first experience this morning. At the beginning it was a bit disappointing because I was unexperienced and did not know exactly what to do... I walked around, went up and down some stairs, flew...but when I was about to leave, I met a group of people chatting in different languages! Amazing! and finally I met a Canadian lady who talked to me in English. We chatted for some time. I was really happy because she was a newbie, too. Well, that is all for now from SL.

Hi, everybody: Two weeks ago I did not know anything about facebook... and now I cannot avoid checking it. Another cyber addiction. Why? because it is a place where you can meet your friends asynchronously...share likes... like this video. Enjoy it :)

Matute's Blog - Sharing Knowledge...: Pingback: Tracking distributed "conversations" More about Pingback and Trackback: http://www.hixie.ch/specs/pingback/pingback , http://hitormiss.org/projects/trackback/

“Writingmatrix” es un proyecto originado por Vance Stevens quien convoca a docentes y a sus respectivos alumnos a utilizar blogs. Dichos blogs no tienen como fin realizar tareas de clase, sino escribir sobre el o los temas que realmente les interesara, y utilizar estos blogs como diarios en línea. Para hacer más interesante esta experiencia, Stevens convoca a participantes de distintas culturas. Poco a poco se fue armando un equipo de seis facilitadores de distintos países: Vance Stevens de Abu Dabi, Doris Molero de Venezuela, Sasha Sirk de Eslovenia, Rita Zeinstejer y, yo, Nelba Quintana de Argentina. Todos somos profesores de inglés familiarizados con las TICs. Con el fin de reunir participantes, envié una invitación a los miembros de la Comunidad Virtual de Inglés - EVC la cual modero desde 2001. A esta invitación respondieron personas de distintas edades, ocupaciones y niveles de inglés – oscila entre el pre- intermedio y el intermedio- pero con un mismo interés explorar la We...

I am very pleased to announce a new Blog Day in Argentina! This time it will take place in the beautiful city of Rosario. The organizers are really hard working and I think it will be a very very interesting experience. More info Writing Matrix is present in its wiki at: http://nodorosarino.pbwiki.com/ http://nodorosarino.pbwiki.com/English+Virtual+Community+Blog (in Spanish)

" The 2006 K-12 Online Conference provided outstanding opportunities for free, collaborative, accessible professional learning for educators around the globe. The 2007 conference is shaping up to provide more exceptional learning opportunities in the same spirit of collaboration and sharing! This year’s fantastic line up of keynote presenters will create an inviting and welcoming introduction in which the sharing of ideas among diverse learners working in diverse contexts continues. These distinguished folks will not only extend the conversations, but also invite each of us to stretch and grow as they share their expertise and wisdom in their respective strands. We are delighted they have each agreed to accept their roles as keynote presenters." We are happy to participate in the K12 Online 2007 as presenters :Vance Stevens, Nelba Quintana, Doris Molero, Sasa Sirk, and Rita Zeinstejer “ Motivating Student Writers by Fostering Collaboration through Tagging and Aggregating” htt...

When did I start using Internet? I think it coincides with the economic change in Argentina ( 1 peso = 1 dollar) in the late 90's. I started using e-mailing. I have friedns and family living abroad or in other cities, and they usually complain about the fact that I am pretty lazy for writing letters and going to the post office. So, e-mailing was a solution for me. A really turning point took place in 2001 when I was invited to an on line course on " How to evalute websites" carried out by another Argentinean - Prof. Norma Scagnoli- working at the University of Illinois. She introduced me into the virtual world and there I met one of my dearest cyberfriends: Prof. Dafne Gonzalez. From that moment my virtual life started. I bagan exploring the net and that same year I opened my firs e-group: English Virtual Community. My first steps on the Internet were really awful. I used to have dial up connection, so my experience was a bit poor. I could not spend much time on line and...

The more I surf, the more tools I find for posting. I have found this video in a blog . It is even better - well, different, too- than YouTube because you can choose the language for the subtitles. Yes, believe your eyes: you can choose the language for the subtitles!!!! New: I am very proud to say there is a comment in this post written by Gavin Dudeney who wrote How to teach English with Technology". Thank you, Gavin!

Nik Peachey suggested this site which is really interesting to explore. Well, he has not only suggested the site but also described it in details and written tutorials! Click on the slide above. Look at a lovely story some students have written.

I am very happy to present this mini video about Writing Matrix Project recorded at the entrance of the Escuela de Lenguas of the National University of La Plata. NEW : Read an article written by Prof. María Claudia Bellusci about this presentation. Thank you, María Claudia!

The 22nd Academic Conference called "From Global Trends to National Curriculums" took place at the Sheraton Hotel in Mar del Plata. I was invited to attend by Carolina Rioseco. Do you want to see the place? Click on these videos (Sorry if the sound is not good ) Here are some photos, place the cursor over the photos and you will get the names of the people in the photo : In one of the photos you can see a "whiteboard", the new tool Longman is offering. It is really fantastic! fully interactive: videos, listening material, activities, and you can write on it or highlighten text with an electronic pen. Really innovative. Talking about presentations? All presentations were good, but the one that I found very interesting was the one by Josefina Semillán Dartiguelongue. She is an anthropological and social philosopher who spoke for an hour and a half and kept all the audience in her fist. Her vocabulary is very rich and she really knows how to keep the attention by chan...

Blogs or Weblogs are the fastest growing technology on the Internet. With there being so many blogs now, how can you make our blog known and get people to read it? How can our blog become outstanding if there are so many people who are trying to accomplish the same thing? Avoiding the use of scrolls and links in the text body, and eliciting reader response are some of the keys for being successful on the Internet. New textual mechanisms are taking over to render the act of reading easier and more intuitive because we get tired soon from reading on a screen. Consequently, our blog writing style must be different from the usual writing style we use on a sheet of paper. Blog writing must make the act of reading easier and more intuitive. ( to be continued)

Text message and chat language are little by little accepted by society and dictionaries! The British Dictionary Collins has accecpted some of these terms, such as: b4 (before), gr8 (great) , lol ( laughing out loudly). Nevertheless, the Spanish dictionary of the Royal Academy has not accepted any yet. Language is not a static system, it changes with society. We do not write the same way people used to let's say... 1500. So, perhaps we are facing a big change in writing. Don't U think so? There is a very funny game, click on this link: http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/naturalenglish/elem/e_games/ne_elem_games_mobile01/ A new window will appear with a mobile phone. On the screen you will read messages, but they are not fully written. That is what you have to do: write the message. God luck and enjoy it!

Hello, everybody. I have stopped writing about science fiction because I am reading a lot about ITCs. Now I have discovered this new widget: SNAP SHOTS. What is the purpose of this widget? Snap Shots enhances links with visual previews of the link where you put the mouse icon on, and brings you the information you need about a link , without your having to leave the site, while other times it lets you "look ahead," before deciding if you want to follow a link or not.

This is a photo of our wiki where you will find all the information about Writing Matrix from Argentina. Perhaps the picture is a bit small, but if you click on it, a new bigger window will appear :) If you want to visit the site: http://writingmatrix.wikispaces.com/nelbaq

Here is a list of science fiction movies I have seen and liked : I robot ( robots Vs. men) Matrix (robots Vs. men) Terminator (robots Vs. men) X-men (genetical manipulation) Titan AE (the end of the world) Star Wars (good Vs.bad- eternal topic) Artificial Intelligence (robots Vs. men) The sixth day (clonation) Can you recommend any sci-fi movie? Give your reasons, please.

Thanks to all who have left a comment in my previous posting. I do really appreciate you have written so complete comments either if you like my topic or not. This posting will be devoted to one of the first sci-fi writers and one of the richest imagination : Jules Verne . I cannot separate my early adolescence from the book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea or the black and white movie Journey To The Center Of The Earth ( there is not a remake, is there?) I loved "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea". Do you know that he called the submarine "Nautilus" because there is a beautiful mollusc called like that. It moves up and down as a submarine by filling or emptying with water the different chambers of his body. I really enjoyed all the adventures of this submarine and his legendary captain Nemo. Which book written by Jules Verne do you like best?

Why have I chosen Science Fiction? Well, there are some reasons. The first one may be closely related to human kind wondering to know about the future. Science fiction gives us an idea of what life may be like . Its hypotheses are based on recent technological achievements or reasearch plus the imagination of the writer. Evasion may be the second reason. I cannot complain about this present, but I would like a better future. A world with heroes and heroins with ideals fighting against... alliens, robots or very ambitious villains who want to dominate the wordls ( Oops, aren't I describing the present??? Finally, I like sci-fi because it suprises me either in written as well as visual form. I remembered that I was shocked by the cruelty of allienated children in Ray Bradbury's short story " The Prairie" when I was a teenager and had to read it for high school. And nowadays , the cinema does not stop surprising me with special effect. Do you like sci-fi?

WELCOME to my blog. This blog will be part of a project using TICs: blogs and tagging. I will work with Prof. Vance Stevens ( American) , Rita Zeinstejer (Rosario- Argentina) and members of EVC : Matías, María Eugenia( Mar del Plata- Argentina) , Paola, Mariel , Jorge Etcheverry ( La Plata), María Lujan and Rosaura ( Atalaya- Argentina). I think it will be a wonderful experience where we will learn a lot.

If you join the frapper map, please add your photo and your name. I do not like empty squares because it is cold. Thank you!