Internet es el presente

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Antonio Vantaggiato

No tenemos miedo a Internet porque Internet es la salvación de nuestro cine
–Alex de la Iglesia

Dolors Reig escribió hace dos semanas un post que grita para que se difunda más. Dolors recalcaba las palabras contundentes del ex Presidente de la Academia de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas de España, Alex de la Iglesia, director de la película “Balada triste de trompeta” (IMDB),  candidata (no ganadora) al Oscar como mejor película en idioma no inglés. Lo interesante de la postura de don Alex es que le copiaron y difundieron por Internet la misma copia que había enviado a la Academia Norteamericana… ¡la Academy de los Oscars! ¿Víctima del “robo”? No, Alex se dimite de Presidente de la Academia de los Goya en protesta a la ley SINDE y pronuncia las palabras que pueden escuchar a continuación.

Internet es el presente.

Me parece que además de suscribir completamente sus afirmaciones contundentes, y que se relacionan al cine, nuestro miedo neoludita a Internet y al cambio (“crisis” en griego, como sugiere Alex de la Iglesia), no debe impedir que reafirmemos esas verdades en todo ámbito: en la cultura, en la educación, en el comercio, la industria, la literatura, la música. Internet es el presente y como toda tecnología poderosa (la más poderosa) es liberatoria: porque con ella se pueden hacer cosas que ni soñábamos, y porque facilita -lo hace inevitable- un cambio sustancial en cada una de las áreas antes mencionadas del quehacer humano.

No tengamos pues miedo al Internet: ella es la salvación de nuestra educación.

Discurso de Álex de la Iglesia en los Goya: ?Internet es la salvación de nuestro cine?

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delicious Zeitgeist 03/02/2011

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Antonio Vantaggiato

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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The new LMS

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Antonio Vantaggiato

–Sorry, somehow I forgot to polish this post before publishing it. So, I’m adding the links in their proper places 🙂

It was doomed, yet the LMS resurfaced with an apparent change, deeper than a facelift. Moodle has finally released its version 2.0, which integrates many new Web 2.0 features and comes with predefined plugins to connect Moodle sith Google Docs, Flickr, and other apps, including e-portfolio’s Mahara. It even can connect with TurnitIn and check against plagiarism. I haven’t tried M2.0 yet, so I cannot really tell, but I’m eager to give it a try. I love Moodle even if I’m using it only in a few courses now, while in many others I’m using the loose approach of WordPress and the Syndication Bus. Here’s a nice interview with Martin Dougiamas, Moodle’s genius & Lead Developer, and next thing I’d really like to ask him what he thinks of Moodle’s new wave of competition. He must be thrilled, of course!

However, at least one new LMS products has grabbed my attention, of late.

It is Canvas from Instructure, which was actually born from the usual couple of students who hire a professor as coach and investor in their startup. So, the product is fascinating because they decided immediately to release an Open Source edition which can be installed freely, with community support. Great approach, right from the start.

Canvas impresses me even before trying it out because:

  1. It’s Open Source! In fact, they released it OS also to be protected against Blackboard’s possibly suing for patent infringement! {Note: BB pledged not to sue whoever “infringes on their whole-world-encompassing elearning patent” but has an OS use license.}
  2. You can install and run it from your own servers; but
  3. You need Amazon S3 services for storage: Canvas’ storage is in the Cloud.
  4. You must connect it through Google Docs, Facebook, Twitter etc.

So, Canvas seemingly has an impressive connection fan and integration of most current social networking features. Plus, it has a few other interesting features, such as a video system to have students submit some of their work by video, etc.

I’m going to try it out with a free teacher’s Web account and later ask one of my students to install it.

Campus Technology: New LMS From Instructure Goes Open Source

CogDog: Real LMS Revolutionaires burn Zombies

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Radio Gnome on #ds106radio

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Antonio Vantaggiato

My latest concoction for #ds106radio {ds as in Digital Storytelling 106} is a mix of Retro, Rock’n’roll and Italian-accented hybrid mixes from Zucchero (there’s one with Maná, another with Cheb Mami, and yet another with Sting). If you can’t really stay put sitting in your chair, I understand you: go dance.

The Retro part is “Enjoy Yourself” in the version choreographed for Woody Allen’s Everyone Knows I Love You”. Go ahead, it’s later than you think. The second Retro is Nancy Sinatra’s Bang Bang, of Tarantino’s memory -Kill Bill. Third Retro is Radio Gnome Invisible by Gong himself. I loved Gong and its lunar-shaped faces when I was 18. Fourth is Joan Baez singing in Italian an anti-Vietnam song, the title of which says “A boy who loved the Beatles and the Rolling Stones”. Last Retro, a Kitsch classic from Serge Gainbsbourg, sung this time by himself and Brigitte Bardot (not Jane Birkin as in the original).

The real good old R&R is from my beloved Patti Smith: Free Money (live, 1976) and a splendid version of Gloria (live, 1979).

Here’s the playlist in YouTube.

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Love Poems

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Antonio Vantaggiato

The daily El País published a post to call for love poems (Las mejores poesías de amor – The best love poems). In the splendid blogging machinery, the one post is hosting now over one hondred comments, each with a different poem. I loved the idea and I posted my own comment with a little verse from one of my beloved poets, the ancient, sweet-smiling Sappho, who lived around 600 BC in the island of Lesbos. I was such a fan of Sappho that I went in pilgrimage to her island, when I was 20 years old. This is the poem I posted (in Spanish):

Cuasi Ventus
Amor ha agitado mis entrañas como el huracán que sacude monte abajo las encinas. Viniste. Hiciste bien. Yo te estaba aguardando. Has prendido fuego a mi corazón, que se abrasa de deseo.

Love has stirred my heart as the hurricane that shakes the oaks downhill. You came. Well done. I was waiting for you. You have my heart set on fire, and it burns with desire.

But I’m posting here a few others of her so modern fragments.

Igual parece a los eternos Dioses
quien logra verse frente a ti sentado.
¡Feliz si goza tu palabra suave,
Suave tu risa!

A mí en el pecho el corazón se oprime
Sólo en mirarte; ni la voz acierta
De mi garganta a prorrumpir, y rota
Calla la lengua.

Fuego sutil dentro de mi cuerpo todo
Presto discurre; los inciertos ojos
Vagan sin rumbo; los oídos hacen
Ronco zumbido.

Cúbrome toda de sudor helado;
Pálida quedo cual marchita yerba;
Y ya sin fuerzas, sin aliento, inerte,
Muerta parezco.

De: http://www.instantesdeficcion.com.ar/Inmortales/Safo.htm

He’s equal with the Gods, that man
Who sits across from you,
Face to face, close enough, to sip
Your voice’s sweetness,

And what excites my mind,
Your laughter, glittering. So,
When I see you, for a moment,
My voice goes,

My tongue freezes. Fire,
Delicate fire, in the flesh.
Blind, stunned, the sound
Of thunder, in my ears.

Shivering with sweat, cold
Tremors over the skin,
I turn the colour of dead grass,
And I’m an inch from dying.

http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Sappho.htm

Sappho

Sappho, in the CC image by Robert Brook

I’m leaving with this, one of her fragment I love most:

The Moon is down,
The Pleiades. Midnight,
The hours flow on,
I lie, alone.

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