Since last time some bloggers didn´t have time to update their blogs, or they didn´t come and couldn´t upload pictures or open their flickr account, this time we gave each one some time to update their content and for participants to catch up with their peers, get them used to the different tools. We noticed that some of them seemed a bit overwhelmed with the different accounts they had opened, so we gave them space to test them out and see how they can be used. Andrea joined us today and Natalia sent us a note excusing herself. The odd thing was that today there was a special event at the library, with lots of foreigners.

Today participants did get to open their google reader accounts and we showed them the different websites we have on the sidebars in the wiki and on the hiperbarrio.org website: global voices, medallo bloguero, the wiki and each one added them to their feeds and some added them to their blog roll.

We faced the same problems today with internet connection than last time. Many had to sit with a friend to be able to see the “RSS in Plain English” video. Once again, we can´t notice a pattern. We expected things to be faster in the morning when less people are online, but today it was slow from the start and as the morning goes on it becomes impossible to visit any website.

Today we also noticed that Facebook is blocked at this library and throughout the network, since it is considered a “social networking site”… so much for being a library “network”.

Participants sent in their written contracts through email and some included it in their blogs. They also wrote and posted about their “experience with Hiperbarrio”.

Imago says:

ya he avanzado mucho con este blog en estas ùltimas semanas. por ejemplo, tengo un àlbum que creè desde un mòdulo de flickr que se vè en la parte superior de mi blog -se ven en movimiento porque estàn en flash.
abrì un lista de feeds, con algunos blogs que quisiera visitar y quiero tener como contactos.tambièn he escrito comentarios en algunos blogs, he subido màs fotos y he aprendido a modificar comentarios en mi blog y los que he hecho en otros blogs.

I have gone far with this blog in these past weeks. for example, I have an album I created using flickr, you can see the badge on the upper part of my blog, it moves because it uses flash.
I opened a list of feeds, with some blogs I want to visit and keep as contacts. I´ve also written comments in some blogs, I´ve uploaded more pictures and I´ve learned to modify comments in my blog and edit those I´ve written in other blogs.

Caro wrote:

Hiperbarrio es una comunidad, nos reunimos cada 15 dias y es increíble todo lo que hemos aprendido en el corto tiempo que hemos estado juntos… Desde los principios de cómo crear un blog, hasta cosas mas personales como el respeto, tolerancia y apreciacion por los proyectos de los demás; Aqui todos nos sentimos interesados por el trabajo de los demás, o por lo menos yo me siento así.

Hiperbarrio is a community, we meet every 15 days and it is amazing we have learned so much in the short time we´ve had together… from the basics creating a blog, to more personal things like repsect, tolerance and appreciation for other´s projects; here we all feel interested in other people´s work, or at least I feel that way.

Alejandra said:

ME SIENTO MUY ORGULLOSA DE MÍ MISMA, ES QUE NUNCA ME HABÍA DESENVUELTO TAN LIBREMENTE, (CLARO QUE CON MUCHA AYUDA PARA UNAS COSAS ELEMENTALES, PERO QUE EN MÍ HAN SURTIDO SU EFECTO); ESTOY SEGURA, QUE LOS CONTENIDOS FUTUROS SERÁN COMPLETOS Y MUY BUENOS PARA LA COMUNIDAD VISITANTE DE NUESTROS PRODUCTOS Y QUE EN ESPECIAL, NUESTROS CAPACITADORES SE SENTIRÁN FELICES POR HABER INVERTIDO SU TIEMPO EN UNA CAUSA TAN INNOVADORA Y ENVOLVENTE, PEGAJOSA Y DE SEGURO MUY ÚTIL EN NUESTRA NUEVA CIUDAD.

I feel very proud of myself, I had never performed this freely, (of course with a lot of help in basic things, but they´ve had their effect on me); I´m sure that future content will be complete and very good for those who visit our products, and in particular, our trainers will feel happy to have invested their time in such an innovative and engrossing, addictive and surely quite useful cause for our city.

Ángelo also praised the project:

No solo he de agradecer a la ciencia y a la tecnologia con toda su parafernalia, tambien dirigerè mi gratitud a aquella entidad cuyo altruismo proyecta formaciòn humana y didàctica, al limite de poder alcanzar la sastifacciòn moral e intelectual…

Not only should I thank science and technology with all its accoutrements, I´ll also send my regards to this organization whose altruism provides human skills and educates us, to the extent where I can strive to reach moral and intellectual satisfaction…

Yenni tells us a story about her artistic troupe and ends her account with:

Un dìa cualquiera nos llegò una invitaciòn para formar parte de un proyecto en la biblioteca españa para las personas que les gusta todo el rollo del internet y quisieran saber un poco màs de èl, nos parecio muy buena la idea, en este momento llevamos cuatro encuentros donde hemos creado el blog, le hemos cambiado la apariencia , los colores, hemos creado correos electrònicos por todas partes, flikr para subir photos y muchas cosas màs.

One day we received an invitation to be a part of a project in the España Library for any of us who liked the whole idea of internet and would like to know a bit more about it. We thought it was a good idea and so far we´ve met four times and we´ve created our blog, changed its appearance, the colors, we´ve created numerous email accounts, flikr to upload pictures and many other things.

In el Parche, Juan Manuel shares with us an encounter they had with the police for riding their BMXs, with flickr pictures to illustrate their adventure.

PARCEROS !!! , LA TOMBA NOS COJIÒ ESTE DOMINGO , ASI FUE :
ESTÀBAMOS LLEGANDO AL ALTO DE LAS PALMAS PA DARNOS LA GUERRA DE AHÌ PA BAJO, CUANDO PASÒ LO QUE TENÌA QUE PASAR !, LLEGÒ UNA PATRULLA, HACIÈNDONOS MUCHAS PREGUNTAS Y AL CABO DE MEDIA HORA DISCUTIENDO CON ELLOS, LLEGARON A UNA CONCLUSIÒN ” SE MONTAN YAA !! QUE NOS VAMOS PARA LA ESTACIÒN ” EFECTIVAMENTE LLAMARON A UN PLANCHÒN Y MONTARON A TODAS LAS 20 BICICLETAS QUE ESTÀBAMOS,YA QUE OTROS 10 SE LOGRARON VOLAR, NOS MONTAMOS LA MITAD EN EL PLANCHÒN Y LA OTRA MITAD EN UNA PATRULLA, Y NOS LLEVARON A UNA PEQUEÑA ESTACIÒN ANTES DE RIONEGRO, NOS DEJARON COMO 3 HORAS AHÌ TIRADOS, AGUANTANDO SOL, HASTA QUE EMPEZARON A LLAMAR A TODOS LOS ACUDIENTES DE CADA UNO.

Dudes! The coppers caught us this Sunday, this is how it went: We were arriving at the Alto de las Palmas to race it out to the bottom, when what had to happen happened!, a squad car arrived, they asked many questions and after half an hour argueing with them they reached their conclusion. “Get in now, we´re going to the station”. So they called a platform truck and they loaded all our 20 bikes… 10 lucky ones escaped, half of us climbed on the truck and the other half on the squad car, they took us to a small station right before Rionegro, they dumped us there for about 3 hours, roasting in the sun until they started to call each one of our parents or guardians.

We ended the day talking a bit about each particular project our participants would like to begin: Caro and Ángelo are thinking about interviewing musicians and reporitng on the work of several of the city´s rock bands, integrating podcasts and music files. Yenni and Ale would like to showcase the Zampues troupe work, assisted by videos, pictures and articles.

By the way, Ángelo already replicated his knowledge and showed his dad how to opne his own blog: Poesía y Reflexiones Meditabundas.

We´ve been noticing that the number of participants per workshop is stabilizing on 6: sometimes some of them come, other times it´s other participants who show up, but so far they´ve been good at staying updated. Some have stopped coming altogether: we decided not to call them and insist for them to come since with the 6-8 participants we have we´ve been managing to give them far more personalized attention and we are taking the complete back row of computers in the library, which makes it easier for us to oversee their work and help them out. Since they are about 8 which take turns showing up, 5 of them make the core group, so we believe we are a good example of the blogging dynamic worldwide: from thousands of blogs opened each day, very few go beyond the Hello World post.

So we continue working and learning side by side with them about how to handle these workshops, the type of activities we would like to do and it is a learning process where we experiment and test hypotheses, we get to see how we´re reaching out to them, what our weaknesses are, and we´re taking all of that into account to plan future workshops. It is sad that some participants didn´t return and discarded this oportunity to learn and be a part of something greater, but as a pilot project, we see all of this as an experiment
which is giving us important insights on how to handle the teaching of new media technologies to people who up to the moment they arrived to the workshops, didn´t know what they were.

So what was the event at the library I mentioned previously? Medellin's mayor was visiting with some of the CAFTA representatives from the USA. Management at the library had the nerve to come up to us and scold us, telling us we should mind our own business and try to ignore what was going on, overlooking the fact that just by standing up, we had a perfect view of the speakers and we could hear them perfectly through the gallery in front of us. A bit ironic that they told a group of bloggers not to notice what is going on in their faces. So, taking no notice of their warnings, I liveblogged the talk, translating it from English into Spanish in my blog.