Revisiting the Dragon of Manila

Unlike most of the members of the small group from the AUDRN workshop, yesterday's trip to Binondo was not a first-time thing for me.

My first "real-world" job was with the Yuchengco Group of Companies' Pacific Plans, Inc. Their old office--before transferring to the more prestigious RCBC Plaza in Makati--was in an old building in Binondo, several stories high and wedged in between other residential-slash-business buildings. Every working day for 4 months, I took the bus to Manila, a jeep to Escolta, and walked several blocks until I got to that spot in one of the many crowded crevices of Old Manila. I was young and angsty and oblivious to many other things around me.

Yesterday, on a one-day trip to Binondo, Manila, guided by Mr. Karl "Happy Place" Go, I got to see the "Dragon of Manila" with fresh eyes. I chose to focus my fresh, sleepy eyes on the versatility of the space spanned by the historical construct of Binondo. Like what Karl said, the value of space (real estate) in Binondo is probably the most expensive in Manila; basically because the physical space doesn't grow, but the business, the population, and the vibrant life it fosters, do.

From Binondo Walk

Therefore, what caught my fancy yesterday was how people maximize space, and how space has acquired a versatility, a plurality of purpose, a fluid, transformable quality that fits in seamlessly with the pace of life of its inhabitants. People are used to it, no one is shocked, offended or jarred (except perhaps bumbling "tourists" like us, which the dragon has uncomplainingly accommodated, as well). The versatility comes naturally as the will to survive.

From Binondo Walk

From Binondo Walk

From Binondo Walk

A Prezi on Tragedy (based on Aristotle's Poetics)

May also be viewed on the Prezi site: http://bit.ly/fCYZDh

Embedding Greader feed Folders as Blogroll Lists

Eurethra!! [sic]

I am glad for the delasalle.ph igoogle/email accounts (despite some feature, data ownership and privacy limitations). There's really a lot you can do with it. Earlier in the schoolyear, Ms. Cielo and I found out how to maximize Gdocs filesharing and storing features during the AUDRN workshop. Later on, Sir Ronnie and I found time to tinker with GDocs form creator to make surveys for classroom and CFA use. Recently, I have been encouraging students to get more reading done by subscribing to their fave blogs using RSS functions and Google Reader.

Anyway, this might be old news for some tech-savvy educators out there, but I recently discovered a way to make blog-checking easier--by subscribing to feeds via Google Reader, yes--PLUS by embedding whole folders (I made one for each class) of blog feeds as a blogroll/list on your own blog or wordpress site. I use blogger to archive these and before I discovered this particular blogroll embed in Greader, I've always dreaded going through that tedious task of manually putting in blog URLs into lists (hah, ang tamad talaga).

But there you are! I just wish there were better design templates. Ah, well, be content, Ruby, you schmuck!

I would LOVE to sit down with fellow teachers who do not know this yet so I could share why blogging makes a better student output tool. I would love to share experience with it (positive and negative as well) and how to make blogging as an educational tool less of a headache. Of course, I would definitely appreciate hearing what tools and techniques you have found to be useful as well.

All we'll need is a decent internet connection and coffee. Message me!! :)

On Teaching & Movies (1st podcast entry)

Thanks to Ayel and whoever was it who asked the other question.

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I Think Therefore I Don’t Watch Telenovelas (A research writing exercise for my EnglOne class)

I am relatively fond of the Filipino culture for some good reasons. Primarily because it is mine and I have spent all my life immersed in it. Secondly, because it is the culture that has produced a lot of interesting ethnic characteristics, historical events and social phenomenon that can baffle even the most toughened travelers and zealous cultural dabblers. The Philippines is not difficult to love: we have wonderful cuisine, abundant natural resources, numerous and astounding scenic spots, and beautiful and hospitable people. There is one thing though that I do not always hold in favor of--an aspect of current, popular media: Local television programming.

If one needs to be specific on the matter, my pet peeve in local programming is the ubiquitous telenovela/teleseryes that parade across the screens come lunch time up to primetime. In hindsight, though, I have not always harbored dislike for them. I do remember liking a few (i.e. Isabel, Agila, etc. back in the late 80s or early 90s). But those seem to have come from a totally different era. As Mano Figueras puts it: “Soap operas in the Philippines have gone from true-blue baduy to true-blue Mexican to true-blue powerhouse productions” (2002, p. 68).

Figuera (2002), in his article “The Road to Sudsville,” articulates a skeptical view of teleseryes or telenovelas as legitimate media. The author is doubtful of the purpose of telenovelas as educational or as something that can improve the lives of Filipinos who watch them. In the end he concludes that most telenovela viewers merely patronize these shows to escape from their daily travails or to fulfill a fantasy (p. 68).

Perhaps a few of aspect of local telenovelas that I find most disconcerting are the ones mentioned in a personal essay entitled “Television Torture by Telenovelas” (2009). I agree that sickening melodrama generated by torturous minutes of the camera unnecessarily focused on an amateur starlet’s weeping face, and the stereotypical, double-standard roles that women and men occupy in these shows, render local telenovelas unprogressive (Zytryxx). That is, if progress is measured by the level of mental maturity, capability for critical thinking and the capacity for creativity that products of media can lend to its viewers.

Sadly, so far, I do not see this as a quality of Filipino telenovelas.


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References:

1. Figueras, M. (October 2002). The Road to Sudsville. FLIP: A Official Guide to World Domination (vol. 2 no. 1), p. 68.

2. Zytrexx (July 1, 2009). Television Torture by Telenovelas. October 5, 2010. http://zytrexx.multiply.com/journal/item/256

An Introduction to ArtMusc, 2nd term 2010-2011

A presentation for my ArtMusc class; to get things started.




Now, if this doesn't load correctly, please follow this link instead:

https://prezi.com/secure/765b1bbc5f92b19f7cf6effee4b1150502d62026/

Testing Embed Audio

Hola. The reason I seemed to have been neglecting this blog is that I've been busy having many of my students set up their own blogs and microblogs. It should be that I be giving an update about the previous term--a list of my EnglishOne and LitForm students websites, that is. I will get to that in a bit, if not today, then...okay, give me a couple of days. (Aaargh so busy). For now I just need to test this audio embed thing using 4shared and the google media player.

Here goes:




YES! It worked!! Mwahahahahaha!!
Now, time to have my students test it on their own blogs. Another round of headaches I foresee.