ALL CHILDREN ARE DIFERENT

Without a doubt, that phrase that says that all children are like the fingers of the hands is very real, that is, they all look alike, but deep down they are not and they fulfill different functions. From the index finger to the "sacamoquito" hahaha...

Today's story relates to this because it is a reflection on the way my children respond to such simple questions as: how was your day today? Did you like the children's day celebration you had at school? What did you like more?

The oldest: Well, I liked that there were contests and games and that I won many prizes.

The one in the middle: Well, there were no classes.

The youngest: Well, they gave us a lot of good food.

Thus, on this occasion, as on many others, I have discovered in my children's response that children always make decisions and form beliefs about themselves, about others and about the world. And with those beliefs they walk through the world based on their life experiences.

So their behavior is based on those decisions and what they think they need to survive or succeed. For example, my oldest son likes to live together, socialize and compete; while my middle son is a bit reluctant and doesn't like academic activities at all. Finally, my little daughter enjoys spending time sitting at the dining room table playing and chatting; even though she is not eating.

And you, have you seen this type of curious responses in your children?

ESTE MOMENTO DE MI VIDA SE LLAMA FELICIDAD

Hola...

Saludos a todos...

El día de hoy tenemos una entrada especial.

Primero, porque El Taller de Aquimedes cumple 2 años y segundo, porque tengo el honor de servir a mi alma Mater de una manera ligeramente distinta a como ha sido hasta ahora.

Y es que en UNIVA han tenido la confianza para delegarme algunas funciones que impactarán directamente en la calidad académica, que como saben... Es mi pasión.

Siempre he pensado que el trabajo en las aulas debe ser liberador. Liberador porque enseña a la personas a conocer el mundo y conocerse a si mismos. Así es como las personas nos volvemos más capaces de tomar decisiones y como nos hacemos cada vez más libres.

Así que este año tengo, una vez más, muchas cosas por las cuales debo ser agradecido, en especial con Dios por conceder un año más a este proyecto y con aquellas personas que han tomado la decisión de confiar en mí.

Y a todos los que me siguen, muchas gracias.

Y a quienes hacia rato que nos les llegaba una invitación, una disculpa, pero empecé a escribir en inglés y bueno, me temo que mi estilo aún no es tan bueno y, tal vez, no es tan claro. Pero El Taller de Arquimedes ha continuado con sus dos publicaciones mensuales; aunque este año estuvo más arriesgado en algunas ocasiones para poder cumplir.

Hasta ahora, en el recuento, la mejor historia sigue siendo el cuento "El León del abrevadero" con cada vez más visitas. También se me cayó en este año el canal de Youtube, pero para el año que viene abriré un canal de Podcast y con eso voy a compensar.

Enhorabuena y muchas gracias.

THE SCIENCE PROJECT

These days I tried to decide the topic of this post. Because in the family we had some special events like the death of our dog.

Yes, Chuleta finally dies after a few months to being sick.

Some vets say that the Belgian  shepherdess lives to be around 10 or 14 years old, and since Chuleta was fifteen, we think that chuleta lived a little longer and had a godd life, although sometimes it could have been better. 

But today's post recounts an experiment with alternative energies that I did with my son. The idea started when my son told me that he needed to do a project on "how to get energy from the sun, water or wind?"

At this time we use some photocells that I keep in my study and I explained to my son the basics of series and parallel circuits. So that he could understand what we were doing.

I then drew on a piece of paper a chart of the connections we needed to make to make the project functional and explained the meaning of the symbols.

After that, he started connecting the cells and after a few hours we were able to test the array. And it worked!

I enjoyed the moment and had a good time with my son.

I will never forget the look on his face when he saw that his project worked.

He was very excited.

CODE OF HONOR

It is a pride for me to participate in several cutting-edge institutions with a high educational level. On this occasion I would like to highlight one more step that UNIVA has taken, the publication of a Code of Honor. Honor these days is very important for society and even more important is that in educational institutions students are trained with this vision of conscience, honor.

Throughout my 25 years in various educational institutions I have worked pleasantly in several of them, but I have also lived experiences in which teachers are the main harassers, weave ties to keep certain coworkers under surveillance, acting as true "bullies" and they even involve students in these unfair, hypocritical and totally unethical acts; thus spreading this culture and teaching that having contacts and money grants power and makes bullying legal.

The code of honor in question deals with various topics of interest such as fulfilling one's responsibilities even if they are not watching you, giving the credit they deserve to someone who has had an idea or the author of a text, not speaking ill of other people or institutions, avoiding behaviors that destroy the environment of equity that should prevail in the university, etc.

From my perspective, we are in times in which institutions must educate to avoid this type of behavior more consistently than ever. The questions are: who has in their hands the teaching of these manifestations of respect? How will institutions deal with this type of practice from the teaching staff, who have in their hands the formation of the citizens of the future?

I put it this way because if a teacher gets into the habit of quoting and invites his students to quote, his students will get into the habit of quoting; the same with each of the other good customs that the code of honor promotes.

So I applaud UNIVA for spreading this new effort to train ethical, upright, respectful and honorable professionals; and I feel proud to participate in this type of institutions that do more than brag about their achievements, by executing this type of actions that in small ways have the potential to achieve changes of immense importance. For this is the goal of education, to transcend.

AN ECOLOGICAL IDEA

Now, everyone perceives problems related to pollution. And this is the reason why there are many ideas about recycling, saving waste and reducing energy consumption. Some people give tips for reusing some types of products and other people share their cars or invent things to try to reduce the impact of their activities.

Therefore, this post is dedicated to talking about an idea that I had recently.

AN ECOLOGICAL IDEA

People are often seen on their bikes or, recently, electric bikes, scooters, or other types of eco-friendly vehicles. And I think that seeing it, everyone has thought of buying a similar mobile. But after the moment, they retract because they believe that city traffic is dangerous for motorcycles, bicycles and other types of light vehicles.

I know, because I thought about it many times before buying my bike. And now, I enjoy going to work, but I recognize that my car is safer. But then how can we make our streets safer? Reduction in the number of cars.

And well, this is the idea...

First step. The government should encourage people to use these types of vehicles. So if the government provides financial remuneration to people who use these types of vehicles, more people will want to use them. And then they will discover other benefits such as health and the opportunity to save money, because fuel costs more and more.

Second step. The government needs to install more preferential roads and, if necessary, assign some kind of schedule to use some important roads only with ecological vehicles.

Finally, I think that, with this tactic, day by day people will use the car less to use scooters, bicycles or any ecological vehicle.

Thank you for reading

BUSSINES ARE BUSSINES - AN EDUCATION REFLECTION

Have you ever negotiated with your students?

As you know, sometimes I think about some problems.

This time, I meditated on negotiation, negotiation with my students.

Many times I have heard colleagues talk about problems with concepts such as negotiations or self-assessments in the educational process. And it is common to hear that students are immature to decide or select the correct option to obtain the best gratification in the future.

But...

I have never heard of how we could teach to select the best option, thinking beyond the immediate objectives.

And now I think that the best option we can find is to produce the correct scenarios to make decisions without something of value for the students.

For example, I consider it a serious mistake to generate a self-assessment and then add that grade to the final grade.

Students need the teacher to make observations, tell perspectives and mention spaces of opportunity. The point is that if the teacher omits the possibility of producing self-knowledge, then the teacher cannot despair of her students.

Now then, colleagues... It is necessary to produce the ideal scenarios to produce mature self-assessments, without fear of being judged or losing qualification.

Thank you for reading.

LIGHTSABER IS REAL?

I don't want to miss the opportunity to talk about this man...

Alex Burkan!

But, who is he?

He is a Russian youtuber who shows some artifacts invented by himself.

For example...

The Ivan Vanko suit, or...

An early prototype of the Ironman suit and more recently...

A real lightsaber resembling Vader's saber...

As you can imagine I was really surprised when I saw it.

And it's that while here my students investigate about the best way to produce hydrogen and they try to put it into the combustion engine; this guy invented a 3 foot plasma sword tip that reaches 5000° F. To me, really impressive.

The truth would not have occurred to me.

At the moment. Obtaining hydrogen is possible if you look towards natural gas, oil or biomass derived from wood. But it isn't the only way. Today there are three industrial methods for obtaining hydrogen: molecular transformation, carbon gasification and water electrolysis.

Obtaining plasma on Earth generally requires high temperatures or high electric fields and a high vacuum. First, a container with the gas to be converted into plasma is necessary.

One characteristic of plasma is its density, which is really low. And then if you want to produce plasma, you need few gas particles and burn them so that they heat up and expand rapidly to get the electrons to break apart, getting ions. The technology on Earth is invented but it's difficult for anyone to obtain.

But you may want to know more about Burkan's lightsaber, so here's a link on youtube: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SojXRashTs4