At last ... the Spanish translation!

Time flies away they say, time goes by without noticing. And so, September, October, November, and now December is about to finish. This time was not spend without its 'glories'. I completed my written exams, passed my orals, presented my dissertation prospectus, got Chapter 1 approved, and have continue working on more. Besides, and more improtant, my daughter graduated on December 22nd with her Master's degree in Architecture!

The Spanish translation of this diary is coming up little by little as I promissed. You can read all about it at: Al otro lado del charco: de Puerto Rico a Barcelona.

I hope you enjoy it!

Madeline :-)

Reflection

Some books include an epilogue, last comments or a final point that needed to be made by the author. After reading Gergen’s (1999) ‘An Invitation to Social Construction’ it made me think through the way I finished my blog. I tried to close the circle, to go back to the beginning and make sure the initial questions were answered. But as I see it today, this isn’t enough. Looking back to my experience in Barcelona, I cannot let go of the feeling of becoming part of another community of learners that welcomed me with their arms opened. The trip to London, and the ILET gatherings were similar too, although because we were so many and time was so little, the interactions and scholarly gatherings were different. One week or a few days is not enough to embrace another culture (from another country), to feel the differences and similarities around you, to develop strong ties. Not even a month will allow you to know that much, although I believe it is a good start. I feel we had a start that needs to continue at another time, in another place. Hopefully this will happen in the near future!

Going back to Gergen, his book doesn’t include an epilogue, not even a last chapter titled conclusions – even though its last chapter reads like it. But maybe what impressed me the most was that every chapter finished with a reflection. In these sections he takes another voice, one of a self-evaluator, one closer to the researcher, to the teacher, instead of ‘the author’. He tried to be closer to the reader, and in order to accomplish this his writer personality folds in our eyes while commenting his work and giving hints or insights of future research projects.

Social constructionism has to do with relationships he says, with how people construct knowledge as a group, as part of a community, as part of or by being the product of a particular cultural environment. The idea of relativity is critical because some have made the point social constructionits don’t stand anywhere – think about extreme and opposite social issues. As a response he argues, things looks different when you look through the eyes of others, when you stand in the shoes of others, when you take into concern where they come from and what are their reasons. There is much to say about this! Another time and another space is needed.

The Spanish version of this blog is coming in September. I’ll come up little by little, keeping the original dates.

Thank you for sharing your time with me, reading my bad English, traveling to new places with me, and sharing your thoughs throughout this journey.

Hasta luego, Madeline :-)

Time to get back home!

I have had a wonderful time in Barcelona, not only personally but also professionally. During this last month I have been immersed in the Catalonians way of living. There are many differences with the American (United States) culture, but not as many from the Puerto Rican’s. The Spanish language is well known in Catalunya, food had a similar taste than that of Puerto Rico, and coffee was as great. The division of time is very different though, from both Puerto Rico and the United States. Work days are divided into two time slots: 9 to 1 and 4 to 8. The long break in between, allows people to go home to prepare a big lunch and to probably even take a “siesta”. Not everybody follow this time schedule, others might start earlier or later, depending on their job requirements and responsiblities. Still many stores close during lunch time and open again in the afternoon.

The presentations I made in the Doctoral Conference (Institute of Education, University of London, London, UK) and the V Multimedia Congress (Institute of Educational Sciences, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain) allowed me to further clarify my research project. I feel more confident in what it is I will like to research for my dissertation and if everything goes as planned I already have a good draft of what I would present to my committee members.

Without ILET I would not have had this experience, I thank my professors for allowing me to participate in this incredible and wonderful opportunity.

When I first started this blog I talked about having a more relaxed and slower stay in Barcelona. But I found out that people work as much here as they do in the States, the difference is though they work more as a group and take time to be together and share a little of themselves almost every day. Well, at least this is what I experienced when becoming part of the Multimedia Group. The morning coffee break and lunch time was a welcoming environment to get to know each other. It allowed people to refocus and when getting back to work to do as much. The academia environment has many similarities everywhere I’ve been: people work to develop a research agenda, and they teach and work together to develop a community of learners.

"El V Congreso de Multimedios en la Educación"

We all got together in Barcelona on Monday, June 27, worked at the Institute of Educational Sciences, and at the end of the day made a tour through the city, guided by Marc Fuentes, a doctoral student working with the Multimedia Group. The second day Olatz Lopez, another doctoral student from the Multimedia Group, took us to the Caixa Forum Museum and then to dinner. We all met at Origins 99.9% a Catalonian restaurant that serves exquisite cuisine.

The next day, the "V Multimedia Congress" housed the ILET final event. The ILET group had their own meeting in where we all presented our projects and research agendas: some did poster presentations and others presented for the first time or even for the second time the research projects they have been working on. The only thing was we did not had the time to participate in the Congress' activities, since we had a very tight schedule.

Dr. Dana helped me edit my presentation including the recommendations I had received from the audience before, clarifying questions, and reorganizing it so that it would be more coherent as a research paper. I felt I was mentored as to improve myself as a presenter, revisiting my presentation from a more professional standpoint. I am very grateful of Dr. Dana for his help. It really made my paper a lot better!

At the end of the event, another keynote was conducted as to present the ILET project. Dr. Davis presented the project’s objectives and framework. Three students participated as well, presenting the experiences they have had during the project. The audience participated as well, alluding to their worries and preoccupations of such an international project and the need to keep working in our own communities and countries to decrease the gap between the haves and have not. We argued there is a need to work in our communities and country (as if it was an horizontal task), but that there is also a need to work and collaborate together between countries (as if it was a vertical task) learning about each other, working together for a common good, and hopefully for world peace.

Finally it was time to say goodbye. A debriefing meeting took place at the end of the day (July 1st.) and certificates were handed in to professors and students participating in the project. Through ILET we met students and professors from different schools, we shared research ideas, and had a cultural experience difficult to duplicate. Now it is in our hands to continue to share the work we are doing and to collaborate with each other as a bigger community of learners.

The Doctoral Conference

It was time to share our research work with the students from the Institute of Education, University of London, UK. Here students presented their research studies, looking for feedback – suggestions, recommendations, and ideas on how to improve the research study – from peers. Sessions were held in classrooms, mostly in groups of three or four students, with 20 minutes each to present and answer questions. Faculty participated as members of the audience; room chairs (time keepers) were also students. Professors and students presented keynotes at the very beginning of the conference and throughout – one at the end of the first day and another at the end of the second.

The ILET students came from Europe (University of Barcelona, University of Denmark, and the University of London) and the United States (University of Virginia, Iowa State University, and the University of Florida). This year, most of the presenters from the ILET group included students from Virginia, Iowa, and Florida. In 2003, only one student from ISU presented at the conference.

I shared with the audience the presentation I worked with in UB. The time for questions and answers was rich: some wanted to know more about the web site I chose, some asked questions that made me think about the theoretical perspective I am using, others wanted to know more about how the body parts of the storylines I identified in the threads of the discussion forum fit the discourse analysis (Gee) I am using to analyze the data in my research. It was an enlighten conversation. I liked the question and answer session because it allowed me to talk about details that were not included in my presentation, probably suggesting I needed to reorganize and add more to it. At the end of my presentation I got several recommendations and some new ideas, things I had not thought about before. (Link to pdf file coming soon.)

The last keynote presented the work ILET has done, including a panel of students in which I participated. We talked about our experiences as ILET scholars. Some had been participating since 2002, when it all started. Others, like me, joined at a later time participating in one or more of the different events of the project: reading groups, summer institutes, and internships.

The five days in London went by very fast. It felt like a blink of an eye. Soon it was time to move on to Barcelona for the second part of the ILET Conference.

'A small school with great expectations'

Today we had a chance to visit Forest Gate City Learning Center and the Godwin Primary School. This wasn't my first visit, I had visited both places the last time I was in London (Summer 2003). The Learning Center is what in the United States is called a Computer Center. The only thing is that this is a two story section of the school with state of the art technology, including two areas with computer stations for students' activities and teachers' professional development workshops, three-dimensional modeling equipment, and more.

The elementary school amazed me two years ago, and it still does. It is a school where students go first. Art is at the core of the school and students prepare musical and theatrical representations each end of term throughout the school year. So when you go in, you'll see the walls covered with students work, responding to the thematic unit of the term. Things don't need to be perfect.

The population in Godwin is extremely diverse, with about 28 different native languages (let alone nationalities), keeping the idea of respecting and empowering students as well as their native tongue at the top of the school's priorities. Students are not discouraged when talking in their native language, in fact they can work together to complete class projects or tutor other kids in the class using their native language. Parents also come in to serve as mentors and they can help the kids that speak their native language using it as the means of communication. Posters and signs include words in other languages, as to remind the students of the inclusive environment they are learning in.

This is amazing for me. As a Puerto Rican in the United States I've been 'encouraged' to speak English only, even at the University level, which I thought was bizarre. When my kids were little, one of their teachers told us not to talk Spanish at home and to encourage them to only talk in English. The teacher thought they would be able to become more proficient in English in this way, forgetting or not knowing (or not wanting to accept) that language and culture go hand in hand, that to respect a person is to respect their personal characteristics, that knowing how to talk a second language does not impede the learning of other languages.

Four basic principles guide Godwin Primary School; four principles we should always follow. They call them the four C's and are: cooperation, care, consideration, and courtesy. These are presented in each class through different representations in the bulleting boards. They are also acted upon throughout the school and you can see it when students interact with teachers, other students, and mentors.

Godwin calls itself 'A small school with great expectations' and indeed it is!

Pictures coming soon!

ILET has taken me to London, UK

Coming back to London has been like getting back to a place you've lived before. You know the place, the streets, the buildings, ... You get around with a sense of belonging, finding your way around as if you had not left. The first time I visited London was in 2003, for the Summer Institute at the Institute of Education (IoE), University of London. We were here for two weeks or so and just got a glimpse of the city. But that was enough for it to become part of me, so much I can walk around the places I've been without getting lost. This is a lot to say, especially when I always get lost, because I have a very bad sense of direction.

One thing I wanted to do when coming back to London was to take a picture of Gandhi’s statue. I first saw it the last day I was in London in 2003, and did not had my camera with me at the moment. There was no time left to come back and had to leave without this precious picture.

Gandhi’s statue is close to the IoE, in a small square (park), surrounded by flowers, green grass, big trees, and a very peaceful environment. As the many other little squares (parks) around the city of London, they give people a chance to escape from the noise and the busy streets. Some of the squares are fenced, secluded from the apartment buildings, stores, hotels, and educational institutions (including the University of London). Once inside, you are surrounded by tall green bushes. You then walk over small paths that take you to the statues and benches, so you can read and relax, talk to a friend, or just sit there and keep to yourself. It is like being transported to a magical place of serenity.

I was lucky enough to have a friend to share with me the experience of visiting this little square. She even took a picture of Gandhi and we talked a little about why people still remember him.