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Downes' Speech on 'The Internet in the Classroom'




Mike anticipated this document before I have. He not only cited to the Downes's Speech in Spain (Internet in the Classroom), but has also translated part of his speech. Job we were pending with gabinetedeinformatica.net However, to fill Fernando Santamaría's expectations, here we present our work based on Esperanza Román's blog [es], she writes:


I agree with all those who praise Downes' figure, because of his genuine and indisputable commitment to the education world (although some prefer to concentrate solely on the most folkloric of his so evocative edupunk speech, also too eduhippie atrezzo and his digital shop much edupop ). Also, like Diego [es] said, I don't think Downes simply took neither a good nor a bad impression of the audience by the questions that were done to him. Nor do I believe that Downes is aware of how strange some of his answers sounded, in interpreter's mouth (I haven't had time able to hear the original audio) or how difficult it can be for many teachers and professionals to follow his advice on how to steal time to the clock.

That is why I applaud from here that we talk and write about what it's been really thought of the affirmations, both, of Downes(certainly not to radical at this time) and any other person of the stature of this educator. As many have said, some of the ideas presented by Downes are anything but innovation (which does not mean that they are not valid). Others may be debatable and others, improved after some restatement. But the most important ideas, in my personal opinion, are:

- Think about all of them.
- Look for the applicability it has in our immediate surroundings.
- Try to answer all by ourselves, those questions that provoked certain strange in Downes, like the assuption that in the conference room where he pronounced his speech, there weren't more laptops among the audience.
- Recognize with no shame that our standard of "connectivity" is lower than the U.S. but even so, we have many ideas on how we work and collaborate in the web, even facing immense technological limitations from our countries in general and our work environments in particular.
- Follow up the conversations, so that all the voices are listened, not only those in agreement with the majority or with the state-of-the-art fashions.

These are the reasons why I've committed, voluntarily and in a altruistic way, to the Conectivistas [es] group (Connectivism). We sincerely believe that the most appropriate way of advancing knowledge in this field is collaboration and dialogue among people interested in improving education, maximize technology, analyse the influence it has on society and, commit to these benefits, so they can be enjoyed by all sectors of the population.

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3 Comments

  1. Hi!

    Thanks for posting this translation of part of my article on Downes. I wish somebody could take some time to correct the mistakes that the automatic translation tool has made. Also, the last section of my post--missing here--is very important to understand the context of my thoughts (the creation of Connectivitas, a network/group that will discuss the ideas of course Connectivism and Connective Learning by Downes and Siemens).

    Cheears,
    Esperanza

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  2. It's a pleassure to have you Dr. Román. We are working our best way to correct the flawless.

    It wasn't only the 'machine', it also was our negligence not to pay attention to what we were publishing.

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  3. Using Google translator, I've read many of the posts in Spanish reacting to my talk.

    I am sorry I wasn't able to speak to as many people as I would have liked. I hope those who wanted to speak to me and were unable (I know there were some) are understanding. It was difficult to try to speak to so many people in such a short period.

    I had no sense of whether or not the translation was accurate. I did not even hear it! And there was no real way to judge from the audience.

    I was appreciative of the questions and did not judge them too complex or too simple. They were to me genuine efforts at enquiry, a desire to continue the conversation.

    Throughout my visit to Spain I felt that I was treated with the greatest of courtesy and the utmost of respect - far more so than I deserve, really. I hope that I was able to interest and engage people, and that my ideas were valuable.

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