tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84392136418081580712024-03-06T00:04:13.215+01:00ChristophD's Random Musingsrandom musings with a focus on technology and travellingChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.comBlogger361125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-80854805873026905502013-12-31T16:44:00.004+01:002013-12-31T16:49:04.827+01:00Memorable Books of 2013<div style="text-align: justify;">
I originally wanted to call this post "The 10 Best Books I read in 2013" but then I realized that I can <i>barely</i> remember 10 books which I read front-to-back (or "highest to lowest bit, for eBooks" as Igor <a href="http://www.igorfaletski.com/top-10-books-for-2013">puts</a> it). So without further ado I present you a list of books which I do remember having read in the past 12 months:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>projekt@party (Beqë Cufaj)</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I stumbled across this book via an online book-review one night, got the Kindle version, and promptly forgot about it again until I re-discovered it sitting on my Kindle at the beginning of the year. The center of the book is a German professor who leaves his messed-up home turf to work in international development for the United Nations in a country and society torn apart by (civil-)war. The country is vaguely set in the Balkans region which comes as no surprise given that the author Beqë Cufaj is from Pristina. In many ways projekt@party reminded me of <b>Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures (Heidi Postlewait, Kenneth Cain and Andrew Thomson) </b>(which <a href="http://christoph-d.blogspot.co.at/2010/02/recently-read-february-2010.html">I previously wrote about</a> in February 2010) with a slightly more European tone and focus. The core themes in both books are the challenges encountered by people working in environments and cultures they don't really understand and the debauchery resulting from having too much money, too much spare time, and little local social fabric beyond an expat crowd. This may now sound a little shallow but projekt@party is a good and thought-provoking read and it will certainly have an additional appeal to people who often find themselves in environments similar to the one described in the book.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Water Music (T.C. Boyle)</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
On the back cover of this book you'll find this spot-on endorsement by Salman Rushdie which says: "Water Music goes over the top and also round the bend. It is a book in the worst possible taste, serves no useful purpose and is crammed with disgusting, filthy ideas. Its title will make Handel turn in his grave. It stinks of gin and Africa. It also bubbles, or should I says Boyles, with life, language, comedy, energy and other forms of weirdness." There's not much I can add to that except to say that I read the book while I was in Zambia and Laos at the beginning of the year and it was <i>the</i> perfect travel companion for all the places between Lusaka, Livingstone, Dubai, Luang Prabang, and Si Phan Don. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/8427060523/in/set-72157632630464005">Best enjoyed with a bottle of Mosi or Beerlao!</a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Learning to Change the World: The Social Impact of One Laptop Per Child (Charles Kane, Walter Bender, Jody Cornish, Neal Donahue)</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I really should have done a longer book review after I reading it for OLPC News but unfortunately I never got around to doing it. The best way I've found to capture my thoughts and feelings while reading the book is the following: It's like spending an evening with a close friend you haven't seen in a while and three bottles of red wine. You'll hear things you haven't heard or see perspective you hadn't considered before, sometimes it's deeply reflective and thoughtful, at other times you'll have to stop yourself from laughing out loud because you'll hear absurd notions and remarks that will make you want to pull your hair out... And the next morning you'll wake up understanding your friend a little better and knowing that you had a good time. However you'll still not be able to decide whether it was worth the hangover which will overshadow the rest of your day.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Wie die Tiere (Wolf Haas)</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The main reason why I read this detective story is because it's set in and around Vienna's 20th district where I currently live. Wolf Haas is a famous Austrian writer of such detective stories and crime fiction but somehow I had never gotten around to reading any of his books yet. However after reading this enjoyable story I'll definitely dive into some of his other books in the future.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Atlas eines ängstlichen Mannes (Christoph Ransmayr)</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This book was a present from my parents for Christmas 2012 and for some reason I lost track of it until I found it amongst a stack of unread books in one of my shelves this summer. The book consists of several dozen short stories and impressions as experienced by the author during his extensive travels all around the world. To me reading the book felt like sitting down with a close friend and a glass of red wine and listening to his/her travel adventures and experiences for many hours. Simply put: I loved every minute of it!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis (Christoph Ransmayr)</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I had been meaning to read Ransmayr's famous book focused on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian_North_Pole_Expedition">Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition</a> from 1872-1874 for many years and after I was blown away by the aforementioned <b>Atlas eines ängstlichen Mannes</b> this was a no-brainer. And I wasn't disappointed because the depiction of the hardships endured by the crew during their 2-year journey but also everything that happened before and afterwards was simply breathtaking. Initially I wasn't entirely happy about the second storyline which is set in the present but towards the end I realized that it did have its merritts.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Burmese Days (George Orwell)</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_Days">As Wikipedia puts it</a>: "<i>It is a tale from the waning days of British colonialism, when Burma was ruled as part of the Indian empire – "a portrait of the dark side of the British Raj." At its centre is John Flory, "the lone and lacking individual trapped within a bigger system that is undermining the better side of human nature."</i>" Orwell is definitely one of my favorite 20th century authors. I particularly like his uncanny ability to accurately portrait seemingly out-of-the-ordinary societies and individuals in seemingly out-of-the-ordinary circumstances, regardless of whether it's in the famous <b>1984</b>, <b>Animal Farm</b> or the lesser known <b>Homage to Catalonia</b> (Orwell's account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War). Burmese Days is no exception and reading it while in Malaysia made it all the more powerful.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (William Kamkwamba, Bryan Mealer)</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Of all the books I read in 2013 this is the one I've been meaning to read for the longest time. It was probably in mid-2010 when I first heard about William Kamkwamba's now famous <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/william_kamkwamba_how_i_harnessed_the_wind.html">TED talk</a> in which he describes how the built a windmill in his Malawi hometown using scraps and knowledge learned from old science books he borrowed from a local library. The 6-minute TED talk is well worth watching but of course it doesn't really do his challenges, efforts, failures, and ultimate success any justice. To me the most memorable take-aways from the book were his chilling descriptions of the effects of extreme poverty and starvation on himself, the people around him, and Malawi society in general. His endurance and ultimate success is what made William <i>TED-worthy</i> so to say but that's really only half (or actually a quarter) of his powerful story.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I had initially filed this book under "guilty pleasure" but after finishing it in 3 or 4 days straight I'll say that it was just a pleasure. Admittedly I have a thing for dystopian young adult fiction (e.g. last year I read <b>Little Brother</b> and <b>Homeland</b> by Cory Doctorow and loved both of them) but besides that Suzanne's Collins' book is simply a well-paced story, with an interesting heroine, and set in an interesting world. A perfect page-turner!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The Given Day (Dennis Lehane)</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
At just north of 700 pages this is certainly the longest book I read this year. And I read it in 4 short days around Christmas last week. Yes, it really is that good! The early 20th century setting, the extremely well developed characters, the detailed descriptions of Boston's streets and society, the interwoven story lines, etc. all make for an extremely compelling book. Oh, and if you like Boardwalk Empire you'll very likely also enjoy The Given Day as much as I did.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Now looking back at this list I realize that I read the majority of these books in the second half of the year. Or maybe I simply forgot about the ones I read in the first six months of 2013;-)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Anyway, last week I started reading <b>The Yellow Birds (Kevin Powers)</b> which Amazon describes as an "unforgettable depiction of the psychological impact of war, by a young Iraq veteran and poet" and I'm liking it so far. Sticking with the war theme I'll then probably dive into <b>Die letzten Tage der Menschheit (Karl Kraus)</b> which is set in World War I before deciding which of the many other books on my Kindle and shelf I'll tackle next.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Oh, and Happy New Year everyone! :-)</div>
ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-25155207596478120862012-11-03T02:04:00.002+01:002012-11-03T02:06:18.618+01:00Photos from my most recent San Francisco trip<div align="justify">
Tonight I finally managed to upload about <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/sets/72157631914343167/with/8149119728/">three dozen photos</a> from my most recent trip to San Francisco in October to catch up with friends and attend the <a href="http://olpcsf.org/CommunitySummit2012">OLPC SF Community Summit 2012</a> and <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugarcamp_SF_2012">Sugarcamp++</a>. </div>
<div align="justify">
<br /></div>
<div align="center">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/8149119728/in/set-72157631914343167"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhswAFAgAepVNSGZp7eZ7wnyzDn5U3QhESbtknHJzvsseBWy_qFiH3eDpJiXXxgi57ck8XBO9rLuKxqFyeSsgVXY4VSBvClQQTOeSO8Ej_I6R4VJImE8TCY4Hmk_vpZsKJLh75kK6ZnyeY/s320/IMG_20121020_093041.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<i><span id="goog_730513127"></span><span id="goog_730513128"></span>Driving across the Golden Gate Bridge on our morning commute (foggy)</i></div>
ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-7448939788178915502012-03-09T17:10:00.001+01:002012-03-09T17:11:33.939+01:00TechnikBasteln – Technology Tinkering<p align="justify"> Thanks to sponsorship via the 6th <a href="http://www.netidee.at/">NetIdee</a> call of the <a href="http://www.nic.at/en/uebernic/company_details_imprint/internet_foundation_austria_ipa/">Internet Foundation Austria (IPA)</a> we at <a href="http://olpc.at/?setlang=en">OLPC (Austria)</a> were able to launch a new project in November 2011 - <a href="http://www.technikbasteln.net/">TechnikBasteln</a> (which half-decently translates into <em>Technology Tinkering</em>):</p> <blockquote> <p align="justify">“TechnikBasteln is an innovative and interdisciplinary project which is focused on children. They are accompanied by us in experiencing, learning about, and understanding information and communication technologies (ICT) in workshops. Among other topics, these workshops address how computers and mobile phones work, the structure of the Internet, and how to safely use these tools and technologies.”</p> </blockquote> <p align="justify">Since November 2011 <a href="http://www.uibk.ac.at/iwi/staff/tanjakohn.html.en">Tanja</a> and me have spent a lot of time planning and preparing these workshops, researching about other projects and content related to what we want to achieve, contacting teachers, schools, and other organizations to let them know what we’re doing, etc.</p> <p align="justify">Now this week we launched the second phase of our project as we held the first two workshops in primary schools here in Vienna. The first one was focused on some of the basic technologies of the Internet and the second one was all about the building blocks of modern computers. We had a great time in both classes, the children also seemed to like what we were doing, we got good feedback from the teachers, and while there is room for improvements overall the concepts we had developed over the past few months worked really well.</p> <p align="justify">So even though the past few days were really busy and intense (and I’m now in dire need of a relaxing weekend!) I’m also very happy with the progress we’ve made with TechnikBasteln and am already very much looking forward to our next workshops.</p> ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-52757007029599560452012-02-27T21:54:00.006+01:002019-09-06T17:21:38.023+02:00A List of Countries I've Been To<div align="justify">
I can't remember who I was talking to but several months ago I got the idea of writing up a list of countries I've been to. I put it on my to-do list and promptly forgot about it. That is until I boarded my plane from Boston to Washington, D.C. on my latest trip (the <strike>7th</strike> 8th as it turns out) to the United States earlier today. <br />
<br />
So here's the full list with all the countries where I've spent at least one night: </div>
<div align="justify">
</div>
<ul>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Argentina</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Belgium</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Bolivia</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Canada</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Cambodia</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Chile</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">China</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Croatia</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Czech Republic</span></div>
</li>
<li><span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Cyprus</span></li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Denmark</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Egypt</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">England</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">France</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Germany</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Greece</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Hungary</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">India</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Ireland</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Italy</span></div>
</li>
<li><span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Japan</span></li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Laos</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Malaysia</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Morocco</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Mongolia</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Nepal</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Netherlands</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Norway</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Paraguay</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Peru</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Poland</span></div>
</li>
<li><span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Portugal</span></li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Russia</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Saudi Arabia</span></div>
</li>
<li><span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Slovakia</span></li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Slovenia</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Spain</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Sri Lanka</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Sweden</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Switzerland</span></div>
</li>
<li><span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">United Arab Emirates</span></li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">United States</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Uruguay</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Taiwan</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Thailand</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Turkey</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Zambia</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="justify">
Brazil also got close to being included in the list, after all my passport has three Brazilian entrance stamp in it. However since the only night I spent there was a long ~8 hour layover at the aiport in Sao Paolo it didn't quite qualify, despite that one afternoon I spent exploring <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/sets/72157624794165619/">Sao Paolo</a> during another layover and my visit to the Brazilian side of the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/sets/72157624634468106/">Iguazu waterfalls</a>.<br />
<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
Other countries I've been to but didn't spend a night in are:</div>
<ul>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;"><strike>Denmark</strike> done!</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Luxembourg</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;"><strike>Portugal</strike></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="justify">
Additionally I've flown through the following airports but unfortunately didn't get a chance to visit the respective countries: </div>
<ul>
<li> <div align="justify">
<strike><span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Abu Dhabi (UAE</span><span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">)</span></strike><span style="font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">done!</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;"><strike>Amsterdam (Netherlands)</strike> done!</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Doha (Qatar)</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;"><strike>Dubai (UAE)</strike></span><span style="font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">done!</span></div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
<span style="font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">Panama City (Panama)</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="justify">
</div>
<div align="justify">
It's certainly quite a trip down memory lane to think of all these travel experiences. Needless to say I can't wait to add more countries to the first list above and if things go as planned then the Philippines should make an appearance there sooner rather than later.</div>
<div align="justify">
<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
<strong>Edit:</strong> My father just pointed out to me that as per my criterion I would also have to add Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and Thailand to the list of countries I’ve been to. However given that I was less than 3 years-old at that time I don’t think these countries really count – which of course gives me all the more reason to try and visit them soon! ;-)</div>
<div align="justify">
<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
<b>Update (2013-01-07):</b> I just realized that for some reason I had totally forgotten to include Turkey in the list. I've now corrected this omission.<br />
<br />
<b>Update (2013-03-04):</b> After my most recent trips I was able to add Cambodia, Laos, Zambia, and Thailand to the list.</div>
<br />
<b>Update (2013-05-17):</b> Added Denmark to the list.
<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Update (2013-12-30):</b> Added Malaysia to the list.<br />
<br />
<b>Update (2014-10-12):</b> Added Cyprus to the list.<br />
<br />
<b>Update (2014-10-27):</b> Just realized that I had totally forgotten about a work trip from earlier in the year which brought me to Bratislava for a night. Which means I was able to add Slovakia to the list.<br />
<br />
<b>Update (2015-01-24):</b> Added United Arab Emirates to the list.<br />
<br />
<b>Update (2015-08-29):</b> Added Portugal to the list.<br />
<br />
<b>Update (2015-12-07):</b> Added Chile to the list.<br />
<br />
<b>Update (2016-01-10):</b> Added Egypt - which I had visited in October but had forgotten to add then - to the list. Thanks for the reminder L.!<br />
<br />
<b>Update (2017-04-05):</b> Added Sri Lanka to the list.<br />
<br />
<b>Update (2017-08-26):</b> Added India and Saudi Arabia to the list.
<br />
<b>Update (2018-03-30):</b> Added Ireland to the list.
<br />
<b>Update (2018-05-02):</b> Added Norway to the list.<br />
<b>Update (2019-09-06):</b> Added Japan to the list.ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-56211589795824614952011-12-04T18:06:00.002+01:002011-12-31T17:36:16.272+01:00An Inspiring Quote from Steve Jobs [video]<p align="justify">There is no shortage of thought-provoking, inspiring, and just generally thoughtful comments made by Steve Jobs. However this one, which has been making the rounds on many social networks lately, really might just be one of his most inspiring ones.</p><br /><center><iframe width="400" height="233" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/UvEiSa6_EPA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></center><center><br /></center><center style="text-align: left;"> <p align="justify"></p><blockquote><p align="justify">"When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and you're life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money.</p> <p align="justify">That's a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.</p> <p align="justify">Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again."</p></blockquote><p align="justify"></p></center>ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-52210162444118183062011-09-19T22:01:00.001+02:002011-09-19T22:05:50.201+02:00Photos from Dresden and Paris<p align="justify">Travel-wise these past few months have been very dull around here. Since my return from Madrid at the beginning of July I spent the entire so-called <em>summer</em> in Upper Austria and Vienna. Now in the first half of September I finally had a chance to travel a bit as I attended the DeLFI 2011 conference in Dresden, Germany where I presented a paper about OLPC before heading to Paris, France to attend Sugar Camp #2, a 3-day gathering of OLPC and Sugar volunteers.</p> <p align="justify">In Dresden I really only had one evening and half an afternoon to wander around the city so there weren’t many opportunities to take photos. As a result the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/sets/72157627583116567/">corresponding Flickr album</a> is really quite thin.</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/6163814524/in/photostream"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="dresden" border="0" alt="dresden" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-N6AgmrBuqds/TneflHwMYHI/AAAAAAAAARI/jngNR8Zf33A/dresden%25255B6%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="400" height="533" /></a><em> Frauenkirche in the dusk</em></p> <p align="justify">In Paris I had more time to snap photos (<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/sets/72157627574906991/with/6160075470/">album</a>), first of all to document and share what was going on at Sugar Camp #2 and secondly because I stayed an extra day to be able to visit some places where I hadn’t been on my three prior trips to the city. One place which was very high on my agenda was Père Lachaise cemetery where famous people such as Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, and many others are buried.</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/6160075470/in/set-72157627574906991"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="paris" border="0" alt="paris" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5duDUatU2Js31ltdUmMFU9TZUO-EQt96fqMJk8CKozKnJ8TYjb_phuTyLLAYqtlC-FtEKnCHLCe-5mzEBzcsNWFW74PP7qIfHmOnDOK_q_-PVQNUCPQWh8wbnw5GT9Xgli9rbgHdZ_pw/?imgmax=800" width="400" height="300" /></a> <em>Jim Morrison's grave at Père Lachaise cemetery</em></p> <p align="justify">This was also the first time that I exclusively relied on my Nexus S Android smartphone to take photos. Even though I actually had the small Canon IXUS 100IS in my back bag the convenience of quickly being able to share the photos was a major advantage of the Nexus S. I have to say I was also pleasantly surprised by the quality of the images. The IXUS 100IS would have certainly been able to take better shots under difficult conditions but overall the quality of the phone camera photos are really <em>good enough</em>.</p> ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-37010841643853307982011-06-28T16:32:00.001+02:002011-06-28T16:39:25.376+02:00Photos from Spain<p align="justify">My five months here in Madrid are quickly coming to an end – I will fly back to Vienna on Thursday evening – so I thought this is a good time to briefly mention the photos I took on my various trips here in Spain. As always I’ve uploaded them to <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/">my Flickr account</a> and the individual albums available there are:</p> <ul> <li> <div align="justify"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/sets/72157626156456084/">Alcalá de Henares</a></div> </li> <li> <div align="justify"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/sets/72157626939999228/">Barcelona</a></div> </li> <li> <div align="justify"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/sets/72157626894455090/">Bullfight</a></div> </li> <li> <div align="justify"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/sets/72157626885592250/">Madrid</a></div> </li> <li> <div align="justify"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/sets/72157626030408375/">Salamanca</a></div> </li> <li> <div align="justify"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/sets/72157626943633965/">Sevilla and Cordoba</a></div> </li> </ul> <p align="center"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/5880566161/in/set-72157626943633965/"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_3080" border="0" alt="IMG_3080" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-AFjeSECYeSA/TgnmECa0ngI/AAAAAAAAARE/ZpxXamjz0kw/IMG_3080%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="408" height="306" /></a> <em>My favorite view of Sevilla’s Plaza de España</em></p> ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-88288437340857840672011-06-01T11:47:00.001+02:002011-06-01T11:47:43.421+02:00Talking and Writing about OLPC / ICT4E<p align="justify">I haven't had much time to keep this blog updated but I thought I'd take a minute to briefly mention two places where I've (more or less) recently spoken and written about OLPC and ICT4E.</p> <p align="justify">The first one is a video interview that I did with <a href="http://www.educ.ar">educ.ar</a> when I attended <a href="http://www.conectarigualdad.gob.ar">Conectar Igualdad</a>'s workshop about monitoring and evaluation in Buenos Aires back in December 2010. I'd also strongly recommend you to watch the interviews with some of the other workshop participants available <a href="http://portal.educ.ar/noticias/entrevistas/especialistas-modelos-11-talle-1.php">here</a></p> <center><iframe height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Mpr1Jcx9TsY" frameborder="0" width="425" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></center> <p align="justify"> </p> <p align="justify">The <a href="http://www.alt.ac.uk/">Association for Learning Technology</a> is one of the (if not the) largest body in Europe which works on the intersection of technology and education. I am therefore very happy that I had the opportunity to write up <a href="http://newsletter2.alt.ac.uk/?p=342">my thoughts about the OLPC projects in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Peru</a> for the latest edition of their quarterly <a href="http://newsletter.alt.ac.uk/">newsletter</a>. It's of course hard to get into too many details within the constraints of 2500 words but I do hope for my contribution to have four effects:</p> <ol> <li> <div align="justify">Remind people that even though it  has in many cases dropped off their radar screens OLPC is still alive.</div> </li> <li> <div align="justify">Point out the fact that Latin America is really the place to be right now when it comes to studying large-scale 1-to-1 computing in education projects.</div> </li> <li> <div align="justify">Emphasize that Europe can learn a lot and has a lot to learn from the many projects taking place in Latin America these days.</div> </li> <li> <div align="justify">Interest people in reading the extensive <a href="http://edutechdebate.org/olpc-in-south-america ">5-part article series</a> about OLPC in South America which I published on EduTechDebate last autumn;-)</div> </li> </ol> ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-46455193599296648012011-03-06T19:32:00.003+01:002011-03-06T19:41:12.257+01:00Fascinating Aida - Cheap Flights [video]<p align="justify">Someone played this video at a friend's place yesterday evening and it's absolutely hilarious, particularly if you've had the pleasure of taking one of these <span style="font-style:italic;">cheap flights</span> yourself;-)</p><br /><center><object width="400" height="240"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZAg0lUYHHFc?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZAg0lUYHHFc?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="240"></embed></object></center><br /><p align="justify">Oh, and note that the actual song ends at around 4min 10sec, the rest seems to be advertising.</p>ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-65975807556738172602011-02-22T14:24:00.001+01:002011-02-22T14:29:52.045+01:00Podcasts I listen to<p align="justify">I don’t know which podcast I first started listening to regularly but it might have been Leo Larporte’s famous <a href="http://twit.tv/twit">This Week in Tech</a> while I lived in Washington, D.C. back in early 2008. Since then the list of podcasts I listen to has steadily increased with the possible exception of the sad day when <a href="http://www.crankygeeks.com/">Cranky Geeks</a> ended. These days my list in iTunes contains about a dozen podcasts and plenty of unlistened episodes to keep me busy for quite a while.</p> <p align="justify">So here’s a quick rundown of what keeps me entertained and informed on my commutes (and while I’m doing the dishes):</p> <p align="justify"><strong>37 signals:</strong> <a href="http://37signals.com/">37signals</a> is a Web services company based in the United States and while I haven’t really used them myself their online products such as Basecamp (project management), Campfire (real-time collaboration), and Highrise (contact management) seem to be very popular with many folks. Their podcast is released about once a month and some of my favorite episodes have focused on things such as 37 signals’ hiring process, a programming roundtable, and dealing with criticism of the company. What I like beyond learning about the individual topics is hearing bits and pieces about the company’s philosophy which (I think) can be summed up as having a lean, no-bullshit approach.</p> <p align="justify"><strong>Chaosradio Express:</strong> If you’re seriously into computers in Austria, Germany or Switzerland chances are high that you’re listening to <a href="http://chaosradio.ccc.de/chaosradio_express.html">Chaosradio Express</a>. The host Tim Pritlove (<a href="http://www.twitter.com/timpritlove">@timpritlove</a>) is without a doubt the best German podcaster there is which is probably also the reason why he is one of the very few people who can actually make a living of it and do this fulltime. His shows are basically extensive interviews (many of them >2 hours) with people knowledgeable about things such as Android, ARM, board games, Hackerspaces, JavaScript, malware, privacy, etc. Well worth a listen if you understand German and are slightly geeky;-)</p> <p align="justify"><strong>IBM developerWorks:</strong> While I’ve used the excellent resources provided by IBM on its <a href="http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/">developerWorks Web site</a> on many occasions it wasn’t until a tweet by fellow Vienna University of Technology colleague <a href="http://www.twitter.com/barfooz">@barfooz</a> that I discovered the developerWorks podcast. So far I’ve listened to 3 or 4 episodes of the Andy Glover Java series and I’m definitely hooked.</p> <p align="justify"><strong>LabCAST:</strong> <a href="http://labcast.media.mit.edu/">LabCAST</a> is the official video-podcast of the <a href="http://media.mit.edu/">MIT Media Lab</a> and presents about half a dozen of its projects per year. The episodes are short (often <5 minutes) but always offer an interesting glimpse into what’s going at what is undoubtedly one of the most interesting research facilities in the world.</p> <p align="justify"><strong>Meet Mobility:</strong> <a href="http://meetmobility.com/">Meet:Mobility</a> is a joint project by three of the leading bloggers in the mobile computing space: Steve Paine (<a href="http://www.twitter.com/chippy">@chippy</a>) from <a href="http://www.carrypad.com/">Carrypad.com</a> and <a href="http://www.umpcportal.com">UMPCportal.com</a>, <a href="http://www.jkkmobile.com">@jkkmobile</a> (don’t really know his real name;-) from <a href="http://www.jkkmobile.com">jkkmobile.com</a>, and Sascha Pallenberg (<a href="http://www.twitter.com/sascha_p">@sascha_p</a>) from <a href="http://www.netbooknews.de">netbooknews.de</a>/<a href="http://www.netbooknews.com">netbooknews.com</a>. This is really the only mobile computing podcast that I listen to and given the broad coverage of the field, including analyses of news and conference reports, provided by these three guys I feel well informed.</p> <p align="justify"><strong>NPR Science Friday:</strong> Ira Flatow’s <a href="http://sciencefriday.com/">Science Friday</a> is an absolutely excellent radio show about all things science and technology. Yes, it sometimes is very U.S. centric but the people he interviews on the show always add interesting perspectives and insights to the table. As I write this I’ve got several dozen Science Friday episodes stored on my iPod touch, covering everything from climate change, the Microsoft Kinect, multi-tasking, to oil spills.</p> <p align="justify"><strong>PRI’s The World – Global Economy:</strong> Unfortunately it looks like the Global Economy podcast won’t be continued, the last episode was published in mid-September 2010, however I’m still keeping it in my list in the hope of hearing more of these stories which always looked at economic developments from interesting angles.</p> <p align="justify"><strong>PRI’s The World – Technology:</strong> If I only have time to listen to one podcast in a week then it’s always <a href="http://www.theworld.org/technology">The World’s Technology podcast</a>. Clark Boyd (<a href="http://www.twitter.com/worldstechpod">@worldstechpod</a>) is doing an exceptional job of covering “tech that matters” and regularly beats the mainstream press when it comes to discovering new developments, organizations, and services which use or apply technology in novel ways. Definitely a must-listen!</p> <p align="justify"><strong>Raumzeit:</strong> After Lukas Lang (<a href="http://www.twitter.com/lukaslang">@lukaslang</a>) raved about Tim Pritlove’s latest podcast venture <a href="http://www.raumzeit-podcast.de/">Raumzeit</a> for many weeks I finally gave it a listen and have to say his praise was definitely spot-on. Raumzeit is a German podcast sponsored by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and focuses on all thing related to space travel. The two episodes I listened to so far focused on mission planning and space waste and were both very interesting.</p> <p align="justify"><strong>Software Engineering Radio:</strong> I only very recently stumbled across <a href="http://www.se-radio.net/">Software Engineering Radio</a> thanks to a tweet by aforementioned <a href="http://www.twitter.com/barfooz">@barfooz</a>. I’ve listened to 3 or 4 episodes from the archive so far and really enjoyed all of them. Definitely well worth a listen for anyone interested in software engineering.</p> <p align="justify"><strong>Spectrum:</strong> Deutsche Welle’s <a href="http://www.dw-world.de/spectrum">Spectrum</a>, edited by the Cyrus Farivar (<a href="http://www.twitter.com/cfarivar">@cfarivar</a>), focuses on European science and technology news and thereby fills a gap in my often very U.S.-centric look at this topic. If I have time for  a second podcast in a week beyond The World’s Tech podcast then I always listen to this one.</p> <p align="justify">I have a number of other podcasts listed in iTunes - e.g. 24 horas, Alternativlos, BackStory with the American History Guys, FLOSS Weekly, GeekNights with Rym + Scott, Green Tech Today, etc. – however I don’t listen to them regularly (anymore) these days or simply haven’t had time to listen to them at all yet.</p> ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-77581266058641939352011-02-14T03:53:00.001+01:002011-02-17T00:57:50.789+01:00Keynote on "One Laptop per Child in Latin America and what we can learn from it" [video]<p align="justify">I spent the past four days in Switzerland as the University of Teacher Education Central Switzerland in Goldau had invited me to give a keynote at their <a href="http://www.schwyz.phz.ch/forschung-und-entwicklung/veranstaltungen/one-to-one-computing-in-der-schule/">"<em>One to One Computing in School</em>" conference</a>. The title of my talk was “<em>One Laptop per Child in Latin America and what we can learn from it</em>” and a recording of it is now available <a href="https://cast.switch.ch/vod/clips/an2irfm81/link_box">here</a>, plus you can find the accompanying slides <a href="http://www.schwyz.phz.ch/fileadmin/media/schwyz.phz.ch/video/ims/fachtagung_2011/derndorfer.pdf">here</a>. (Please do note that the keynote was given in German.)</p> <p align="justify"><strong>Update (16.02.2011):</strong> I just got a copy of an article in the Neue Schwyzer Zeitung which talks about the conference as well as mentions my keynote. I’ve made it available for download <a href="http://derndorfer.eu/files/permanent/NSZ_120211_23.pdf">here</a>.</p> ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-23732094960145193222011-01-20T01:11:00.002+01:002011-01-20T01:13:25.999+01:00Parking App<p align="justify">One of the classes I took this semester was a seminar on Human Computer Interaction. It turned out to be a great and thoroughly enjoyable and interesting class. The goal for all the 3-person teams in the class was to develop a horizontal prototype of a mobile application which uses open data.</p> <p align="justify">CNM Studios, the team consisting of <a href="http://www.twitter.com/msmolle">Michael Smolle</a>, <a href="http://www.twitter.com/pcmaniac">Nemanja Dubravac</a> and yours truly, developed the prototype of <em>Parking App</em> which (supposedly) provides information related to parking regulations, tariffs, garages, etc. for Austrian cities. At the end of the class we had to create a video presenting the project and I think ours turned out quite well:</p><br /><center><object width="400" height="240"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/kzQlHvky_c0&hl=en_GB&feature=player_embedded&version=3"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/kzQlHvky_c0&hl=en_GB&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="240"></embed></object></center><br /><p align="justify"> </p> <p align="justify">I’d highly recommend you to check out <a href="http://deco.inso.tuwien.ac.at/2011/01/19/hci-seminar-ws1011/">this blog post</a> which includes a longer description of our project as well as information and videos about the work by our fellow colleagues.</p>ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-32543777754270612282010-12-29T00:49:00.001+01:002010-12-30T23:00:07.968+01:00Cheating in Computer Science<p align="justify">Thanks to a <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/XRDS_ACM/status/15487821078855680">tweet</a> from <a href="http://xrds.acm.org/">XRDS</a> (ACM's magazine for students) I came across a great article by William Hugh Murray. Despite its title it isn’t just about cheating in CS but rather contains a very interesting – and I feel accurate – description of the current status quo in much of the education system.</p> <p align="justify">There’s a short teaser below, you can find the complete article <a href="http://ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm?id=1865908">on the Web site of Ubiquity (an ACM publication)</a>.</p> <blockquote> <p align="justify">“I suggest that we have gotten the cart before the horse. We are less concerned with whether students learn the right thing than whether they learn in the way that we rely upon to measure how well they learn when compared to their peers. We do this without even having considered whether the measurement is even useful, much less necessary or even counter-productive. We do it without considering whether encouraging sin is a good way to teach morals. We do it for no better reason than tradition, habit, and inertia.”</p> </blockquote> <p align="justify">Good food for though, ey? :-)</p> ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-69419679907716542222010-12-26T19:45:00.001+01:002010-12-26T19:45:14.384+01:00Photos from Buenos Aires (and Montevideo)<p align="justify">The week before Christmas I had a chance to travel to Buenos Aires to attend a workshop organized by the Argentinean Ministry of Education within the context of the country’s <a href="http://conectarigualdad.gob.ar/"><em>Conectar Igualdad</em></a> program. I hope to be able to blog about the workshop in more detail in the future but for now I at least managed to upload some photos which I took while exploring Buenos Aires during my stay. As always you can find the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/sets/72157625676788676/">complete album</a> over on Flickr as well as see a selection of some of my favorites below.</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/5293882652/in/set-72157625676788676/"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_2112" border="0" alt="IMG_2112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha8j73NAnZqM35y4HGSD3tq-UWx8f7597PRDFe2fD8BzjZeoOiVXxqZw_yTmHI5ztLFmpn17a8NI2JCSmLQYiVuTO7tuMUw249rE4jZmPWM_cvXJkUh_xgpb5guAeOyMqgpaLd_OwcHm4/?imgmax=800" width="408" height="306" /></a></p> <p align="center"><em>"El Metodo" playing on Calle Florida</em><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/5293358903/in/set-72157625676788676/"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_2160" border="0" alt="IMG_2160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_QmpC_Xuq0McdY5XbUXgyXLoO6F_6uwYuSiGB8FFbo3IAO4E1VJMALCT5lKeTaixnX1UOG35eoVgpxs3dfFnDr2ocn6wDYGdmi6QCHw2riqntAhWr5rS5nvnCmARuqwX0q99eyQCWAVw/?imgmax=800" width="408" height="544" /></a></p> <p align="center"> <em>Conectar Igualdad poster in Palermo</em><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/5293374607/in/set-72157625676788676/"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_2185" border="0" alt="IMG_2185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUjFFu7qilDaEW1orf84tqo8UW3wyW2C5VUbCHPtSugNQegz2pRmDLgMg-WtPuIej5piSoAU_42LdmabnwA6zHf2yIfxHYh2jrZl8fiu4XXk1Q7JDy9BmuLzTsDXpiulNYbhUXkZdNtx0/?imgmax=800" width="408" height="544" /></a></p> <p align="center"> <em>Buildings on Plaza del Congreso</em><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/5293423585/in/set-72157625676788676/"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_2217" border="0" alt="IMG_2217" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_aX3ljmXFPYE/TReNNL4ChUI/AAAAAAAAAQw/9rkgq3nMwgo/IMG_2217%5B6%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="408" height="306" /></a></p> <p align="center"><em>Skyline at Cementario Recoleta</em><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/5293456331/in/set-72157625676788676/"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_2228" border="0" alt="IMG_2228" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_aX3ljmXFPYE/TReNOcVgAtI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/s13Tjn4Oaao/IMG_2228%5B6%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="408" height="306" /></a><em>Train stop in La Boca</em></p> ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-29720536635308360182010-11-08T17:31:00.001+01:002010-11-08T17:31:48.695+01:00EduTechDebate: OLPC in South America<p align="justify">As people following this blog or my <a href="http://twitter.com/random_musings">tweets</a> will know I spent my summer traveling through Uruguay, Paraguay, and Peru to try and get a better understanding of how the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) projects in these countries are going.</p> <p align="justify">Apart from documenting my experiences over on <a href="http://www.olpcnews.com">OLPC News</a>, the <a href="http://olpcaustria.soup.io">OLPC (Austria) blog</a>, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/collections/72157624474000258/">Flickr</a>, several OLPC and Sugar Labs related mailing lists, this blog, and plenty of tweets I also had an opportunity to share some of my thoughts during talks I gave in Montevideo, Lima, and <a href="http://christoph-d.blogspot.com/2010/09/one-laptop-per-child-in-south-america.html">Washington, D.C.</a>. However the most important component of these documentation efforts awaited me after my return to Austria and have kept me quite busy over the past few weeks.</p> <p align="justify">The result of these efforts is a series of five articles with a total of more than 15,000 words which was posted over on <a href="http://edutechdebate.org">EduTechDebate.org</a>, a discussion platform about ICT for education in developing countries which is sponsored by The World Bank’s infoDev and UNESCO:</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://edutechdebate.org/olpc-in-south-america/olpc-in-south-america-an-overview-of-olpc-in-uruguay-paraguay-and-peru/">OLPC in South America: An Overview of OLPC in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Peru</a></p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://edutechdebate.org/olpc-in-south-america/olpc-in-uruguay-impressions-of-plan-ceibal/">OLPC in Uruguay: Impressions of Plan Ceibal’s Primary School XO Laptop Saturation</a></p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://edutechdebate.org/olpc-in-south-america/will-paraguayeduca-scale/">OLPC in Paraguay: Will ParaguayEduca’s XO Laptop Deployment Success Scale?</a></p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://edutechdebate.org/olpc-in-south-america/olpc-in-peru-one-laptop-per-child-problems/">OLPC in Peru: A Problematic Una Laptop Por Niño Program</a></p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://edutechdebate.org/olpc-in-south-america/olpc-in-south-america-in-context-of-deployments-around-the-world/">OLPC in South America in Context of Deployments Around the World</a></p> <p align="justify">I thoroughly enjoyed the process of writing these articles as it gave me a chance to reflect upon my experiences, go through all of my notes, look at the photos I had taken, etc.</p> <p align="justify">In terms of what happened after the publication of the articles it was particularly interesting to see the reactions to my piece about Peru’s Una laptop por niño. My critical views of the project resulted in a significant pushback by Oscar Becerra (head of DIGETE - the Peruvian Ministry of Education's department which runs Una laptop por niño) who posted a numbered 19-part response to my article in the comments. Combined with two Peruvian media reports which mentioned my article, several discussions threads on Spanish mailing-lists, a <a href="http://www.volkanrivera.com/">Peruvian blogger</a> <a href="http://www.volkanrivera.com/esp/?p=1960">translating the entire article to Spanish</a>, an honorable (or maybe slightly less so;-) mention in Walter Bender’s <a href="http://walterbender.org/?p=386">Sugar Digest</a>, and a total of 147 comments on the article itself it’s save to say that it created quite a stir and some good discussions.</p> ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-32838801397023064232010-10-23T20:51:00.003+02:002010-10-23T21:34:57.551+02:00Sir Ken Robinson - Changing Education Paradigms [video]<p align="justify">Back in July <a href="http://christoph-d.blogspot.com/2010/07/phil-zimbardo-secret-powers-of-time.html">I blogged about</a> a talk from Phil Zimbardo about "The Secret Powers of Time" which the <a href="http://www.thersa.org/">Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce</a> (RSA) had subsequently animated and turned into an absolutely spectacular video.</p><p align="justify">Now this week I had another RSA Animate video being mentioned by many of the people who I follow on Twitter. This time it's based on a talk by Sir Ken Robinson who many know from his famous TED talk on "<a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html">schools kill creativity</a>". The focus of this video is Changing Education Paradigms and again it's absolutely well worth watching, both for the content as well as the fantastic presentation.</p><br /><center><object width="400" height="240"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/zDZFcDGpL4U&hl=en_GB&feature=player_embedded&version=3"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/zDZFcDGpL4U&hl=en_GB&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="240"></embed></object></center>ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-9734378624438790142010-09-28T20:07:00.004+02:002010-09-28T20:29:42.384+02:00One Laptop Per Child in South America talk at The World Bank [video]<p align="justify">While I was in the United States in early September I gave a talk about the current status quo of the OLPC projects in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Peru (which I had visited on my <a href="http://christoph-d.blogspot.com/2010/07/olpcnews-south-america-road-trip.html">olpcnews road trip</a>) at The World Bank. I was joined on the panel by <a href="http://wayan.com/">Wayan Vota</a>, publisher of <a href="http://www.olpcnews.com">OLPC News</a> and <a href="http://edutechdebate.org/">EduTechDebate</a>, and The World Bank's Sr. Education Economist Cristian Aedo. While I unfortunately ended up talking longer than planned we still had some time in the end to take audience questions which led to some very interesting discussions and insights.
<br />
<br />Anyway, I have embedded a recording of the talk below. Please note that the session only starts at around 9:15min and that the slides I used are available <a href="http://bit.ly/9Qe7Gb">for download here</a>.</p>
<br /><center><object width="360" height="228" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000"> <param name="flashvars" value="autoplay=false"/> <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"/> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/> <param name="src" value="http://www.ustream.tv/flash/viewer.swf?vid=9251465"/> <embed flashvars="autoplay=false&locale=en_US" width="360" height="228" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" src="http://www.ustream.tv/flash/viewer.swf?vid=9251465" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"/></object></center>
<br /><p align="justify">You can find the OLPC News posts I've written about my experiences in South America <a href="http://www.olpcnews.com/mt/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=4&tag=road trip&limit=20">here</a> and we'll be publishing plenty more information on both <a href="http://www.olpcnews.com">OLPC News</a> and <a href="http://edutechdebate.org/">EduTechDebate</a> over the coming weeks.</p>ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-9910713395191729322010-08-27T22:50:00.004+02:002010-08-29T05:50:02.611+02:00Recording of my talk at escuelab [video]<p align="justify">On Wednesday evening I gave a talk in Lima's <a href="http://www.escuelab.org/">escuelab</a> called "<span style="font-style:italic;">One Laptop per Child: Una perspectiva europea</span>" (<a href="http://derndorfer.eu/files/permanent/escuelab25-08-2010.pdf">slides of the presentation</a>). While the audience in the room - 4 people - was the smallest I ever spoke for we also had a handful of people watching the presentation via a video-stream. The talk itself wasn't that different from the one I gave in Montevideo at the end of July however the audience discussion that followed it was one of the best ones I've ever experienced. People who watched the stream submitted a handful of great questions via the chat and one person even called in to make some comments and ask something. In combination with having a teacher in the room who just received his OLPC XO laptop 2 weeks ago this made for excellent and very enjoyable audience participation. If you're interested (and speak Spanish) you can watch the whole 2h session in the embedded video below:</p><br /><center><object width="360" height="296" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000"><param name="flashvars" value="autoplay=false"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="src" value="http://www.ustream.tv/flash/viewer.swf?vid=9149954"><br /><embed flashvars="autoplay=false&locale=en_US" width="360" height="296" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" src="http://www.ustream.tv/flash/viewer.swf?vid=9149954" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed><br /></object></center><center><br /></center><p></p>ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-43787228579093902812010-08-27T09:48:00.003+02:002010-08-27T18:55:46.127+02:00Learning to Change - Changing to Learn [video]<p align="justify">Can't remember who facebook'd or tweeted this video (it might have been <a href="http://www.twitter.com/sascha_p">Sascha Pallenberg</a>) but I found it to be quite inspiring and well done:</p><br /><center><object width="400" height="240"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/tahTKdEUAPk?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/tahTKdEUAPk?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="240"></embed></object></center><br /><p align="justify">My favorite quote is definitely:</p><p align="justify"></p><blockquote><i>"It's the death of education, it's the dawn of learning."</i></blockquote>;-)<p></p>ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-3689521656515844632010-08-27T09:00:00.001+02:002010-08-27T09:00:15.834+02:00Sharing photos from Peru in 2000, 2005 and 2010<p align="justify">While wandering around around Trujillo earlier this week I stumbled across the store where I had some photos developed during the 11 months when I lived in the city. This made me think about how the act of sharing photos from my stays in Peru has changed over the past 10 years.</p> <p align="justify">It was the year 2000 and digital cameras - let alone mobile phones with digital cameras – were still unheard of. In order to be able to give my family in Austria a better idea of how the environment I was living in looked at I took photos of my room, my house, my host-family, my school, the city center, etc. I then went to the store mentioned earlier, handed in my film-roll and then came back a day later to pick up the photos. I then wrote a short explanatory sentence on each photo and went to the post-office sending the letter off to Europe. I think it took two or three weeks before the letter arrived and another few days before I saw the e-mail from my mother saying that so.</p> <p align="justify">Fast forward to 2005 when I went back to South America to travel through Peru and Bolivia for five weeks. By that time (and after weeks of research!) I was the very proud owner of a Kodak DX7590 digital camera and two 256MB SD cards. Being trigger-happy I filled up the cards within a few days and for a moment I was at a loss about what to do next. Luckily I wasn’t the first traveler in that situation so Internet cafés had started offering burning photos from memory cards to CD for a little fee. Being worried about losing my photos in case my back bag was stolen I actually got two CDs with copies of each SD card. I ended up carrying one set of CDs on me at all times with the second set being stored at the hostels I was staying in. As I was keen to share the photos with family and friends I spent more than one afternoon sitting in an Internet café, complaining about the upload speed (or lack thereof) and hoping that my e-mails with the photos attached would actually make it across the Internet.</p> <p align="justify">Now in 2010 things have again changed. Instead of my Kodak DX7590 (which unfortunately has shown considerable signs of age after having been a trusted travel companion across Taiwan, China, Mongolia, Russia, USA, Nepal and Europe) I relied on a Canon IXUS 100 IS. In some ways that move meant giving up flexibility in terms of being able to adjust photo settings. On the other hand it gives me more flexibility due to the fact that the camera is so small that I have it on me at all times. And as the saying goes: the best camera is the one you have on you. Equipped with multiple 8GB SD cards and my laptop storage wasn’t going to be a problem either.</p> <p align="justify">In terms of photo sharing I started using Flickr two or three years ago and have been quite happy with it. In particular it has helped me keep up some discipline when it comes to going through my photos, finding the “best of” from each series and also keeping track of what each photo shows since <em>100_7704.JPG</em> isn’t a particularly useful photo title. I subsequently also mention photo uploads on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/random_musings">Twitter</a> and highlight some of them here on the blog.</p> <p align="justify">For my current <a href="http://christoph-d.blogspot.com/2010/07/olpcnews-south-america-road-trip.html">OLPC News South America Road Trip</a> our publisher <a href="http://wayan.com">Wayan</a> also hooked up the <a href="http://www.twitter.com/olpcnews">@olpcnews</a> twitter-feed to my Flickr account. This means that every upload photo that I tag with <em>olpc</em> is automatically mentioned on the @olpcnews feed and subsequently also re-tweeted on <a href="http://twitter.com/wayan_vota">Wayan’s twitter feed</a>. As a result many of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/tags/olpc/">my photos tagged with olpc</a><em></em> receive upwards of 150 views with some of them even getting more than 300 views.</p> <p align="justify">What a difference 10 years make, right?</p> <p align="justify">I can only imagine what things will be like the next time I’m back in Peru (hopefully in less than 5 years). Already this time ‘round I could have done the whole geo-tagged, real-time upload thing if my mobile phone wasn’t three years old.</p> <p align="justify">One thing I expect to see in the future are mash-ups that can automatically superimpose relevant information on the photos (e.g. details about the city a photo was taken in) or put photos in useful correlation (e.g. showing photos of the same square or church which I or others took five years earlier).</p> <p align="justify">Oh, and of course the cameras / phones / retinal implants these photos will be taken with will all have >25 MegaPixels, yet still come with crappy lenses and optics…. ;-)</p> ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-48590856836021952082010-08-24T02:09:00.001+02:002010-08-24T02:11:35.399+02:00Illustration and Visualization<p align="justify">Thanks to a tweet by <a href="http://twitter.com/dChris">@dchris</a> I found this truly awesome “<a href="http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/">illustrated guide to a Ph.D.</a>” by a <a href="http://matt.might.net/">Matt Might</a> - Assistant Professor at School of Computing, University of Utah - which I’d really recommend you to take a look at.</p> <p align="justify">(Even more so because it’s done with a particularly strong sense of purpose - scroll down to where it says “why genetics research?” to find out what I’m talking about.)</p> <p align="justify"> </p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="PhDKnowledge.007" border="0" alt="PhDKnowledge.007" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_aX3ljmXFPYE/THMNtVbR-oI/AAAAAAAAAQU/PBBy8iE4Joo/PhDKnowledge.007%5B5%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="400" height="300" /></a></p> <p align="justify">To me this is a perfect example of just how powerful illustrations and visualizations can be. I should really spend some time learning more about these crafts because I think my studies, work and writing could really benefit from knowing better how and when to apply illustrations and visualizations to communicate something.</p> ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-29841160568525653472010-08-21T03:07:00.001+02:002010-08-21T03:08:21.932+02:00More photos from Peru<p align="justify">Thanks to the relatively good Internet connectivity at my friend’s house here in Chiclayo I was finally able to upload several dozen photos that I took in Peru over the past week or so. You can see some of my favorites below and find the whole Peru album <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/sets/72157624551400119/with/4908747902/">here</a>.</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/4911773390/in/set-72157624551400119/"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_1177" border="0" alt="IMG_1177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxJQELt4zM-1uY3_awAtBx182p5Sx4euRw41fwO7KrVjzZyXSidfTMyzLpJSXlZYrb-j2w47mdL8kIwTUPjYKA6jP00NI-Dm0nqKwwWQ5GoE45ekI4EHxCjiqSIll62r_RKWRf2GnWBCA/?imgmax=800" width="400" height="533" /></a></p> <p align="center"><em>Laguna</em></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/4911203567/in/set-72157624551400119/"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_1191" border="0" alt="IMG_1191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinIQLHYpHhR98O0BFuwKUSG82AACF6dBIbTTeIihxgWyKfFqzXThPxR0dJltZVL7gvy9coegSLkECKvUamvnc0a9f5KlcLEf7YhlR9dRYZ2dLCQFKTsYo8zgqkiK45VowiqVnKtDS4fWA/?imgmax=800" width="400" height="300" /></a> <em>Playing soccer with a view</em></p> <p align="center"><em></em><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/4911109310/in/set-72157624551400119/"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_1389" border="0" alt="IMG_1389" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_aX3ljmXFPYE/TG8mw3j_beI/AAAAAAAAAQI/uBPwqZs5WbA/IMG_1389%5B5%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="400" height="300" /></a></p> <p align="center"><em>Using Record to take photos is very popular</em></p> <p align="center"><em></em><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/4910576093/in/set-72157624551400119/"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_1413" border="0" alt="IMG_1413" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjLsXZJoiyc0uwZJRzOEI7zboS6PYO2Moj6ljCXERIew-j5UZ420E_9BnxrS2DcMqKvolU68KSu4ExRTk28yUIziY-gamznCfpJ8cKGtS0RjUUWIaIxGMUkVlXBMor_tjBZX2EWSH-yE0/?imgmax=800" width="400" height="300" /></a></p> <p align="center"><em>Typical street vendor in Huaraz</em></p> <p align="center"><em></em><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/4908150017/in/set-72157624551400119/"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_1494" border="0" alt="IMG_1494" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_aX3ljmXFPYE/TG8myyeEgeI/AAAAAAAAAQQ/4O-51b74ky8/IMG_1494%5B5%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="400" height="300" /></a><em> /me, my XO and a llama</em></p> ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-55978189183012204652010-08-20T08:55:00.001+02:002010-08-20T22:55:16.830+02:00Upcoming talks in Lima and D.C.<p align="justify">One of the side-effects of my involvement with the One Laptop per Child project has been that it has given me a chance to regularly speak about and present the project. The audiences I’ve presented for in the past 3 years range from visitors of <a href="http://christoph-d.blogspot.com/search?q=26C3">26C3</a> and students at various Austrian universities to OLPC aficionados in Washington, D.C. back in December 2007.</p> <p align="justify">Now the main focus of my current <a href="http://christoph-d.blogspot.com/2010/07/olpcnews-south-america-road-trip.html">OLPC News South America road trip</a> was to listen and talk with – rather than for – people involved in the South American OLPC / Sugar projects. However I’m happy that I’m also getting a chance to speak about my experiences a couple of time.</p> <p align="justify">The <a href="http://ceibaljam.org/drupal/?q=node/937">miniJAM! artistico</a> on my last day in Montevideo was a great start that also allowed me to practice presenting in Spanish (which I did for the first time since I finished school). I mainly talked about the activities of the OLPC / Sugar communities in Europe as well as contrasting my experiences in Uruguay with the ones I made volunteering with OLE Nepal in 2009.</p> <p align="justify">Now last week the details for two upcoming talks were finalized:</p> <p align="justify"><strong>Wednesday, August 25: 7:30PM</strong> – <a href="http://escuelab.org/">Escuelab</a>, Lima: One Laptop per Child: Una perspectiva europea</p> <p align="justify"><strong>Monday, August 30: 12:30PM</strong> – World Bank, Washington, D.C.: <a href="http://go.worldbank.org/A89FIW44V0">One Laptop Per Child in South America: Reports from on-the-ground</a></p> <p>If you happen to live in these cities and/or know people there who might be interested in learning more about OLPC and Sugar Labs in general and my views of the status quo of the projects in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Peru in particular then please spread the word and stop by at the talks.</p> ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-31044610235935183892010-08-15T06:41:00.001+02:002010-08-15T06:53:30.285+02:00First photos from Peru<p align="justify">Due to the lackluster Internet connection in my current hostel in Huaraz I hadn’t really had a chance to upload photos from my first week here in Peru. But tonight - with a couple of hours to spare between an early dinner and going out for drinks - I sat down and started the process. Of course this is turning out to be even slower than I had expected (current upload speed is 9.2KB/s) so let’s see just how far I get before I run out of patience…</p> <p align="justify">For now I’ll leave you with this photo with a view of the Cordillera Blanca mountain range:</p> <p align="justify"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1HIFBbgY047UapEAhGSjDG5bdXRjZVnTQzAFtRQUbobCb393uxTZ1kugvoB032Ua86ak9e-CPv7v4_Q9B5M3Iej9wM2nc_JgZb9N-tllC067f38D9QDDO8IE5yuyqaEpbXXVAyrdSSWI/s1600-h/IMG_1091%5B4%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_1091" border="0" alt="IMG_1091" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_aX3ljmXFPYE/TGdv5Q3oLqI/AAAAAAAAAP8/CMxRJElZyNI/IMG_1091_thumb%5B2%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="400" height="300" /></a> </p> <p align="justify"><strong>Update:</strong> Yippie, <em>100% complete</em>! Head over to the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/sets/72157624551400119/">Peru album</a> on Flickr for some impressions of Lima and Huaraz.</p> ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8439213641808158071.post-36644501787382673692010-08-08T04:38:00.001+02:002010-08-08T04:38:53.130+02:00Photos from Paraguay<p align="justify">I’m making use of the surprisingly fast Internet access in my hostel here in Lima to finally upload some photos from the past two weeks which I spent in Paraguay.</p> <p align="justify">To say that I had a great time there would be quite the understatement. With outstanding company, a very dynamic olpc project run by <a href="http://www.paraguayeduca.org/">ParaguayEduca</a>, multiple interesting school-visits, a long-awaited <a href="http://www.olpcnews.com/laptops/xo15/exclusive_hands_on_with_olpc_xo_15_hs.html">hands-on with OLPC’s XO-1.5 HS laptop</a>, and an amazing weekend trip to the waterfalls at Iguazu and the Itaipu dam my time in Paraguay was packed with awesome experiences.</p> <p align="justify">From a touristic point of view the Iguazu and Itaipu trip will very likely be the highlight of this year’s travels. As always the photos can’t do these places justice and it’s also hard to describe them in words. The one thing I can say is that the waterfalls at Iguazu are one of the most impressive natural sights I’ve ever seen (right up there with the Gobi desert!). The massive human artifact that is the Itaipu dam on the other hand also left quite an impression on me.</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/4852430814/in/set-72157624634468106/"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_0796_stitch" border="0" alt="IMG_0796_stitch" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbb12wEYf2btwOahlb6lTG5jKmBgQ5q85eijxA-PPryWEGB2V_XxyoopnAr-BXu92yGXaN8_vnyNKc9PC9AO6grihm3wvIusFAxNiqGGKO7jX-L500V-88VayacoPjO-921-jifHhWy8I/?imgmax=800" width="400" height="145" /></a> <em>Iguazu waterfalls</em></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/4851870019/in/set-72157624634468106/"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_0673_stitch" border="0" alt="IMG_0673_stitch" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS0BmvbPZTULA0ddzjr3D675IzkVEj7NOMLGwiNJWFpqA5cgh3j-su00gLicz_6jR3sJssEewZAyl9IVIMqHEfxzm78NVV_l_e2HTSfhb8nWzUXvji9-M3gBZdhqiYYO_U7vu6Ob-V2N8/?imgmax=800" width="400" height="92" /></a> <em>Itaipu dam</em></p> <p></p> <p align="justify">Apart from that weekend I spent most of my time at ParaguayEduca’s office, talking to people there and working on olpcnews articles. Additionally I went to Caacupé a couple of times to visit some of the schools there which are part of ParaguayEduca’s 4000 XO pilot project. Needless to say I had a great time observing how the teachers and students use their XOs, especially when they were as much into it as this pupil:</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/4861093515/in/set-72157624456083615/"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_0934" border="0" alt="IMG_0934" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAd2iu0DB_-7dzx0azqwvFPMHtuPVqtNbgSj5V3O5aqH-yk-qYafWVZuJZQ-7u-49eGp9FP9EFYige15oyPGm-U231KcLFEGZJ2zDcTpdPuEYPti7PkzLhCGBNMxuAq3sp00Ez0fk-iqM/?imgmax=800" width="300" height="400" /></a> <em>Hard at work</em></p> <p align="justify">Click on the links for more photos from <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/sets/72157624456083615/">Paraguay</a> and the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophd/sets/72157624634468106/">Iguazu / Itaipu trip</a>.</p> ChristophDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06245980498441001659noreply@blogger.com0