Teachers, students, researchers, scientists, artists, journalists, entrepreneurs and all those interested in the latest technological trends will attend the event to freely exchange content and share their digital experience.

I will be involved in a presentation about blogs and also helping out and participating in the Campus Barcamp.

There is a general livestream covering the event. I will try to keep you updated (in English) twittering, flickering and posting here.

It was a most energizing weekend, during which I met dynamic and engaged young people I would not have come into contact with, had not been this event. Not only because of their age – some younger than my youngest son – but also because most are journalists, artists, graphic designers, university students – a crowd I have not been hanging out with lately. Many of the issues that came up are the same we are discussing in the educational area: copyright blocking the access and creation of knowledge, Web 2.0, Second Life, Participatory/Collaborative Journalism, meritocracy, communities of practice, networking…

Andre Avorio , the 21-year-old mastermind behind all barcamps organized in Brazil until now, came to fetch me at the Hercilio Luz airport last Friday evening. There I met Johnny, Avorio’s friend and and Paulo Bicarato, a journalist who has been blogging since 2001 on the Alfarrabio.

On Saturday, we all met at the Philosophy Dept building at UFSC (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina) and decided on the themes. I had volunteered to chair some of the WiAOC presentations online, hoping to converge both and show a bit of what is happening in our community. However, the unstable wireless connection and the strong f2f appeal made me finally give up on the virtual altogether and join the discussion groups, which was what we were there for. In the evening, a number of us gathered to raise a glass to Avorio and his newly minted Blaz. Photos on Flickr.

I exchanged ideas on G. Siemens Connectivism with Fabiano Caruso, a researcher at the Certis Foundation who participates in a number of innovative library projects like Extra Libris ; talked to Gabriela Leitao and Pedro Markun, who will be working together on the Jornal de Debates, an online collaborative newspaper launched by Pedro’s father, journalist Paulo Markun. Ana Brambilla, an open source collaborative reporting researcher and journalist, held a session on the subject. South Korean Ohmy News, to which she contributes, was the topic under discussion.

Very late in the evening, I had a fascinating conversation with a young man (whose name I cannot now recall) on how throughout history, literature has mapped the contradictions and aspirations of the human soul and nature. Bianca Santana, whom I had already met at some of the tete-a-tetes preparing barcamp SP, reminded me to send a post to Diversidade Cultural, a blog for the Cultural Diversity International Seminar: practices and perspectives. Time has become a precious commodity and I hope I can make it!

After a sound night sleep (I collapsed before everyone else) in one of the houses Andre rented for us on Praia Brava, we got together for the Sunday round. Julie, a French young woman working for Google in Dublin, and who had just arrived to spend some days at the Markun’s family, joined the group and followed some of the heated discussions. Although fewer people were present, my impression was that the conversations went further and reached a deeper level. Virtual versus physical identities were discussed in the context of Second Life and at 17:00, I moved to skypecast Open and Participatory Webpublishing for the WiAOC. Fortunately, I had managed to get a connection the night before to send the ppts to Patricia, my co-presenter and everything worked without a glitch. Right after finishing, it was time to rush to the airport to catch the flight back home.

The unusual weekend was worth every minute as it made me discover the local cultural scenario and brought me closer to some of the young actors playing in it.

I threw it into my bag and started reading it as soon as the plane took off. The quotes below set the mood for the new “anthropological space” I first experienced in NZ at the FLNW and then again during this weekend as I remained again split between two communities who gathered to share their experience. One was international, meeting virtually, through a series of set and timed presentations at various online venues and the other was local and physical, composed of very loose, informal groups who debated on themes decided on the fly.

I could not attend both or impose one on the other. Virtual or real? Real or virtual? Polarities. Technology made me choose the real world. Both because it did not work as it should (the fickle wireless connection on Saturday threw me into some distress as I had taken the responsibility to chair some of the virtual presentations, so I spent too much time trying to connect and converge without result) and because I knew I could listen to the recordings, see the slides of the conference online later, interact with many of the participants, presenters, organizers and keynoters later on and comment on the assynchronous forums.

…. and the new communications systems should enable members of delocalized communities to interact within a mobile landscape of signification

I knew that I would never recover and reconstruct the open knowledge space which is created in the bonding moment with the other and the learning insights and relationships which result as we compare experiences.

The basis and goal of collective intelligence is the mutual recognition and enrichment of individuals rather than the cult of fetishized or hypostatized communities…far from merging individual intelligence into some indistinguishable magma, collective intelligence is a process of growth, differentiation and the mutual revival of singularities.

More later on the barcamp itself…going to bed…and have just come across this post through Stephen Downes’ Old Daily, which sums up the same experience from another angle.

I look forward to listening to the presentations at WiAOC and having the time to digest, piece these fragments and insights and try to perceive some bigger pattern.

The first barcamp in Brazil also happened in Florianopolis …but last Septembe, when I was flying to NZ for the FLNW. Barcamp SP, which I was very much looking forward to, I could not attend either. When the date was finally decided upon, it happened to be right on the WE I was flying back from the Tesol conference in Seattle

Now, it coincides with the Webheads in Action Online Convergence, the theme of which is CONNECT: Conversations on Networking, Education, Communities, and Technology. So it’s meant to be and I will be trying to connect and broadcast the conversations from both conferences.

Keynote speakers at Wiaoc, unlike the barcamp or unconference model, were invited to participate about 2 months ago and asked to send their abstracts and preferred venue. Michael Coghlan, however, has suggested an unconference slot, so maybe this might be the convergence time for the two conferences…if we manage to get these two unplanned slots together…

The first barcamp Sao Paulo will be held on the weekend of March24th/25th at Casper Libero, a school for communication and new media.

A barcamp, very much like an unconference, brings together people who are interested in technology and internet and who are willing to exchange ideas, experience, collaborate. It is an informal event with no closed schedule or presenters – the presentations are decided on the fly as participants arrive the first day in the morning.

Among the most popular themes discussed on the list are Ruby on Rails, Web 2.0 label hype, the Social Web in education, blogfarms, open source software, content management platforms, e-books, copyright, digital TV, long tail and its implications, crowdsourcing, M generation, snack culture, second life and participatory media.

Unfortunately, although I was among those who first, together with the organizers, contributed to brainstorming for the event, I will not be present on the first day as I will flying back from Seattle (Tesol conference).

My consolation prize is that I will be meeting François Bar this week (through Sus Gutierrez). François is involved in a research project looking at the socio-economic impact of mobile phones and wireless in Latin America and I am taking him to meet Cesar Nunes at Escola do Futuro (Cesar is on the MobilED project with Teemu Leinonen).

Hopefully, just by listening to these exchanges, some pixie dust should make its way to my brain preventing it from rusting beyond repair in the routine I am immersed in.