Drawing a Diagram

I must start by the fourth task of our Wednesdays, as I am still waiting for a friend of mine in order to fulfill the invitation to participate in our web adventure, that we have been asked to made up; it is a real invitation, I mean it, so I think it is worth while to wait.

After reading carefully the introduction of “this incredible list of tools” I decided to convert a simple table written in word into a colored diagram from Draw Anywhere after subscribing to the Beta Lovely Charts and after giving up my experience at Gliffy.

According to Cristina Laun, the author of this introduction, ” visual learners learn through seeing and retain more information when it’s presented in the form of pictures, diagrams”, and so on; I’m not a visual learner at all, but I love all kinds of “visual metaphors” as those I’ve found at Webilus I know I’m an  auditory learner and, according to Antoine de la Garanderie, this learning type of person does need to see graphics, schemes, visual representations of what they are or have been listening to, precisely because they don’t do it by themselves, they can’t see spontaneously with the eyes of their minds - when they are studying, for instance, I don’t mean it when remembering facts of life or when acting creatively. Thus I think both kinds of learners find different advantages and both benefit from being provided with some visual format of  their subject of study.

As my table couldn’t fit in the space reserved to the diagram, I only transformed the titles of this table:

In the Jing screencast words can’t be read; I don’t know why they became so small; in the diagram, on the contrary, I recognize that I exaggerated the font size.

I will try to do it better and then I’ll start again.

Reading with Discipline

I’m very happy with the great news: Web2.0Wednesdays is about to start!

To me it’s like coming back home again, like the return to real life, like gathering again with loved persons. I’m ashamed of not coping so well with the total freedom “regime” we have been on the last two weeks, but I simply could not discipline my readings.

Every time I look on Google Reader, my Delicious or Diigo I discover yet a brand new useful tool - as gliffy -   or an irresistible discussion  - as “How do you use Metaphors…” -  or an international event - as k-12online 08 - or an amazing reflection - as some EURODL papers -  that keeps me under its spell: no way to stop reading until I reach the end.
The issue is that there seems not to be an end at all: inventive tools just seem to  pop up each day from every corner, discussions link to new perspectives that multiply into more conversations, deeper reflections  open over unknown territories of thought …we are, indeed, engaged in an endless quest.
From behind  this concert of enchanting and multiple voices I can still listen to  Kirsty Dyer ’s advice: “Stay focused“. What  meaning  unfolds to me from this call?
I turn again to the Bamboo Project, I take once more Michele Martin’s questions to discipline my reading, to silence all the inner voices and commit myself with the risk of sharing:

1. What have I learned today?

R: From a Colleague: The light of the Sun takes 8 minutes to reach the earth.

2. About the progress of a particular project:

R: My “blogging pioneers” started the process of commenting; some of them learned how to insert links.

3. My progress in achieving a specific goal:

R: I’ve stopped reading and started writing again. But that’s only because I’m so happy for a new Challenge is about to start!

4. Advice I’ve received from other people:

R: From Michele Martin: engage in reflective practice through simple daily steps.

5. A Question you have about anything:

R: I really  enjoyed reading about digital literacy in the paper: “Towards a Theory of Digital Literacy” I would like to go deeper in this subject, I wonder where to find more of this “stuff”.

6. Joy of the week:

Having been nominated for the Challenge by Britt Wattwood: that’s a great encouragement and a total surprise that I deeply appreciated. thank you, Britt.

Webilus, Understanding the Web trough Visual Metaphors

As Michele Martin says in “If you behave like a disease…“:

“…using metaphors to think about concepts is one of the more powerful ways for me to both learn and to get creative.”

I would add to that the surprising power of visual metaphors to show, simultaneously, a whole set of implications and co-implications that may lay hidden within a complex concept.

I will try to embed Webilus gadget in this post so that anyone who doesn’t know it yet may visit it: it is a French site where we can find the best illustrations and images circulating in internet and whose common subject is the web in general.

These images, duly quoted and linked to their source, may be useful for several different purposes, from marketing ones to educational, and it seems to me that knowing not only how to use them but also how to make them becomes part of 21st century digital literacy.