MadTV – Sesame Street – The Internet

After the wikiversity lesson on networked learning posted previously, I have to upload this Internet parody of Mad TV. Interesting for analysis…oh and for a good laugh, because as Friedrich Nietzsche once said “We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.”

Networked Learning on Wikiversity

Today’s Project on wikiversity is Networked learning – Assisting you in developing online communication and internet learning skills. The project is based on the principles of networked learning where individuals establish an online identity and formulate relationships with other people and information to communicate and develop knowledge.

Cell Phones – Ange or demon?

Cell phones are important and indispensable parts of our lives.

I was yesterday, discussing this with my brother and we were concluding that we can live one day without Internet, but not a single day without a mobile phone.

Cell phones are not just telephones, they are our agenda, our clock, our calculator, but most important of all, our way of being always connected with family and friends, of knowing what is happening and of being constantly in touch. Certainly, they are also vital professional tools. However, what is most significant to us is that they help us to coordinate our daily agendas, to articulate with our family and friends when and where are going to meet, if we are late, where are they, what are they doing and so on. It gives us a sense of security.

Of course, this has several costs, besides the dependency and the radiations, that mostly experts say it can seriously harm our health, for instance you have to be always available, because if you do not answer a call, people get mad, specially when you do not get back to them on due time. In fact, Xmas text messages invade our mobile phones in this season…and you just feel you have to reply to the hundreds of people that, sometimes only remember you on Holidays.

In Portugal, in the third trimester of 2007, we had 12, 9 millions of mobile phones subscribers (http://www.anacom.pt/template12.jsp?categoryId=238482).

A propos, this is a very interesting article about this particular issue:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17486953

This article explains that cell phones changed what means to make a phone call. For instance, our perception about time and punctuality is being altered, as cell phones help us to negotiate time and arrival time, decreasing the stress of being late.

Cell phones are also changing how we relate to one another, they seem to “tighten our inner social sphere”, but simultaneously to untie the bonds with those outside our inner circle.

Some concerns are related to the fact that cell phones are denominated “pacifiers for adults” or “electronic tethers”, as people can’t be alone anymore (Well, we are undoubtedly a “social animal”!). In addition, the line between the public and the private is becoming fuzzy.

Free online knowledge. Finally?

Professor Lewin demonstrates physics of pendulums.

“At 71, Physics Professor Is a Web Star “

Professor Lewin’s videotaped physics lectures, free online on the OpenCourseWare of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have won him devotees across the country and beyond who stuff his e-mail in-box with praise.”

The New York Times
By SARA RIMER
Published: December 19, 2007