“PowerPoint Assignment”

Multimedia Applied to the ELT Lecturer: Susana Trabaldo Students: Andrea Verónica

Cabrera María Soledad CajigalCamila Guadalupe Cortea

Deadline: June 19th

Aporia

A crisis of choice, action, identity and belief

Lacking a path and not knowing how to go on

Feeling lost It affects us on many levels at once:

we doubt ourselves

Link

A transition, a bridge, a means of connection

An association of elements, also in our minds

Implies a semiological transformation: the elements are joined and also changed in the process

It leads us to an unfamiliar location, to the unknown

Rule

Indicates a direction to follow

It is ambiguous and clear: it requires us to make a guess

Implies obligatoriness, judgement and choice

We must follow it blindly By understanding a rule

we know how to go on

Methods for organizing information

Hierarchical Rhizomatic

It spreads in all directions, without centre nor hierarchies, organizing information laterally. It is like a labyrinth of criss-crossed pathways.

It is centrally organized, and like a root system its branches are displayed in a lineal pattern. It has a beginning and end.

Recognition

Think again, in a different way According to Plato, this is the

anamnesis, the recolection of what is latent within us.

Something clicks in our minds We feel right, we experience the ‘joy

of recognition’

Real questions

Puzzle, confuse and interest Lead to different kinds of aporias We have to see the real question

within the doubt to make a new understanding possible

Learning how to ask a good question is the central educational task

Matrix

Questions drive Neo into the Matrix Neo faces a crisis of choice: Shall he

follow an ‘odos passage’ (towards the known) or a ‘poros passage’ (towards the unknown)?

He opens his eyes to see the truth

Allegory of the Cave

What we know as life is only a reflection, a mere shadow of the truth: We are prisoners of that reality

We only see ‘shadows’ on the wall, whereas the truth is the light outside the cave

It is difficult to go out of the cave, and when we do it, the light blinds us

Life is a dreamLa vida es sueño

Segismundo, the protagonist, lacks a free will. Therefore, he cannot take wise and right decisions

He suffers a transformation: not only a moral awakening, also a realization of his social role

The conception of life as a dream and the opposition between destiny and liberty appear as main themes

Conclusions

Neo experiences aporia, when he is removed from the “dream”(the virtual reality of the matrix in which he was trapped) and sees the real world, his eyes hurting. This is similar to Plato’s cave allegory; he is blinded by the sun, that is, the painful truth.

As he takes decisions and moves in his quest for answers, Neo is under a process of semiological transformation, similar to Seguismundo is, after doubting his identity.

Both characters are obligued to comply with the rules of their environments, this signaling the way they can take and restringing their choices.

Doubt and choice play a major part in their path to achieve their final goals.

Bibliography

Burbules papers on ‘Aporia’ The Matrix Allegory of the Cave Life is a dream Notes on MM applied to ELT