The podcast is here: The Puerto Rico Connection

Posted on November 15, 2017 by Antonio Vantaggiato

Yes, the Puerto Rico Connection is out! The first episode of the podcast Alan Levine and I were concocting and cooking on the camping-gas grill is out and alive.

Actually, Alan did almost all the work, a little in Strawberry, a little on a plane, and the rest from Melbourne. What more proof of globalization do you want?

Alan moreover got this amazing idea of doing the first episode asynchronously, given I was (notice the *past*) with no electricity and my connection was spotty at best. And I loved the baton-passing scheme. Then Alan mounted up the various audio files, incorporated (lawyers beware!) a little soundtrack at the beginning and ending titles from The French Connection movie–like he said, no connection at all except for the inspiring title!

I think it came out a pretty decent first episode, which I had to wait until today to publish on my own Skate because I was so so busy in the weekend to assess my students’ work.

Here is the first episode, hosted on TapeWrite, a tool Alan suggested–and I liked immediately. You’ll see why: If you like the idea of an open Web where media can be openly embedded within Web pages, well, that’s it. TapeWrite makes it easy to enrich an audiofile with some media that one can place at specific moments in time. Alan even got the cover image of a book I was talking about!

 

We had been thinking about an edtech podcast for a while, and the occasion to begin arose pretty wildly, given the situation we have been living here, with classes under tents and no equipment to be used. This prompted faculty to revise and redo our teaching plans for the rest of the semester, with the objective in mind to have students recover asap and not simply finish their semester but actually to make the best of it–if possible.

So in a way we incorporated this issue into the podcast, plus media, books, films, etc. We have a second episode on our minds, and we don’t know yet if it will be synchronous or not. But I’d love to record one live while Alan is in Australia and interview Parisa Mehran, the author of the first postcard to arrive here, which carried the powerful message:

a woman who has to prove her humanity every day.

We want to talk humanity, by Jove!

A propos, Alan, where the heck has your own card been forwarded? Yours was the very first card being sent through the mail… and we still haven’t got it.

Anyway, today we got this very nice one: Thanks @mdfunes!!

Let’s move to the next episode, then!

[Logo image by Alan Levine. Featured image photo by Amaris, #inf115 student]
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Oh so many postcards for #care4sagrado!!

Posted on November 11, 2017 by Antonio Vantaggiato

More postcards arrived at my desk during the past week, and I am just like a kid… so happy to get mail!! Curiously, getting emails has not got a similar effect 😉 –well, perhaps in the late eighties it did.

So, we already shared them on Twitter via selfies from #inf115 students, and both them and I were proud and grateful to get them.

Here they are. Again, folks, thank you so much. It’s a testimony of globalization’s good arm.

IMG_6232

IMG_6231From Scotland’s Sarah Honeychurch (@NomadWarMachine). I love Scotland, Sarah: First, my best English teacher was a Scot; and I had a wonderful time in Scotland when my wife Hilda was pregnant of our first daughter, Chiara. In the magical woods with the big bag!

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C3-inside

This one from Giulia Forsythe from Niagara, Canada (@giuliaforsythe). Thanks Giulia, nice getting this from you! Giulia did all the drawing-doodle-summaries for our first TEDx, back in 2013.

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Another from Canada! Did I say my family and I love Canada and have traveled the long roads in BC and Nova Scotia, Québec and New Brunswick? Great places and great, nice people.

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This last is from an unknown sender (a postal worker nonetheless) and was mailed from Memphis, Tennessee.

Thanks all, y paz! Pero, ¡basta con la paciencia! / Enough with patience, though!

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More Mail from el Puente de #PuertoRico

Posted on November 2, 2017 by Antonio Vantaggiato

Perhaps the media don’t talk any longer about the situation in Puerto Rico, hit by storm Maria, five weeks ago. The same five weeks we have been living without electricity, spotty cell and Internet access.

But you know what, we have made a good use of the little electricity we got and we overcame many obstacles, such as teaching and demoing Web services through students’ laptop and hand-held devices. And until now it worked pretty well. Many students of mine say the do prefer the course this way!

Of course, receiving postcards from you guys is the highlight of any day. The second batch of postcards (yes, they were two!) came in yesterday. And here they are. They were immediately tweeted and selfied by two students of #inf115, who appreciate the spirit.

Thanks to Pumpkin Yang (@pumpkiny) and Karen Fasimpaur (kfasimpaur)!!

The Fantastic Flower Garden -- Denver, CO. From Pumpkin Yang @pumpkiny

The Fantastic Flower Garden — Denver, CO. From Pumpkin Yang @pumpkiny

 

From @pumpiny

#care4sagrado from @pumpiny

#care4sagrado from @KFasimpaur Karen Fasimpaur

Portal, AZ – from @KFasimpaur Karen Fasimpaur

#care4sagrado from @KFasimpaur Karen Fasimpaur

#care4sagrado from @KFasimpaur

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I got mail from el Puente de Puerto Rico

Posted on October 26, 2017 by Antonio Vantaggiato

You got mail, Antonio. I was told this morning, as soon as I arrived at the big hall we’re using as a common space (a “Commons”?) for faculty to work, recharge devices and fill reports after hurricane Maria.

First letter of Puente de Puerto Rico

As soon I saw in my hands a big white envelope I knew it had to be Parisa’s letter from Japan. Parisa (@ParisaMehran) is a friend, a networked friend whom I didn’t even know before Alan Levine devised his genius plan called Puente de Puerto Rico (A bridge of Postcards) #care4sagrado, after the name of my university del Sagrado Corazón.

A puente of postcards from the four corners of the world for people to say #wecare. And the first corner just responded. Well, Alan thought his postcard would get here before the others, but little did he know Parisa would be using Express-mail.

Long story short, today I got the very first postcard of the series, and it was hers. Actually, it was a delicious little letter. From Japan, which I’d love to visit, but haven’t yet.

This is her tweet when she mailed it:

https://twitter.com/ParisaMehran/status/921253048940249088

And this is my tweet this morning after i got it. Read the letter.

Double read the last sentence. It resounds in my head non stop since her tweet.

A woman who has to prove her humanity every single day.

This is powerful. And beautiful. And I’ll ask her to express it over a podcast Alan and I will begin soon, if she likes to join.

Did I say she is Iranian? Well, two coincidences are too many. Iran is in my five-spot bucket list for countries I want to visit, and I have been planning to take the famed train from Istanbul to Tehran for some years, believe it or not.

You made my day, dear Parisa! And that of my students. Thank you. Thank you networks. And thank you Alan for being the trigger to all this.

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Words of care for us after the (ugly) storm

Posted on October 22, 2017 by Antonio Vantaggiato

I found a quote of a haiku from poet Mario Benedetti:

Los apagones
permiten que uno trate
con uno mismo.

Which in English would be something like this (lousy translation is mine):

Black-outs
afford one to deal
with oneself.

This is somehow what happens when the light goes down and after a while you don’t even count on it, and make space in a day for stuff more related to your self, or–you get less distracted by the light and go after (as a friend would say) shadows.

I am not tired to repeat it, we are the lucky ones. We (meaning myself and immediate family and friends) do not need anything besides the obvious (light, more money, less mosquitoes, etc.)

There are however situations in the Island that are very worrisome and people who have been put in extreme misery. No food, no water. Besides having no power. Now, this is a territory of the US, no third world. But take a look:

  1. Communications disrupted, perhaps working at 30-40% of capacity. Meaning cell towers are down, or without power, without diesel to operate the generators—when generators haven’t been stolen.
  2. Transportation to the center of the Island and many southeastern towns is difficult and requires long times. Some students told me they cannot afford a three-hour trip each way from their town to get to Sagrado. In Utuado, some people have to cross (on foot) a river to get to supplies, since a bridge has collapsed. Many roads are *still* blocked by fallen trees, debris and light poles.
  3. And third, electrical grid is down to perhaps only 15%. Fifteen percent of Puerto Rico households has electricity after 4 weeks.

So, the infrastructure is shown to be completely down. No logistics, no investments from the Power Authority or the communication companies, for years, perhaps decades, have brought us here.

Ok, let me stop here.

Fortunately, we began classes anew, and students’ stories and smiles and positive attitudes showed us where we belong: in the column of the luckiest.

I am lucky to be forced to rethink my classes through the absence of power. And I am lucky to be able to do my classes without major extra worries. So I loved this first week.

I loved my students’ faces and smiles; and our sweat. So much good will. It is difficult, yet here they are.

I loved Alan Levine’s initiative El Puente de Puerto Rico, a bridge of postcards which I hope to receive en masse and to digitize and publish here soon. Well, the postal service hasn’t been its usual self, lately; but I hope to get them soon.

I loved my friends calling from wherever they are and offering to help. I polled students and I still don’t have an answer. It may be they are proud, that I was doing a lousy job, or both. Still, the postcards are being waited for. Still, another idea of Alan, which is to send us media and thoughts of hope and empathy through ds106’s Daily Create, is still flourishing in my mind.

My students and I are overwhelmed and we want to thank each one of a great group of people who decided they wanted to show support. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Now, I am pasting hare a few of the great tweets of wisdom and care under the hashtag “care4sagrado”, “inf103” or “inf115” which were shared in the past couple of days. It has been a hell of a journey, up to here, in all the good senses.

https://twitter.com/livingkatstone/status/920775815796797440

https://twitter.com/ParisaMehran/status/921253048940249088

Look for yourself the #care4sagrado hashtag on Twitter!

These are some of my students, under a tent. Look at the smiles.

I loved my students’ and everybody’’s attitude: when we say “hello, how are you?”, each answers “Well, given the circumstances”.

So, Maria has brought something very good out of us.

[Featured image by Andy Rush? @rushaw]

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