2015: math learning and reading

These were years of intense math study and not much thinking about anything else (other than I got my degree in language teaching). I'm not very advanced in math but I feel I've learned a lot and I've developed an interest that wasn't always there. Recently I've started reading again like I used to (mostly fiction) and I've taken a few MOOCs as well -the one I'm currently taking is on learning how to learn. So I feel quite active mentally again.

I'm reading my first Umberto Eco book, El cementerio de Praga (Prague cemetery) and I'm really enjoying it. I don't always remember what's gone on very well because there's so many people involved but I enjoy it while I read it. The main character makes me chuckle with all his bigotry (which I feel is just a tease from Eco, it's all so exaggerated). One other thing I like about it is that there's one "big" mystery that encompasses all the book but there's a lot of action during the book so I want to get to the end to have the mystery revealed but while I get there it's very interesting.

I'm also reading "The Siege" by Helen Dunmore and I've actually stopped for a while because it got to be a bit too painful. It's about a family during the Leningrad siege and we're well into the winter now so food is scarce and it's very cold and there are bombings and fire. The characters are very human to me and maybe that's why I can't go on reading it for now as they're suffering so much.

Learning, learning everywhere

It's rather late and I wasn't going to blog today, but I've just had a look at the "practice wiki" we use on the course I'm taking (Digital Materials Preparation Techniques) and a smile flashed across my face. We started on Saturday/Sunday, and Tuesday's just gone but I've already achieved a lot! There's lots more to learn, of course, but it amazed me how different it felt to read the introductions this time. There were already a number of them the first time I saw it, when I wrote mine, and I remember feeling a bit daunted. Now I felt at ease and from the Voicethread introductions I was able to put some faces and voices to some names...

I'm also taking Images4Education, which is what I devoted the most time to today -that can be seen in the fact that I now have a Flickr account -with photos!

I still need to get to grips with the third course on Multiliteracy (I'm supposed to tag a post evomlit by the end of this week...this one would be cheating, right?). I'll tag it but not make it count.

It's all actually very exciting. And today I also had a mini exchange in Russian again! (I had to frantically look up words and go back to check which character comes first, but my interlocutors were patient. I hope to meet them again). That's another tool I found on the Web this week: Russian keyboard online . I've been searching for Cyrillic fonts on and off for years now and just this week I find a much simpler way to use the characters and people to use them with!

Let's end it with one of the photos I took today:

Busy Beek (I know it's a lame pun!)

A New Year's begun and with it, new courses...It's summer and I've joined 3 online courses that link technology and education. It's no surprise to anyone who knows me that I enjoy learning new things, and the last few months have had quite a lot of it.

Courses were supposed to start officially today (Monday) but the tasks and meeting areas were available at least since the weekend, which is when I joined and after nomore thana few seconds freaked out. I actually had to draw a plan with the names of the courses and what kinds of tools and resources and spaces would each be using! I think that was Saturday evening -when I also applied for membership where it was required. On Sunday, plan in my hands, I started taking care of my profiles and printed out the syllabuses and tasks for week 1. I caught the freaking out phase just in time and reminded myself that I had the whole week to carry out the tasks. Anxiety began to subside. My PLN also helped a lot. I'm not used to having a solid one, and the one I'm building now seems to be going that way, which makes me terribly happy.

Today things actually began to be fun. I feel a lot better with printouts. I commented, greeted, introduced myself, bookmarked like crazy, took some photos...And even ran into someone I met at a conference in September. That was very nice.

So now I'm tired, but happy (and for more of this, if you're in your 30s like me, you'll remember Alanis).

And I almost forgot the highlight (well there were many) -the language highlight of the day: I introduced myself to a Russian plurker, in Russian and using the Cyrillic alphabet. How's that for a Monday?

And let me add a photo of today at dusk (not great, but not too bad either, I think). Let's hope to get better ones in days to come