The Puerto Rico Connection

The Puerto Rico Connection
  • 3.0 (1)
  • EDUCATION

#careforsagrado

Episodes

  1. 12/12/2025

    Episode 16: The Robots are in Charge

    https://prconnection.cogdog.casa/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/episode-16.mp3 It’s been a while since fans of the Puerto Rico Connection podcast have had a new episode to listen to. In fact, the last episode aired back in 2020. In an unusual turn of events, the latest episode was discovered by none other than the Robot Podcast Overlords in collaboration with the Descript Underlord. The recording, originally created by hosts Alan Levine and Antonio Vantaggiato in late 2022, had been gathering dust in the studio. Now, this dynamic duo of digital assistants has taken the reins to edit and publish the episode without any human intervention. Highlight Reel The Unveiling of an Archived Episode Alan Levine kicks off this special episode by warmly welcoming listeners to the Puerto Rico Connection Podcast, introducing his longtime friend and colleague, Antonio Vantaggiato, who resides in San Juan, Puerto Rico. They share a mutual love for the open web and a rich history of collaboration on various projects. Throughout their conversation, the past projects and current endeavors of Antonio are explored, illuminating the vibrant academic landscape of Puerto Rico. Rediscovering Academic Innovation Antonio shares insights about his teaching role at a university in San Juan. His enthusiasm for programming and algorithms is apparent as he discusses his approach to fostering student engagement through interactive and open web platforms. Antonio reminisces about the transformation of education from content delivery to creating dynamic and experiential learning environments. His commitment to open education is highlighted through his efforts to integrate open web principles into his curriculum, emphasizing the value of practical experience in understanding digital ecosystems. The Zen of Teaching The conversation delves into Antonio’s past project, “The Zen of Teaching,” an exploration of the web as a revolutionary educational tool. This project aimed to challenge traditional educational perceptions and promote a dialogical approach to learning. Antonio’s passion for reclaiming the open web and revitalizing educational practices stands out as he outlines the need for creativity, collaboration, and understanding in contemporary education. AI, Media, and Future Conversations The dialogue transitions to the realm of artificial intelligence, where Antonio shares his plans to revamp an AI course. His curiosity about how AI can transform education echoes throughout the discussion, touching on ethical considerations and the role of AI in shaping future learning environments. Alan and Antonio contemplate a forthcoming digital storytelling course, leaving the door open for future conversations on integrating media and technology in education. The Power of Open Conversations As the episode nears its conclusion, Alan extends an invitation to Antonio’s workshop in Berlin, focusing on open education. Antonio emphasizes the importance of collaborating with colleagues and expanding open educational resources within and beyond Puerto Rico. Their conversation underscores a shared vision of transforming educational spaces through openness, dialogue, and innovation. Outro: A Community of Voices The episode wraps up with Alan inviting Antonio to contribute to the podcast’s introduction, symbolizing the spirit of collaboration and shared voices in open education. Antonio’s voice joins others in creating a unique auditory experience that underscores the podcast’s mission. Thank you for joining us on this journey through the reinvigorated world of PR Connection. Be sure to stay tuned for more episodes that explore the intersection of technology, education, and the open web. — This blog post encapsulates the essence of PR Connection Episode 16, shedding light on the pertinent topics of open education, technology’s evolving role, and the significance of fostering global conversations. It was edited and this post written and featured image generated by the Descript AI Underlord. View Transcript Featured Image: Generated by Descript Underlord / AI Descript Underlord AI generated image, usage rights are vastly unknown.

    41 min

  2. 11/29/2020

    Episode 15: Orange You Glad It’s Pumpkin Soup?

    https://prconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/ep015.mp3 Antonio and I recorded this episode on November 2, 2020. Was there anything of importance happening that day? Well, for me, it was a day to make soup from left over Halloween pumpkins, so you get kitchen pans rattling and oven buzzer actions going off as the orange bits were subjected to high temperatures. We spoke only of He Who Shall not Be named in critical terms… President Shlump flickr photo by cogdogblog shared into the public domain using Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0) Okay, we talked a little bit about the US Elections, and what things looked like for Antonio and other US Citizens in Puerto Rico, who sad to say, have no voice in voting for the President or representation in Congress. How do we go from the Audacity of Hope to… the orange pumpkin baking in my oven? Alan gave a hearty recommendation for Pete Sousa’s The Way I See It Antonio shared how things were going for his INF115 (New Media) students, and how they still got so much out of their podcasting projects as well as the Daily photo activity (going on now, jump in!) Una Foto Cada Día. He also shared thoughts of rejuvenating his ~2011-2103 project The Zen of Teaching maybe as a new podcast series? See the original web site as well as a Wiki which Still Lives. This warms my heart as this was what I remember early or even first as my encounter with Antonio’s work. So by putting it here, maybe there’s a little extra pressure. Speaking of pressure, Alan completely fell down on our mission to up the frequency of our podcast production. The files sat in the pantry way too long, sorry Antonio! But at least the pumpkin soup was tasty and the Orange Menace is also on the shelf of expired items. Vote for Soup! Adding just this line to nudge the podcast rss feed…. Featured Image: First Vat of Pumpkin Soup flickr photo by cogdogblog shared into the public domain using Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0)

    37 min

  3. 10/26/2020

    Episode 14: I Lose You!

    https://prconnection.cogdog.casa/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/pr-connection-ep-14.mp3 I Lose You …is my 6th-grade-English equivalent to “I’m losing you”, the distress signal we use to mean there is a broken-line communication problem. In this case, thanks to Audacity editing I was able to lessen that issue as we faced poor Internet connection just when Alan and I were recording our 14th episode. It’s a common issue, now we are Zooming all over–but, as Alan says, it’s a sort of a miracle if the networks are still functioning given the amount of traffic any day. So, welcome to our 14th episode, and enjoy it as much as I did. The frequency of the PR Connection podcast has been steadily increasing, so I’m trying to publish this not so late after the recording. Done with Zencastr.org, a beautiful platform that records people’s tracks separately but perfectly in synch–even when someone drops off for a little. 2020/366/298 All Along The Split Rail Fence Line #flickr https://t.co/7vEOJDvb1X — Alan Levine (@cogdog) October 26, 2020 So, we rtalked a bit about life in quarantine, which I say “Keeps me in sync with another part of the world outside of classes etc.”, of COVID-19 Testing and lockdown That’s pretty fine, I hear myself as saying… Then we talk about Photo habits, particularly about Alan’s One Photo Every Day challenge, where he publishes 365–or-so imageas a year (on Flickr) , and also on Instagram. “You gotta find one thing that matters,” he replies… And then we talk about Zoom (what else) and how fantastic it is that the network infrastructure has not collapsed under the pressure. It’s pleasure to have these conversations together with Alan, as often as possible, and as well-recorded as possible! Now, please, go vote! “Vote for guy who respects women” https://t.co/z1Cq4TdanK — Alan Levine (@cogdog) October 26, 2020

    39 min

  4. 09/15/2020

    Episode 13: Feeling Lucky

    https://prconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/ep013.mp3 Do you feel lucky? Antonio and I do. It’s been almost exactly 3 months since our last podcast (is this a confession booth?). Antonio and I have expectations of a new frequency. Maybe we spend too much time editing and writing detailed show notes. So the new model is all about S-P-E-E-D. We record, insert into our Audacity template that has opening and closing music, and then we just pop out an mp3. Leave the gaffes and ums. And then no fancy editing here. I will only spend enough time writing this to wait for the file to be sent up to the cloud. We tried a new setup I have been using for another project. A trick I learned from Terry Greene of Gettin’ Air. We record in Zencastr (I am on the cheapo freebie version) which saves each attendee’s voice as a separate audio. I have it connected to my DropBox so the files just show up. It quite saved our butts this time. About 1/3 the way in, Antonio’s router went kerflooie (technical term) and his audio went off track and then disappeared. He returned and the recording kept going. Amazingly, Zencastr kept all of the audio in sync. There was one spot where he was talking and I was talking but we could not hear each other. That was the one edit, I zeroed out my audio trying to talk while Antonio was gone. Uh oh, audio is done! So is my editing. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as Antonio and I did. If this thing takes off, the monthly costs might top 50 cents. As promised one link shared that Antonio requested (I will grab it from the tweet he saw). Impressively done. Doing a 100 word story podcast a day since 2005. Until he dies. https://t.co/BAIH3QqiHl pic.twitter.com/BjsP8EeAcb — Alan Levine (@cogdog) September 14, 2020 Us lucky podcasts could only aspire to this kind of daily habit. Image Credit: Lucky 13 flickr photo by cogdogblog shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license

    43 min

  5. 06/16/2020

    Episode 12: The No Knead Podcast, 3 Months To Rise

    https://prconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/ep012.mp3 Some recipes claim to be easy. This podcast was in the oven for almost three months, and the fault is all mine. Antonio and I recorded this episode on March 21, way back in the early part of pandemic lockdown. Then I just let it sit. But in a way, it’s interesting to hear us talk while this was a bit of a novelty, not the dread filled mire it has become. Oh, was that pessimistic? No worries, because my colleague and friend Antonio is a primo optimist. Just listen to him! I did learn some Italian, OMS in Italian, is “Organizzazione Mondiale della Sanità” or what you might say, as in WHO (World Health Organization). Antonio was understandably concerned about his 90+ year old mother in Italy. Antonio described that in Puerto Rico there were night time curfews. Students at his University. Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, had to leave their dorms and return to home on the island. He says that things at Sagrado were done in orderly manner for lockdown. This was his preparation week for the “online pivoting” (insert ballet puns). He noted that after Hurricane Maria, Sagrado was first in Puerto Rico to reinstate classes as hybrid (under tents), so they were used to dealing with calamity. Because that seems pretty regular there, be it from natural forces or the boot of the US Government. He described the hashtag #EsteVirusLoParamosUnidos or “We Stop this virus united” – Check out the 150,000 photos tagged on instagram. But as “always an optimist” Antonio was ready to do remote teaching. I shared a great retweet form Moia, and 80+ year old high spirited professor from Mexico I got to know form the UDG Agora Project Este es un virusito que anda buscando un descuidadito, pero si te cuidas, no va a encontrar un nidito y se va a morir solito. @ArturoZaldivarL @lopezobrador_ @BeatrizGMuller @nestora_salgado @SusanaHarp @NapoleonGomezUr @galvanochoa @AristeguiOnline @lydiacachosi @cogdog https://t.co/sIceH0ENrv — moiacost (@moiacost) March 21, 2020 Antonio noted the first COVID-19 death in Puerto Rico happened recently, a tourist from a cruise ship. I wondered if there was any singing from balconies in Puerto Rico. Antonio talked about planning for teaching his Italian film class– he was using some sites for co-watching films, and that he had plans to watch soon a Mario Bava movie with Jim Groom (who blogged it thus). Antonio’s strategies including Mixing asynchronous and synchronous. His INF115 New Media students, like always, publish to blog class summaries, with blog syndication to the main site, doing daily photos, and a class podcast project (see the class summary post by Antonio). He urges students to “enjoy” the boredom of these times, but also write about it in their blogs, be creative, do something to capture this time. Antonio relays that it’s important to talk about how we feel about this time. As optimistic as can be, Antonio says this is an ideal time to experiment. I talked a bit about grand plans to make the Daily Blank WordPress theme fully language localized so Una foto cata dia could be completely in Spanish (as it turns out this was way more work than anticipated, but still on the table. I also talked about wanting to tap into the new Creative Commons search API as a means to support a different version of pechaflickr. Postscript- om Three months I got as far as a crude prototype of fetching random images tagged “Landscape” which sometimes takes 3 reloads to cough something up. Antonio reported in Puerto Rico it feels like a sense of denia about the pandemic. At the time, despite any faux Presidential boasting of “the best testing” there were no testing kits in Puerto Rico. Results had to come from labs in Atlanta or elsewhere. So there is really no data on the extent of the virus in Puerto Rico, just knowledge than around March 21 there where ~20 people infected, and 1 death. While feeling that the Western way of life may be crumbling down, one positive of this time might be… less pollution (paging Dr Doom). Antonio’s recommendation for hanging on to optimism is… Cooking. He shared that the most bought item in Italy is wheat flour– people are discovering art of making pasta and bread. He referred me to Mark Bittman’s No-Knead Bread recipe, which thus became the name of this episode. Thanks again, my good friend, Antonio, and many sorries for taking way too long to post. Image Credit: No knead bread flickr photo by Ullisan shared under a Creative Commons (BY-ND) license

    55 min

  6. 10/24/2019

    Episode 11: The Broken One

    https://prconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/ep011.mp3 In which Alan & Antonio deal with strong cellular deficiency And they talk aimlessly about connection (quite rightly) and other high-level stuff. Hello, planet Earth, do you hear? Instead of raising the bar, we have the lowest possible quality. Zero. But I love these conversations a little more every time, because it’s nice to talk tech (and other stuff) with Alan. And please listen through the end since he has got a special surprise with the outro. So this episode seems a weird radio program from the 70’s, with some joker at some place having fun of listeners. The worst podcast ever. How can I not worry, Antonio? Charting our frequency? Seems to be increasing. [What are we talking about?] The battery. Welcome back. OMG. Talking disruptions. And I keep forgetting the English language. Radio… photography… Tom Woodward‘s WordPress Timeline JS Plugin useful to visualize an interactive timeline of blogs. And Fleabag?? I almost watch no tv. What? I love #Fleabag. I love that a show about a dry-witted, grief-stricken, hypersexual, depressed person is even getting attention. I love that Phoebe Waller-Bridge won for her performance. I just love #Fleabag. One of the most perfect shows I’ve ever seen. #Emmys2019 pic.twitter.com/zWRGilieaX — Michael Boo-nlein (@MichaelBCompany) September 23, 2019 I Am Mine! Says Lucy Van Pelt Then there’s Lucy. Of course the broken connections means Alan thinks I’m talking about the other Lucy from I Love Lucy. But no, at the time I didn’t know nothin’ about this Lucy #2. For me the one and only is the One From The Peanuts, a memory from my adolescence. And talking about comics: You want the Italians? Diabolik, Satanik, Alan Ford, Jacovitti… Max Bunker & Magnus’s Alan Ford: A weird band of detectives. Il Giallo a Fumetti: Diabolik. From @jimgroom’s bavatuesdays. Satanik. Il fumetto dell’orrore. From Amazon. Yes, Satanik was drawn by the very Max Bunker (Luciano Secchi) of Alan Ford and written by Magnus (Roberto Raviola). Last, there is Jacovitti, a genius telling Western-style stories, with dumb cigarette-smoking horses, pencils, salami-on-foot and worms on the ground. I learn that Alan looks at his browser’s cookies (to check privacy etc.) Usage of facebook. Usefullness? I find myself saying: No other medium to contact far-away friends besides calling them FTW?? Alan Tweets In ALL CAPS: I'M A VICTIM OF THIS PHONY CONSTITUTION THING. — Alan Levine (@cogdog) October 22, 2019 Then, there’s Terry Greene‘s podcast Gettin’ Air from VoiceEd.ca, which I (Antonio) will be soon part of, in the company of Terry and other much admired folks. Not bad for a broken episode And that’s all, folks. [Featured image from Flickr: “Broken” by kevin dooley is licensed under CC BY 2.0 ]

    26 min

  7. 09/22/2019

    Episode 10: Low Frequency

    https://prconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/ep010.mp3 It’s been 148 days since our last episode; does the low frequency of publication mean we are no longer a podcast? Antonio and I don’t care; we have abolished rules before. But we did manage to record this one on September 4, and looking at we have a calendar item on September 23 to record another, it was time to push the editing into high gear. Antonio was sitting outside on campus at Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, so you will hear the sounds of students walking by. And birds. And street traffic. Apparently, he is without office while he is assigned a new one (“like a Zombie”), so he roams campus. I did talk some about the possibility of ceasing the publication of our audio on Amazon S3, this in the face of getting am 18 cent bill last month. But I decided to leave things as they are. If we get a spike in audience, where maybe it costs $2.00 a month, I will reconsider. Antonio described the podcasting assignments he is doing this semester with his New Media INF115 students. Again they will be collaborating on their shared podcast show, La Situación. Antonio described how he was planning to have his students discuss the political story that took place over the summer, where public protests led to the forcing out of their governor Ricardo Rosselló. He shared his observations how the public protests were heavily attended by young people and very peaceful. I was rather impressed with the ability of a population that was able to unseat unfit leaders. Maybe it can happen elsewhere (cough cough). Antonio will again have students do their version of the DS106 Daily Create, or what he calls sting to Una Foto Cada Día (see more about his plans in his recent blog post). He mentioned coming across a great Canadian Podcast, which turned out to be my colleague and friend Terry Greene’s Gettin’ Air. Small internet world. Right after the show, I DM-ed Terry in twitter and suggested doing an episode featuring Antonio. It’s in the works. We rounded out the show with a quasi plan for the next one… and it may be a better frequency! Technically 148 days is the Period, time between cycles. The inverse of that is the frequency, converted to seconds, that is 0.00000078 Hz — Alan Levine (@cogdog) September 23, 2019 Featured Image: Image from page 799 of “The Bell System technical journal” (1922) flickr photo by Internet Archive Book Images shared with no copyright restriction (Flickr Commons)

    32 min

  8. 04/26/2019

    Episode 9: Black holes and links

    https://s3.amazonaws.com/prconnection/ep009.mp3 At last I get to work on the latest, ninth episode of The Puerto Rico Connection. But on the New Media class on Thursday 25th, there was no connection. Alan tried his best to give a talk to my students. Unfortunately the networks did not collaborate. My students and I tried every possible route: Wifi, Ethernet and cellular hotspots, to no avail. Blame the Internetz! Until Alan found the culprit, We know who to blame. El Orange Chupacabra — Alan Levine (@cogdog) April 26, 2019 Image from the popular folklore, elaborated by somebody, but who? See? In the previous post (Preparing for the 9th episode) there are the ideas Alan and I played with during our fine conversation. In fact, he was smart to gear it towards the recent first-image-ever of a black hole. From there, it was a freewheeling talk on what’s a photo of a black hole vs. an image; the singularity idea of a point in spacetime where not even light can escape from; and the digression to the limit when we discussed what would happen if we reduced the podcast’s timing to zero, little by little? It’s a joke, but mathematicians use this “limit” idea pretty often and with beautiful results. So, how would we open and close a recording which lasts exactly zero point zero time? If it were 0.0001 seconds, we might image being very very very quick. But with no time at all, would it still make sense? A line, if you reduce its length progressively up to zero, will become a point. It makes sense as a point but it’s difficult to see a point as an abstract line taken to the limit. But a recording? Of course it’s non-sense, but one it was fun to talk about! Anyhow, see the previous post to read a bit more on this. On the episode we talked about other stuff, of course. No spoilers here. And we said we would publish here the links we collect and share and we’d like to discuss on the air. We didn’t discuss them on this episode, though, since we hadn’t had a chance to read them beforehand. So, it’s for next time. Here, I’ll paste a copy of the feed coming from the shared tag prcon: www.diigo.com/rss/tag/prcon?tab=153 where the tab=153 means to get only the recent links. Now, the diigo page for these links (diigo.com/tag/prcon?tab=153) would not return the description of each link. Fortunately, the Firefox add-on Want My RSS does. And this is the result. To activate Hypothes.is and annotate this page please, click below, then activate the tool by clicking on the arrow at the northeast corner of the page: Annotate this Online tools for random words, Word to HTML, other free tools. 4/14/2019, 3:08:40 PM This website features text and html changing, converting, and generating tools designed to save you time making web pages or preparing content for web publishing projects or other groovy stuff. Or even use the site to make a random choice. If you’ve… Tags: IFTTT Pinboard webdesign text ds106 netnarr prcon cooltech It’s easier than you think to craft AI tools without typing a line of code – The Verge 4/13/2019, 3:48:23 AM A lot of companies are trying to make it easier to use artificial intelligence, but few are making it as simple as Lobe. The startup, which launched earlier this year, offers users a clean drag-and-drop interface for building deep learning algorithm… Tags: IFTTT Pinboard ai prcon Five Principles for Thinking Like a Futurist | EDUCAUSE 4/26/2019, 10:10:32 AM “Learning is Earning”? Connecting learning outcomes with a measurement of graduates’ earnings is dangerous; linking or correlating that with faculty’s performance is plainly and morally wrong. Tags: IFTF future EDUCAUSE article prcon learning delicious Why we’re building Refind and giving away 1 billion coins 4/26/2019, 10:11:46 AM “Why we’re building Refind and giving away 1 billion coins.” First Web discovery service I’d like to discuss here & in a next episode of the podcast. Tags: tools discovery reading feeds rss delicious prcon Who Ya Calling a Grader? – CogDogBlog 4/26/2019, 10:23:59 AM Surprising that we still have to discuss simple, obvious stuff. Alan makes a compelling case on grading; why we consider students’ work as evidence of their mastery of a discipline, a concept, or a creative process. Of course, this does not mean at all grading the student: it’s the student’s work that gets considered. Can’t believe there are people who think like “grading the student”. Grading actually does not makes much sense, in a knowledge-centered world: Would you be on the operating table of a surgeon who got a “C” average? What does the “C” means? Can she operate or not? Can he pilot a plane or not? Tags: articles posts grading delicious prcon Are.na 4/26/2019, 10:26:09 AM “Build ideas mindfully. Save content, create collections, and connect ideas with other people.” Second web service to discuss. This seems like a sophisticated bookmarking service, and I like bookmarking. Who can tell me more? Tags: tools collaboration research social bookmarks ideas prcon delicious The Infinite Document – WorkFlowy 4/26/2019, 10:27:48 AM “WorkFlowy is a single document that can contain infinite documents inside it. It’s a more powerful, easier way to organize all the information in your life.” The plain idea of an “infinite document” is very appealing to me. Likewise, the recursivity of such a document–cotaining infinite other docs within–is fascinating. Would it be useful? How? Tags: tools writing document editor organize todo prcon delicious list DeepL Translator 4/11/2019, 12:01:27 PM “a machine translation service that produces translations of unprecedented quality” A possible alt to google translate? DeepL Tags: IFTTT Pinboard ai language tool translation prcon Mathematical and Puzzle Fonts/Typefaces 4/10/2019, 11:04:28 AM Below are several mathematical typefaces which are inspired by mathematical theorems or open problems. Most include a puzzle font: reading them is itself a mathematical puzzle. Tags: IFTTT Pinboard font mathematics typography prcon Dissection Font 4/9/2019, 10:45:00 PM In these fonts, each letter or digit or ampersand can be dissected (cut into pieces such that those pieces re-arrange) into a 6 × 6 square. The dissections all happen to be polyomino dissections, and they allow translation, rotation, and reflection … Tags: IFTTT Pinboard font netnarr prcon The Weird Machine That Measured Radio Audiences in the ’30s and ’40s 4/9/2019, 10:46:31 PM The February 1945 issue of Radio-Craft magazine included an article titled “Radio Audience Meter” which looked at the machine that was revolutionizing audience measurement. First installed in homes on a trial basis in 1939, the Audimeter was placed … Tags: IFTTT Pinboard history radio tech prcon Want My RSS I did not edit the links’ code at all, so it seems with a simple copy & paste we got a reasonable format on this post. Now it’s just a matter of opening up Hypothes.is in this post and we all can annotate it. And now, enjoy Episode Nine! [Featured Image: Singularity, Flickr photo by sharkhats. CC-Licensed BY-NC. Some rights reserved]

    30 min

  9. 01/15/2019

    Episode 8: Baby, It’s Cold!

    https://s3.amazonaws.com/prconnection/ep008.mp3 Talking to Antonio in December he made it sound like he was in a scene from The Day After Tomorrow. He was claiming it was “freezing” in his office in San Juan, Puerto Rico, but he did provide some photographic evidence. View this post on Instagram This is my frozen cold self while talking with Alan @cogdog for our Puerto Rico Connection podcast today. My office is freezing! Podcast at http://prconnection.cogdog.casa. #prconnection A post shared by Antonio (@avunque) on Dec 6, 2018 at 9:25am PST Meanwhile, here at home in Saskatchewan, I’m sitting in a t-shirt but looking out the window at snow. View this post on Instagram While @avunque is bundled up in parka down in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in this mornings podcast recording with him from home in Mortlach, Saskatchewan, I was warm in t-shirt with snow out the window. Next episode to be published at https://prconnection.cogdog.casa A post shared by Alan Levine (@cogdog) on Dec 6, 2018 at 9:32am PST So it goes, but we were overdue, as usual for another podcast. And despite my best intentions to get this episode published in 2018, the holidays we spoke of put the kabosh on that. And with a mid recording interruption when one of us lost our internet connection, we lost track on timing. There goes the Twenty Minute Rule, trashed again. After some opening banter about holiday celebrations, we started with the oft repeated / never proven Blogging is Dead assertion. I had this on my mind having just again blogged about blogging. Is it pointless incessant barking, or is it a sleeping dog? A likely copyrighted image from a card my sister bought (hey somewhere money was transmitted) and sent me. I had it for a long time on my refrigerator door in Arizona along with the gallery of dogs past. But more than our own use as grey beard bloggers, we focused more about our use with students blogging, as we both teach classes where we run WordPress sites as syndication hubs. Antonio said, Writing, always happens to make you think. And sometimes when you write, you discover you understand better what you think and discover something you did not know seconds before. It’s a powerful mechanism for self-exploration, self-understanding, besides being a social thing. He reports that his students that blogged over previous semesters remina proud of their work. Many blog extensively about their class projects but often venture onto more diverse topics. One of his previous students wrote an entire novel as installments on her blog. This was not even an assignment, but an idea of her own. Antonio recently gave a talk at the University of Puerto Rico at Aguadilla where he tried to make a case that blogging was a great approach to encourage writing across the curriculum. Desafíos y oportunidades en la educación (a distancia): Tecnologías, innovación y tendencias from Antonio Vantaggiato He talks about the value of not just writing, as can be seen in the blogs of his INF103 and INF115 students but also expressing themselves in media, for example podcasts like “Humans of Sagrado” I talked about the trap of getting caught up in audience, whether we get comments, likes, retweets, which can make us forget the power of just writing for our own sake. Antonio does point out that knowing their work has been read is an important motivator for new bloggers like his students. Many of his students are doing blogging for a first time. Antonio tried to suggest what many people write in social media as “short form blogging” but I would not let him get away with that (we laughed). And also we got into a bit of a discussion about the “ownership” of a blog, that a blog on WordPress.com to many is not “owned” by the individual, more like rental. We then had a blip when we lost the internet. But the show went on. We talked about the paths students hopeful take to develop their own writing voices in their blogs, moving away from “this is my assignment” type of postings. Speaking of voices, I talked about the amusement of seeing the twitter bots our NetNarr students created in 2017 that are still chattering away. weather report for tonight: far snow storms is starting in #arganee — кетсуня (@ketsunya_) January 14, 2019 But you must fake #arganee So listen up world, listen up world #arganee And never said why you miss #arganee Ten Speed #arganee — Garry Gobles (@GarryGobles) January 14, 2019 We went on to talk about the powerful result when students continue blogging after the class ends, a few of them take ownership of their own domain. I shared a memory of early days of the Domain of One’s Own at University of Mary Washington, how students said in a Faculty Academy presentation said that blogging did not make much sense when they were given a domain. They saw value after experiencing meaningful classroom assignments. Then we had a nice interruption when Antonio’s colleague Doribel stepped in to say hello. Antonio shared that in Puerto Rico there is a lot of footholds in Learning Management Systems. People will philosophically agree when he raises issues with the problems of systems that discard student work, but generally stay with it. Blogging is a great metaphor for writing and creating, and is so easy to implement (and also cheap to implement). But I’m an optimist. And I hope little by little we can move into that area. As we do, we went nostalgic in bringing up Jim Groom’s exhibit at the OWTEH gathering in the UK with his exhibit on the Web of the 1990s Back to the Future of the Web Exhibition #OWLTEH18 pic.twitter.com/H95u2XEvhf — Jim Groom (@jimgroom) October 25, 2018 Antonio talked about the excitement of the new terrain, how little we knew of it, that we had to learn to walk, navigate, and build. It was a thrilling atmosphere, I remembered discovering Mosaic, after spending time with Gopher. Antonio noted how many of the early institutions on the web were newspapers and museums. He remembers checking the early 1990s Vatican museum’s web sites. My own experience parallels Antonio- that I was exploring gopher servers too, when a colleague handed me a floppy disk with Mosaic written on it– Jim Walters said, “just try this”. Discovering the NCSA;s Beginners Guide To HTML (which sadly you cannot even find from NCSA anymore, try http://obswww.unige.ch/~blecha/doc/primer.html) launched me on the path I am still on. Antonio likes showing the legal document in April 1993 when CERN put the web technologies in the public domain, “a mind blowing moment in internet history” at the same time when the US released the internet IP protocols into the public domain. Copy of of the CERN document releasing the world wide web technologies into the public domain He makes the important observation that the creation of the Internet and web technologies were moments defined by heavy public investments into the common good. It’s hard to imagine that kind of investment now, right? Antonio says, “the world still needs a lot of public investments.” I’m heard promising this podcast would be published in 2018… Hah. I predicted 2019 would be excellent because Antonio and I would continue talking and making podcasts. We should hope Antonio survives the cold winters in Puerto Rico! Featured Image: I mashed up a cover image from the The Day After Tomorrow with images of the classic building at Universidad Sagrado del Corázon and the campus gates found on their YouTube Channel.

    36 min

  10. 10/24/2018

    Episode 7: Maria Plus One Year (and rule busting)

    https://s3.amazonaws.com/prconnection/ep007.mp3 Yes, there was a summer long length of time since episode 6 of the Puerto Rico Collection (just published yesterday), but we are back in action. I was moved into action seeing Antonio’s post on September 20 titled Hurricane María–The flashback: A lot has been said and written on hurricane María and our experience of it and our experience of its aftermath. Today, exactly one year after its passage, let me commemorate it and all the students who with me have stepped through such a hard time. Today we watched hare at Sagrado the premiére of my friend Sonia Fritz’s documentary Después de María. Las 2 orillas (After Maria. The Two Shores). Of course I–and all the public within the theater–was moved. Impossible to retain the wave of emotions while the images passed by. But they were not images of wind and rain and water and debris. Those we know too well: In fact, more or less at this very moment one year ago I was working with my neighbors to clean up our street, just hours after the hurricane left us. This is what started this whole podcast concept, first with the idea of sending postcards of care to Antonio (published October 13, 2017) and our first podcast on November 11. Connectivity was not reliable enough them for a conversation, so Antonio and I did segments by posting and replying audio files on a Google Drive. What has happened to Antonio and his students in Puerto Rico since? That is today’s topic, and why I reached out with an email titled “Not an Anniversary” as it was really nothing to celebrate. We started with Antonio recalling the scene of destruction, with no electricity, he observed from the roof of the student center at his campus in San Juan, Universidad del Sagrado Corazón. He reports the campus is fine, although there are still roofs of some buildings that have not been repaired, mainly because payment has been slow from insurance companies. More generators have been purchased for the future. He described when flying in by plane now you will see a lot of FEMA blue rooftops where the roofs are plastic tarps. Electricity is restored to most of the island, but he notes that the island of Vieques still only has power from generators. Antonio reports people on campus are doing fine; his Fundamentos de Informática (INF103) students are working on media projects documenting their Hurricane Maria stories which should be on the site soon. Everyone has the phenomenon in their minds. But I don’t want to say it’s over. It’s not. There’s still a lot of things in the air. We still have a fiscal board that oversees everything here. He referenced the stories told in the documentary by his colleague Sonia Fritz; check out the trailer. I asked Antonio if it feels like the world has forgotten about Puerto Rico. As nice as he is, Antonio stays positive- he feels there is more attention and awareness of the situation in Puerto Rico. He had about 6 or 7 students who did leave Puerto Rico and he worked with some of them to help them finish their students, but there are others he has never heard from. Roman Days flickr photo by avunque shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license Roman Days flickr photo by avunque shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license We moved on to hear about Antonio’s two month summer visit to Italy, much to visit his mother and family, but also for his wife and daughters to spend time together. They got to do about 600km of road touring north near Venice including a visit with Jim Groom and family in Trento. View this post on Instagram Look who we found at the #Bindisi A post shared by Jim Groom (@jim.groom) on Jul 28, 2018 at 1:32am PDT Also in this episode we learn that Italians have no idea what a pepperoni pizza is Antonio discussed his idea to teach a class in Puerto Rico that would include a visit to Italy, he would love to bring students to see his home country. On technology, Antonio shared his recent interest in Jaron Lanier’s ideas about Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. We walked about his students use of Facebook and Twitter; he maintains that even if less popular, students in journalism and the news need to be aware of the role of Twitter. We then moved to talking about perceptions of Wikipedia and I talked some about the work we did in Guadalajara on the Mural UDG project to increase understanding about how Wikipedia really works and the common first reaction that “it’s unreliable.” I got to talk a bit about my own changes of the summer, including moving to Canada to get married and make a new home here in Saskatchewan. We talked some of building things by hands as well as some conversation about archiving web content (we are techno geeks, we circled back to the web often). If anyone is counting, we went way over the 20 minute rule, given it has been so long since our last episode. It’s always a treat to spend time in conversation with Antonio, and I am so happy to hear his positive, cheerful voice when we connect. Featured Image: Pixabay image by 422737 shared into the public domain using Creative Commons CC0

    48 min
  • 10 Episodes

About

#careforsagrado

Information