Reading ... Writing ... Making connections ...

As I read the articles I brought with me, I start to construct a picture of my study. Little details, notes, reports, and research studies helps me visualize what I could do. Reading takes time, writing also takes time, but as time goes by ideas seem to connect together in a better way. This is really a slow process. But it feels good to be able to put together new ideas, adding to what I had, connecting ...

The Notes section (on the right column) is growing; little by little it starts to make better sense!

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Check the notes on the new readings from: Krussel (2003); and Smith, Fergunson & Caris (2003).

The city of Barcelona: From Tibidabo to Monjuïc

To the north, Tibidabo, the highest mountain in Barcelona, will give you a view of the city that ends in the sea. The straight streets, the square blocks, and La Sagrada Familia sit below the mountain’s lap. You’ll see the buildings at a lower level as a mantle around La Sagrada Familia that looks below to the city from its towers. Up close, the blocks are not really square; they are octagons, leaving more space for the turning traffic.

In Tibidabo you will also find the Sacred Heart church and San Juan Bosco’s hermit. This last one was the first construction in the mountain. In order to find it, you’ll need to walk to the back of the church, on the right side. There is also an amusement park in Tibidabo.

Down south, close to the sea, you’ll find Montjuïc. This area has been renovated to include many attractions. But for some people in Barcelona, Montjuïc still carries fresh memories of Franco’s dictatorship and the executions that took place in the fort.

In between, a city full of life, in constant reconstruction, with museums, historical sites, "ramblas", parks, big shopping malls, and hundredths of little stores to visit. The coffee shops invite you to stop and have a "cortado" with pastry. And the "locutorios" will allow you to call home to say hi or connect to the Internet to check your e-mail.

Barcelona is a city that outgrew its limits and absorbed the nearby communities. It is a city that grew inside, in between the big buildings on the edge of the squares, making room for the huge increase of population. The roofs became patios, spaces where to sit and rest; and a little imagination can make them a place to dream.

Vocabulary:

Rambla – pathway-plaza where people sit, walk, eat, buy, or is entertained by the street artists.
Cortado – half cup coffee, with milk, a little stronger than the full cup; in Puerto Rico “pocillo”
Locutorio – phone business that allows people to call anywhere in the world or connect to the Internet

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Check the notes on the new readings from: Whitehurst, G. J. (2003); Middleton, et al. (2004); Lubienski, S. T. & Bowen, A. (2000); and Kilpatrick (2001).

Working at the Institut de Ciències de l’Educació

Today has been very productive. I have edited an old paper and submitted it for publication. It is interesting how working with a document after reconsidering its contents in different ways, makes you visualize it differently. Integrating old and new ideas is just part of the job. You look at the construction of the sentences, you check the grammar and selection of words, you move around its contents and almost without noticing it, it becomes something new, different, and hopefully better. We’ll see what happens!

Getting organized!

Before leaving Gainesville, I was asked how I was going to prepare for the challenges ahead, and was not able to answer. At that time, I had a very vague idea of what was coming. But now that I am here, in Barcelona, I can only be in peace with myself if I divide my time between reading, writing, and touring the city. I only hope this is the correct action to take!

This morning I walked up to La Sagrada Familia. You can see it a block away; raising to the sky, still in construction, with so many details no eye can ever see at once. From the outside it seems majestic and I cannot begin to think of how it would look like from the inside!

From now on you'll find links to Notes about my readings on the right column. Make sure you click on the word More ... to read and even comment or ask questions about them. Updating these notes will push me to continue reading and preparing for what will come in a few weeks.

Getting to Barcelona

The long eight-hour flight seemed very short because of Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I almost finished La Sombra del Viento and was left with the need to continue reading and finding out what would happen to Daniel and Julián. But it was time to go into the city, to take the bus and the train, to find my lodging, and visit the University of Barcelona. I felt I was coming back to a city I knew, although very little, but familiar. Reading Ruiz Zafón's novel gave me that preliminary knowledge about the city, the names of the streets, the squares, and as every metropolitan city, the many family businesses. The big buildings reminded me of San Juan, Puerto Rico. It will be hard to keep to my books and prepare for my exams. My schedule will need to include a little of the city that is calling me as though I was just a visitor.

As life goes on!

As life goes on there are always new challenges to pursue. There are new beginnings to get ready for, new questions to answer, and new goals to reach. The hardest thing of all is to find balance: balance between our personal life and our work. For some work becomes synonymous of life itself, forgetting that work is just the means to keep going. Some forget where we come from, whom do we share life with, and whom do we give life to. We are not individuals standing by our self, we belong to a community that no matter were we are becomes our family.

bell hooks talks about love ethic and its dimensions, she stated in All About Love:

"Embracing a love ethic means that we utilize all the dimensions of love – ‘care, commitment, trust, responsibility, respect, and knowledge’ – in our everyday lives. We can successfully do this only by cultivating awareness. Being aware enables us to critically examine our actions to see what is needed so that we can give care, be responsible, show respect, and indicate a willingness to learn. Understanding knowledge as an essential element of love is vital because we are daily bombarded with messages that tell us love is about mystery, about that which cannot be known" (p. 94) ...

To know our self, to be ‘aware’ of our surroundings, to be part of a community implies to be responsible, to respect, and learn to trust those around us. It means to let go and be tolerant, to help those around us, to understand we all make mistakes at one time or another. Life is what we make of it, even in those moments when things seem to go as wrong as they can ever go.

About love and truth

To be loving we willingly hear each other's truth and,
most important, we affirm the value of truth telling.
bell hooks (2001: 49)

To be a college student

I’ve had the chance to be part of different university systems. This journey started at the University of Puerto Rico where I earned a Bachelor in Secondary Math Education (1977) and a Master in Educational Research and Evaluation (1987). My first period at UPR (1973-1977) was crucial. This was the time when I was able to look at life in different ways, to meet very different people for the first time, and to find myself as an individual. It is not that I was that lost, but the years before this time were very difficult – adolescence was not an easy time for me. Finding myself meant moving away from things I was taught. It also meant learning that there are always possibilities of new beginnings. I had very good professors, professors that gave me the space to grow academically, psychologically, and personally. After this period I became a math teacher.

My second period at UPR (1982-1986) was enlightening. I not only gain another degree, I was also part of a feminist group that organized a women’s conference and wrote some historical papers. As a student I encountered academia and perceived it from a very different standpoint. My professors were very much involved in research and had very high expectations from us. Being older and with kids I wanted to do as much as I could, but having family made it harder. Still having a good companion with whom to share responsibilities made possible for both of us to complete our degrees and move on to another place, another university to continue our studies.

This time it was the University of Iowa (1986-1990), a mid-western university, home of the Hawkeye’s. Affirmative Action helped us economically at the beginning, until we were able to get our own assistantships. For the kids Iowa City was a very different experience far from what they would have had in Puerto Rico. So different my daughter has described it in the following way:

"Taken to Iowa City at age 5, where my parents went to pursue a doctorate degree at the University of Iowa, my brother and I experienced a childhood that most likely very few Puerto Ricans ever have. When I went back home, to the sixth grade, I new I was different for I had enjoyed a childhood in a culture that was not my own" (Nianti Bird-Ortiz, Italy Statement, 2005).

Sometimes I think I should have done much more at UI, but besides family, I think I did not had the maturity to deal with what I found there. At Iowa I finished a second master’s degree in secondary math education, one of my professional passions. I also was introduced to the world of computers in education. The end of the eighties was the time when hypermedia developed into what we know as the World Wide Web. I remembered taking BASIC programming for teachers, Pascal programming, and Plato programming.

Those were the years when Authorware, a programming system, came out. Programming educational lessons meant developing flowcharts that were later populated with content. Integrating sound to a presentation was a difficulty task. SCORM was not heard of at the time, but developing sections that dealt with specific purposes, really seems a predecessor of this technique. For example, developing a section were different types of feedback could be selected randomly, a source code that could be used later for other lessons, was one of the tasks we accomplished. Today a source code with a single purpose, used with different applications, or in different settings will pretty much mean using the SCORM technique.

After UI I had the opportunity to work at Kirkwood Community College (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) for a year, as an Adjunct Faculty member. This experience opened the door to a full time job in Puerto Rico, at the Inter American University, were I have worked ever since.

A parenthesis

When the semesters are over it comes a time to take my mind elsewhere, to travel to imaginary places. Reading is a passion of mine. This time I have continue the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling (2001), Harry Potter y el prisionero de Azkaban, book 3, in three days! I love the adventures of these little kids! As you might already guessed, this is a Spanish translation. I prefer to read in my first language every time I can.

I also like to read books that can fortify my inner wellbeing. This time I have chosen All About Love: New visions by bell hooks (yes, all lower case) (2000). She starts her book with autobiography comments about love and lovelessness. In chapter one hooks defines love. But first she cites The road less traveled by M. Scott Peck (1978), quoting Erich Fromm's, The Art of Love, as 'he defines love as 'the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth'" (p. 4). At the end of this chapter she writes, "When we are loving we openly and honestly express care, affection, responsibility, respect, commitment, and trust" (p. 14).

One step at a time!

My trip to Barcelona is not like a straight line, even though I am taking a direct flight from Puerto Rico. Nothing is the result of a single cause. In life there are forces coming from different sides that can have an impact on you; struggles that need to be resolved; small victories that push you forward, even when you hardly can see it. There is always a difference between what you want and what you can get, there is a gap that needs to be overcome.

The first step was to really have the courage to apply to a graduate program. It had to be a very special one, almost impossible to find, maybe because I really was not sure of taking that first step. But the time came when things seemed good enough to try and when the kids were old enough that it seemed they did not need me that much. And with the support of my husband and kids the dream was suddenly becoming a reality. The Inter American University of Puerto Rico, my home institution, also believed in my dream, and has supported me ever since this journey started.

Once in Gainesville, Florida, studying at the University of Florida things have happened really fast, or so it seems. One semester after the other, with more work that what can be handled many times, my life was set in two different worlds, always counting the days to get back home, to Puerto Rico. From one class to another, from one paper to another, from one exam to another, counting the days to the next break. Was it Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring or Summer Break? Any excuse to fly home, to be near those in your heart, was good enough to get into a plain and go back home.

Summer 2003 came with a big surprise. One of my courses took me to London and the Institute of Education, at the University of London. My first trip to Europe was to a place I never though I would visit. I met scholars from around the world, interested in what is called Educational Technology in the United States, and Information and Communications Technology in Education ( IT/ICT) in Europe, my field of study. I also participated of conferences and colloquiums in Math Education, meeting new people from London, Denmark, Barcelona, Iowa, and Virginia. Learning about new ways educational programs are set and educational environments are organized was only one part of the experience. Learning about another culture, walking around the city, and visiting museums and parks was another. A little token of this experience can be seen in this small video.

And now, I am headed to a new city, a new adventure, a new University. And now, I'll visit Spain ...

Getting ready!

It is time for a new adventure, away from home once more. A new city, with lots of history, will open my eyes to a new way of living, to a new pace. Slower? Relaxed? That's what they've said.