The mega event,  sponsored by Futura Networks and Telefonica, was first launched in Spain and  is now yearly organized in Brazil, Colombia and Ibero-America. It covers  12 different areas:  Astronomy, Blog, Games, Modding, Robotics, Simulation, Design, Photography, Music, Video, Development e Open Source. Last year’s creativity session was split up into Design, Photography and Video, so as to better mark the event as a cultural happening.

Like last year, I will also be part of the blogging area. I was invited to participate in a round table on “Blogs in the Classroom” together with Eric Messa (FAAP), Luiz Biajoni (Instituto Macuco), Claudir Segura (PUC-SP)  on Wednesday 21st at 16:35.  The panel will be moderated by Bob Wollheim (Sixpix Content).

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the Web and Pau Garcia-Milà (eyeOS) are some of invited stars and you bet I will be tweeting, photographing and reporting on the event.

Annabelle, 26 ans, blogueuse influente from Bobby Freckles on Vimeo.

Yesterday afternoon, I gave a short introduction on Connectivism and showed the open models for learning happening at the Facilitating Online Communities course on Wikieducator and the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) about to start.

Juliano Spyer introduced me to Walter Fontoura and Helton Kuhnen from Coworkers, Manoel Fernandes from Bites.  I had also the pleasure of a long talk with Paula Signorini,  her husband Carlos Hotta and their partner Atila Iamarino,  biologists who have just started up Lablogatorios, a portal dedicated to Sciences and Environment.

Update: Today there were fewer people than yesterday, which allowed us to form several small discussion circles instead of the big presentation type full room. At lunch time I talked to Marcelo and Lyanne Maestrelli, a couple from Florianópolis, who already own BlaBlablogs, a collective blog opened for those who have something to say but not often enough to maintain their own blog. The couple have Vida de Viajante, a traveler’s blog which reflects their lifestyle. They chart itineraries, raise awareness to sustainable tourism, interview people they met during their trips, review places to stay and give suggestions on what to see and visit. Marcelo also has a YouTube channel through which he shows his work. An interesting and pleasant business model.

When it finally came alive, Harry’s Blogspeak comment line was gone (it used to be a free service). Fortunately, he was kind and considerate to direct us to Haloscan, which looks simple and efficient.

Many web developers are like us…webheads, who do it out of love, but there is a moment, for some, like Harry, who cannot continue unless they have some kind of support or sponsoring. The same goes for owning and managing a site. The English Department was launched in 1998 on Tripod, first on a free basis, with some pop-ups which started interfering with my hotpotatoes code. Last year, I decided to upgrade it and now I they charge me every month to keep it going. It is a great job and I love it but it costs me time and money.

I have some trouble with the HTML coding as I have not learnt it but I get by. I use Dreamweaver 4 for my site so when there is something I cannot manage, I just copy the whole code on a Dreamweaver blank page , work in there and re-post it once it looks the way I want it to be.

Surfing today I downloaded a programme called Blogjet, which I believe may solve my problem. According to the blurb: “With BlogJet you can easily make posts with different colors and fonts, insert pictures and links without knowing how to code HTML, just like you edit documents in Word. BlogJet displays formatted text in the editor so it looks like the same as it will appear in browser. ” Fantastic ! A Dreamweaver for blogs! I still have to install it and verify (to be continued)

I’d like to make Bee online as interactive and equipped as possible to show the students and other teachers all the possibilities we have. This morning I read an interesting article on blogging in the New York Times called My So Called Blog by Emily Nussbaum and published on January 11th 2004. It gives you a psychological insight on how young people are using the blogs and how they feel about them.

Another good link for prospective bloggers is:
Ten Tips for a Better Weblog

And if you are already a seasoned blogger take an MIT Survey