Funny Movie: Italian Clock

I am testing embedding video with WordPress so I thought of using this funny video as a test. If you see it, my test is successful. If not, can you tell me what am I doing wrong?

My Virtual World

I have been spending the last few days interacting with new virtual friends over the concept of online teaching and learning. This morning, I felt I need to live the real life. I needed a break. I needed to touch again with reality. So, I went to FaceBook and redecorated my CafeWorld and redesigned my mansion on FarmVille... Where is my reality? This is like an onion... you peel one layer to find more layers... and as I understand, most of the nutritions of the onion is in the cover, which we throw away...

I know this should make me think about my life... but what is wrong with doing what I enjoy even if the society say otherwise... I am reacting with real people except I do not experience their physicality... how different is this from talking with a real person? ... more realities to be discovered from the virtual world...

The Whale and the Squid

I watched a 1997 movie called the Whale and the Squid. I found it slow, lacks action and unclear about the message it is trying to portray. I read the articles about it and found out it was highly acclaimed. It made me think: what point I am missing when I watch a movie that the critics find interesting while I do not?

The answer was in the movie.

Besides the obvious plot that tries to highlight the impact of divorce onkids, I noticed it portrays the complex relationships between two social types: the Philistines and the Bohemians! In a brilliant twist, the director makes you take a stand. If you are a philistine, you take the stand of the mother/Frank and you see them as the normal people. If you are Bohemian, you will take the stand of the father/Walt. In his brilliance, the Director create the script to allow you to make your own judgement. Then is a sudden Twist, mixes up things when Walt switch sides and you discover the mother is Bohemian herself...

I am still contemplating on the final scene where Walt goes back his nostalgic memory where the mom had prominence and I am trying to figure it out! Is he trying to say that the nostalgic memories we carry are far more important than values we believe in? Or is that the mother care for pragmatic details about life if the core the we should focus on? What does the Squid and the Whale represent? The fear from fighting between the parents? How the mother can ease the fear of kids? The fight between species (in this sense the Bohemians and the Philistines?)

So, this slow boring movie turned out to hide brilliant instigators for us to think about life and ourselves. Brilliant.

My PLE's

Just to capture the moment, my PLE's are:

- POD
-TED
- FaceBook: Teacher's Group
- FaceBook: Kevin Group
- Luke Houghton
- OpenThinking
- FaceBook: Teaching Resources
- IRLT
- Learning At Light Speed
- Aboluay@Wikipedia
- FaceBook: AACE
- FaceBook: Zoomers

EDDL 514

[caption id="attachment_164" align="alignleft" width="84" caption="TRU Logo"][/caption]

I have just enrolled in the EDDL 514 course offered by tru.ca. It is an online course about online teaching and learning. From the introduction of the course, it seems that we will be using some sort of blogging. I am preparing my blog to be my working environment for the course. I have created a special category and I am wondering if I should put all the course material under the category or as a page. This will be determined later. So far, the course seems interesting. Although navigating to it is annoying where I have to go to 3 different portals to get to the Blackboard course. And believe or not, I am forced to use at least 2 different password which is making my life more complicated. The nice thing is that the system synchronize their password which is a nice feature.

Resurrected Blog

I haven't been here in a while. My other blogs took the attention. I am reviving this blog again to be used as part of the EDDL514 course I am taking which requires the creation and use of a blog to create a learning community. The focus of the new posts will be on online teaching and learning, which I hope will enrich my knowledge and experience in the field. A quick briefing on what happened to me between the last blog and today:

1. On Wikipedia front, I have more than 9000 articles on the English and Arabic Wikipedia. My contribution to it has diminished due to busy-ness of life although I am still involved with its community.


2. I made many travels since my last trip to Hawaii and California that are:
   
   
   
   • an RV trip between San Francisco and San Diego and everything in between.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   • Another trip to LA (which I fell in love with) with my son and wife. Visited Universal Studios, Disney Land and had a glimpse of the Oscars.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   • Went with my son and wife to Florida where we spent time in Kissimme and the Atlantic coast of Florida.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   • My son took us to NY and showed it to use through his eyes... it was a magnificent trip.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   • Spend a week with my sister in Ontario visiting Niagara Falls.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   • Had my adventure trip for 4 weeks where I went to NY, Montreal, Cuba, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Minneapolis.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   • Spent New years ever with my wife in Mexico
   
   
   
   


3. At the work front, I am enjoying my new role working with a tremendous team on introducing new educational reals.


4. On personal front, my self discovery and living in the now has taken a steep turn... I still dizzy figuring out my orientation...


5. Miraculously, I was offered my dream job at AUB which, miraculously as well, disappeared... I am still trying to understand that dream that came and gone.

You must visit my other blogs to know the detail of the above.

My newest adventure is enrolling in the EDDL514 course which promise to be full of new discoveries and interesting encounters. You will be posted on its impact and progress on the blog.