Category Archives: Photos

We have started at Caldas

Posted on by
4

Last week we had our first meeting with the youth group Diverseres, will be the next group which will become part of our network. Diverseres is a groups of young people from the Caldas municipality, located south of Medellin, about a 30 minute bus ride from the last metro station.
Calles de Caldas
Calle del Comercio – Municipio de Caldas

In this first encounter we mainly had a conversation about expectations and possibilities regarding the citizen media training process. We also left with them a video camera and a stills camera so they could register their impressions of the Easter Week, the reinterpretation of it, the new practices and their implications. For the next meeting, we will begin the training part of the workshop, working upon the audiovisual material they will have prepared for us.

Diverseres has been working for the past two years in topics geared to other young people like them in their community. Their work has been around raising awareness among the youth in their community regarding sexuality, drug addiction and ecology. Now, with the use of online tools they are expectant of being able to publish  online accounts of their activities, promote their efforts through the internet and extend the results to other youth groups in  their town.

During our first meeting we were immersed in friendly and enriching conversation which made us think of the great stories that might come from such a vital group. In the meantime, we are satisfied by the enthusiasm which we felt during the first meeting and excited to become a part of the lives of Juan David, Dalia, Carolina, Catalina, Miguel, Dilan, Jhonny, Germán and all the other kids who will be working along with HiperBarrio.

HiperBarrio in Medelink 2008

Posted on by
1

Translation of post by Jorge Montoya on hiperbarrio.org [ES]

CatiRestrepo Hablando del proyectoOnMarch 7th and 8th the Digital Culture  Festival in Medellín took place, Medelink 2008 [ES] . We were there representing our project. The main objective we drew for our presence there was to bring more people into our project of sharing knowledge with as many people as possible.

Two whole days standing behind a table, where some participants from previous workshops talked about their experiences and motivated others to join our network. AS a result, we know have a database where we have collected  a good number of people willing to be either facilitators or give workshops, and others who are interested in taking the workshops themselves and help the hiperbarrio family grow.

We also met with people belonging to local innitiatives who expressed the desire to join this project which bit by bit has stopped belonging to us and know belongs to everyone. We already have scheduled appointments with these organizations to see how we can work with their needs and what will be the steps to follow.

After this event, we are left with a positive balance regarding expectations and achievements. We need to look towards the future which will surely also bring great satisfaction to those of us who believe that we are doing useful, worthy and worthwhile work.

To each and everyone who has expressed their support, to those who volunteered, to those who are waiting to be a part of this process, to the Medelink organizers and the HiperBarrio team who were those two days telling their stories in person: Thanks!

———-

More about the event:

Guest post on The Where Blog

Posted on by
Reply

Brendan Crain kindly asked me to write a guest post on his blog Where: a blog about urban places, placemaking and the concept of place while he´s busy with NaNoWriMo.

He writes about urban planning and its impact on people who inhabit these “planned” spaces:

“Where” is, so far, the most technologically sophisticated result of my long-running interest in the urban environment and experience. It's a small gesture, but hopefully it will get a few more people reading — and talking — about the role that physical places play in shaping our lives, culture, and society.

It was a pleasure to write this article. In the past I´ve felt drawn to any sort of projects which attempt to make cities liveable and pleasurable. Whether in Costa Rica, Medellin or the rest of the world, I believe that the inner city is where someone can observe the distilled essence of the larger metro area, where you will be able to see the characteristics that others desperately try to whitewash in globalized uniformity. Downtown spaces can make or break a city´s image. The past, present and future are all visible when you walk the streets where a city was born.

Medellín: a City Planned for the Other 90% (Guest Post by Juliana Rincon)

Medellín, Colombia, is a city that I've fallen in love with, and it loves me back. Whenever I walk its streets, ride the metro, or take a bus, I feel that the city was planned with me, and with all the thousands of others who, like me, don't own a car and depend on public transportation to move around, in mind.

Continue reading →

Carabobo

Posted on by
2

We decided to switch venues for the workshop this past Saturday, and we took HiperBarrio out to the streets in Medellin. Due to the long weekend, most participants couldn´t show up, so what we did was show Yennifer and Andrea how to use the cameras and frame pictures appropriately.

With the video camera we started recording a seamless walk through the complete length of Carabobo. The small still cameras were used to take pictures of details that caught our attention along the way. An audio recorder was also used to capture the sounds along the way: amateur performers singing in exchange for a few coins, vendors calling out their wares, the beeping traffic lights and the noisy intersections were among the highlights.

Since we reached our limit with our HiperBarrio flickr account, I uploaded these pictures up on a Picasa Album. You can view the Carabobo walkway in Medellin pictures here.

From Hiperbarrio e…

Colombia: The Radiocicleta, the Children's Audiovisual School and community development

Posted on by
7

RadiocicletaThere´s a special bicycle moving around Belén de los Andaquíes in Caquetá, Colombia. It seats two and carries with it a complete radio broadcasting system, able to send out Wi-max signals and be heard not only through the Andaquí Community Radio, but live through Internet as well. This Radiocicleta[ES] (a portmanteau formed by the word radio and bicycle in Spanish) is part of a 10 year long community communication project meant to unite the diverse population of Belén de los Andaquíes which is composed largely by families running away from violence in their hometowns and neighboring regions, who stopped once they reached this safer haven they could call home.

Blanco Alirio González, the mastermind behind the Andaquí Communication Center and the Radiobike is aware that in communities where there are basic needs that still need to be fulfilled, technology has a tough battle to wage:

Es claro que en el proyecto de comunicación, el uso de las TICs deben aportar a la búsqueda de soluciones a esas necesidades básicas, nuestra pelea no es la sostenibilidad del centro de comunicación, o de la emisora, de la biblioteca o del telecentro, nuestra pelea es la sostenibilidad de nuestra cultura, el derecho a vivir en forma digna en un territorio lleno de riquezas que se disputan gentes de afuera y que son la madre de nuestros desarraigos, violencias y miserias.

It is clear that within this communication Project, the use of new information technologies has to bring solutions to these basic needs, our fight isn´t the sustainability of the communication center, or the station, or the library or the telecenter, our fight is for the sustainability of our culture, our right to live with pride in a territory full of wealth which is disputed by outsiders and that are the mother to our rootlessness, violence and misery.

Based on these ideals, the Community Radio of Andaquí was built to communicate the community with itself, to give them voices and an identity. One of the ways to get more people involved was to break down the walls between the studio and the town itself. Thus the Radiocicleta was born. This radiobike is a prime example of how they live up to their ideals: it is sustainable, it is cheap to maintain, it is environmentally sound, it is human instead of fuel powered, it allows for innovation and investigation, it can reach many different places and can be brought inside homes and it brings people together, working as members of a team: bike rider, speaker, audio operator in the cabin and the community at any event they are covering depend on each other for success.

This radiobike was only the beginning: once they were connected to Internet and had the tools to communicate with the rest of the world, they had to solve the issue of educating all Belemites in the use of these new technologies, while concentrating on the basics: they not only have the library and telecenter, but they also have a community vegetable garden and a media school for kids: at the Escuela Audiovisual Infantil, children can learn how to use technology and make a living from it.

La Escuela Audiovisual Infantil, está orientada a dar visibilidad a los niños de Belén de los Andaquíes, con quienes se busca “Contar lo que hacemos para descubrir hacia donde vamos”. Niñas y niños, desde los 8 años de edad, imaginan, escriben, dibujan, actúan, toman fotografías digitales, graban el audio, animan y editan en computador, historias de dos minutos de duración, en las que muestran las entrañas de sus vidas familiares y callejeras.

The Children's Audiovisual School is oriented to give visibility to the children of Belén de los Andaquíes, through which they seek to “Tell what we do to discover where we´re going”. Boys and girls older than eight imagine, write, draw, act, take digital pictures, record audio, animate and edit using a computer their two minute long stories, where they show the innards of their family and street lives.

You can see the Children´s AudioVisual school´s pictures in flickr and videos on youtube. Currently, the children have started their own micro-business, and they are getting paid to train others and produce videos for clients such as UNESCO and CINEP.

[Other sources: La Nación , esfera pública and SiPaz ]

First encounters with video

Posted on by
3

Written by Galo:

Pageant participants wearing dresses made with recycled materials

Saturday we spent the day learning how to edit video using Windows Movie Maker, a program we chose due to its ease of use and because it is preinstalled with the OS, which avoided plenty of headaches. We used images and videos of the Cultural week in the Fe y Alegría Santo Domingo School in Popular 1, where Yennifer studies and is president of the student body. The images and videos were captured on August 25th and 26th by Medea and Yenni. The videos are up on youtube and can be found here and the images are in Medea´s flickr [We surpassed our limit on the free flickr account].

After learning how to use the program and learning some basic techniques to optimize video quality, everyone practiced video editing. Ángelo, who filmed the Jaguares concert in the Altavoz Festival 2007, which took place on October 13-15, edited it and was left with the task to upload it on his blog. The rest practiced using images from hiperbarrio´s flickr. Today we managed to get a bit more done since we didn´t depend exclusively on internet connection speed.

The picture above is of the pageant participants dressed up with their ballgowns made from recycled materials.

The video is of one of the pageant participants doing her artistic number, she is dancing a tropical mix including Porro, a regional dance popular in Medellin.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/Oig0SzdtUBw" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Tasks and Inspiration: Pictures and posts

Posted on by
Reply

Jorge wasn´t able to make it today (he had rehearsal for election day vote counting) and Peter had to work, so Galo and I ran the workshop. Like in previous days, participants arrived and checked the wiki. Today we were a bit scared about how few participants showed up. When we arrived at 9am, only Caro was there. Nevertheless, a new participant joined the group. In a way, it was easier for us to get her up to date in a crash course in blogging with almost no other participants: Luz Mabely was able to open her blog, a flickr account, write an introductory article and also explore a bit, all we needed was for her to open her google reader, but I believe that in a future lesson she´ll be able to do that as well. When we had finished, Ángelo and Yennifer had arrived, so Caro and Ángelo went to take pictures of the neighborhood and then Yenni went out with Luz Mabely.

Caro was inspired, as she said herself: she wrote 4 articles in that hour before heading out to take pictures. Crónicas de la lejanía, a critique on Good Charlotte in English, she wrote A story of MY barrio , and also did the task of the day: inReality she uploaded the picture she took and wrote about it:

Foto de Caro para La RealidadEstaciones hermosas, vagones impecables, limpieza por doquier. Derroche, luces, clase, estilo; pero más allá, se ven los techos de lata, las calles dañadas, el río sucio. Pobreza.

Beautiful stations, impeccable cars, everything is clean. Abundance, lights, class, style; yet, beyond, you can see the tin roofs, the damaged streets the dirty river. Poverty.

Ángelo was also inspired, so he decided to skip lunch just to be able to finish his article about the historical icon of the 80´s: the Renault Master 4 :

Foto de Ángelo para Renault 4Lastimosamente la gente de mi generaciòn estamos acostumbrados y en demaciados casos tocados por diferentes hechos ocurridos en los años 80, època de guerra, lucha,liberales,conservadores, embajadas,palacios,camisas de chaliz, zapatos zodiac, attaris 2600 y porsupuesto el juguete preferido del patròn el MUNRA el casi HIGHLANDER de los autos en Medellin el infamous RENAULT MASTER 4.

Sadly, those of my generation are used to and in many cases influenced by the different events that took place in the 80´s: a time of war, fights, liberals, conservatives, embassies, palaces, silk shirts, zodiac shoes, Atari 2600 and of course the patrón's [Pablo Escobar] favorite toy: the MUNRA, almost the HIGHLANDER of the cars in Medellin, the infamous RENAULT MASTER 4.

When Yenni and Luz Mabely came back, they were accompanied by Andrea, whom they found on the way in. Andrea took pictures, but wasn´t able to upload them to the computer because the cables we have don´t match her camera, however, she did write the article My work in Santo Domingo:

…hoy cuando subí en el Metrocable, mis compañeros de viaje eran unas personas de Bogotá, las cuales estaban sorprendidas y gratamente encantadas con lo bonito que se ve la ciudad desde este medio de transporte (Metrocable), de pronto una de las señoras dijo: esas Terrazas tan bonitas, que plantas, en ese momento mi corazón latió mas fuerte y como si la conociera y con un orgullo que se irradiaba en mis ojos, empecé a contarle a ella y a todos los presentes que yo había participado en ese gran proyecto que se llama Solares Ecológicos y al llegar a la estación Anda Lucia, les dije miren a la izquierda esa terraza es de la señora Felicidad, ella y su familia aprovecharon al máximo el proyecto y ahora tienen ese jardín con aromaticas, hortalizas y plantas, los presentes solo se miraban entre ellos y con un signdo de afirmativo con sus cabezas, decian eso es lo que necesitamos en este país que la gente haga cosas provechosas y así no tengan tiempo de pensar en la guerra.

Today when I got up in the Metrocable, my car companions were some visitors from Bogota, who were pleasantly surprised and enchanted with how pretty the city looks from this means of transportation (Metrocable), suddenly one of the women said: those rooftops are so nice, look at those plants, at that moment my heart beat faster and as if i had known her from before and with pride irradiating from my eyes, I began telling her and all of the others in the car that I had participanted in a great project called “ecological rooftops”. When we got to the Andalucia station I told them to look to their left, and said that rooftop belongs to Felicidad, she and her family took the greatest advantage from the project and now they have that garden with medicinal herbs, vegetables and plants, those present looked at each other and with nods said that this is what we need in this country, for people to do fulfilling things and not have time to think of war.

Many pictures were taken!

Luz and Yenni didn´t have enough time to publish their articles. They tried to, but the system would collapse every time they tried to publish something, they agreed to do it later on this week. Luz Mabely´s blog is called mi blog, and here is her flickr account. Yennifer wrote about a class trip during the week, so take some time to go and visit and learn what comes out of combining cold weather, tents and teens.

Then we went to eat something. Diana and Liseth, who are doing their thesis based on our project in Santo Domingo, arrived to interview the participants. We had a brainstorm for ideas of video projects to do on the next workshops and Caro documented the results::Lluvia de Ideas

For the next workshop, they decided to do idea number 3: record noises, and also the sounds these noises make. The free hug project will wait until we get the costumes.

At the end we weren´t able to get the press passes for Alta Voz, or to meet the Zampues girls during the two weeks. Let´s blame it on Phonetag. However, since Angelo was going to the AltaVoz concerts, we lent him the camera and lets hope he´s able to take pictures of the concerts and share them with the rest of us.

In the meantime, take a look at pictures the participants took in Hiperbarrio´s flickr, pictures are titled with the photographers names. We already reached the 200 limit on the free flickr account: anyone interested in giving us a Pro Account? 😉

Our hopes for the future

Posted on by
Reply

Abastecedor Santo DomingoWe are getting in on the groove. Participants arrive between 9 and 10 (the workshop begins at 9, when the library opens.) As they arrive, they open the wiki and get to work on the tasks for the day. This first hour is quite productive for all who arrive early on: the internet connection today was faster then than later on in the day. For when the last ones arrive, internet is already slow, they don´t have time to catch up and we have to start working on other topics, so the lesson is: getting in early is a lot more fun than coming in late! Today Deisy showed up, but Caro couldn´t make it.

Andrea wrote during the week about a community service project she undertook: she bought candy for a man who makes a living selling them, however, after having to pay the purchase of his candy stand he barely has enough to buy some rice and panela (sugar cane sugar) :

ayudar a cumplir un sueño, no es tan difícil como parece, es super fácil regalar una bolsa de confites, bombones o galletas o no??? y quien va a creer que el sueño de alguien es poder tener sus dulces para vender debajo del un puente peatonal.

To help a dream come true is not as difficult as it may seem. It is quite easy to give away a bag of candy, sweets or cookies, isn´t it??? And who would think that someone´s dream is to be able to sell these candies under a pedestrian bridge.

Ángelo didn´t just write, but he also uploaded his band´s song New Idols to his blog:. You can listen to it here. In this post he explains what it means:

Nuevos Idolos refiere al pensamiento de Ernesto Guevara de la Serna cuya ideologia en contra de la injusticia gubernamental no ha podido cristalizarse, pues; no ha nacido otro igual o mejor que èl, que confronte al capitalismo.

… Nuevos Idolos hace enfasis en las falsas cifras que manifiesta el DANE en cuanto al desempleo, entidad maquilladora de una mentira por siempre urgente.

Mientras que en los barrios hay hambre y sufrimiento, unos pocos hombres procuran por ocuparse del “rebusque”; un “empleo utòpico”, que se lleva a cabo, cuando queriendo; no se puede ser esclavo.

New Idols speaks about Ernesto Guevara de la Serna´s ideology against government injustice, an ideal which hasn´t crystallized yet since no one his equal or superior has been born to face capitalism. New Idols showcases the fake numbers the DANE produces regarding unemployment: a whitewashing entity covering up urgent lies. While in the neighborhoods there is hunger and suffering, a few men try and find informal jobs; that or the Utopian employment which is done only when one feels like it; they don´t want to be slaves.

Alejandra tells us about her group Zampues, and how they´ve been growing lately: the full text in Spanish can be found in her blog, Zanpues Art:

Les cuento, para nosotros la intensidad y calidad del grupo ha venido mejorando por los nuevos talentos juveniles que se nos suman inesperadamente; son chicos que van aprovechando sus habilidades inconcientementes que aprendieron en tiempos pasados, en la época del colegio o del ocio con los amigos del barrio.
Es una diversidad gigante de conocimientos, unos saben hacer malabares hasta con 6 (seis) elementos que pueden ser pelotas, frutas…
otros tienen la magia en sus manos porque manejan unos trucos increíbles y muy entretenidos, son chicos geniales y que con el passar la información de la existencia del club zanpues, seguramente harán que prontamente seamos la creatividad multiservicios para la comunidad;

Let me tell you, for us the intensity and quality of the group has been improving thanks to the new talented youth who are unexpectedly joining us; they are kids who take advantage of the skills they unconsciously learned in past times, when they were in school or when hanging out with friends in their neighborhood.
There is a great diversity of knowledge, some can juggle up to six elements, be them balls, fruits… others have magic in their hands because they can handle incredible and entertaining tricks, they are great kids and as the information goes out that Zampues club exists, surely they will soon make us into the multiservice creative entity for our community we want to be.

imago tells us about the work he´s been doing with his students with photography:

Parte de los ejercicios que desarrollo en mi programa de artistica con los alumnos de 11ª grado es este de fotografìa estenopeica o de càmara Pinhole.
Visiten este enlace es de las imàgenes del seguimiento del ùltimo ejercicio el año pasado.
hay algunas càmaras, fotos durante el desarrollo del ejercicio, etc.

Part of the exercises I´ve been working on with my 11th grade art students is pinhole camera photography. In this link you´ll find images of the work done last year. There are some cameras, pictures of the exercise, etc.

Juan Manuel shares:

EN ESTE ULTIMO LAPSO DE TIEMPO LA HE PASADO MUY BIEN PERSONALIZANDO MI BLOGG Y PUBLICANDO TODOS LOS NUEVOS PARCHES YA QUE EL BLOG ME HA SIDO MUY UTIL PARA COMUNICARME CON MUCHA GENTE HE INFORMARLES SOBRE LO QUE VA A PASAR.

TAMBIEN ME HAN PASADO COSAS POSITIVAS CON ESTE BLOG, COMO QUE VA A SALIR POR TELEMEDELLIN EL MIERCOLES A LAS 7:00 DE LA NOCHE Y EL JUEVES A LAS 3:OO DE LA TARDE, COMO EJEMPLO DE LO QUE HEMOS APRENDIDO EN ESTE TALLER.

Lately I´ve had a good time personalizing my blog and publishing all about the new activities since this blog has been quite useful to communicate with a lot of people, letting them know what is going to happen.
Positive things have also happened thanks to this blog, it will be shown in Telemedellin on wednesday at 7pm and thursday at 3pm as an example of what we´ve learned in this workshop.

At 11am we decided to head out for a snack and bought some goodies at our favorite store in Santo Domingo (the one in the picture) and as we ate we talked about what we hope this workshop will become in the near future. What the participants mentioned went hand in hand with our own ideas: we want to stop working so much in front of the computers when we are in the library (it takes forever to do anything) and it would be better to concentrate on the individual multimedia projects. The Zampues girls Ale and Yennifer, came up with the idea of taping sometime in the middle of the week a puppet show and learn how to record, edit and upload videos. Ángelo and Deisy were excited about the idea of reporting about the AltaVoz concerts (free concerts featuring local and international bands) in 15 days. Jorge will try his best to see if they can be given press passes.

We discussed the Medeatón, the trip to Pop!Tech, the idea of having strong products to show and tell others of what we´ve been working on. I also told them about our invitation to write for LatinaLista.net and tell about the life of women in Medellin.

In conclusion: the greatest part of it all is that we´re having fun while doing these workshops.

Catching Up: RSS feeds and individual work

Posted on by
Reply

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.
Alcalde Fajardo en la biblioteca españa.

Day 3: our first group session.

Posted on by
1

Today we faced an unforeseen glitch: we planned the day´s activities without taking into account how slow the internet connection would be. Six participants showed up at the workshop: Alejandra, Yennifer, Angelo, Carolina, Miguel y Juan Manuel. Galo and Velvet accompanied Jorge and myself, assisting participants in many different ways.

According to what we had planned on our Spanish wiki, participants would create a googlereader account to read feeds, they would go out to the neighborhood and take pictures and open a flicker account with which we would work on uploading pictures from the cameras to the computers and then to the web. We were able to get mostly everything done, except the RSS reader. We fought and muddled through uploading pictures, and at least participants managed to get some things done.

We have the previously mentioned group flicker account here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hiperbarrio/.

In spite of the slow connection, the network collapsing, 404 errors, pictures which wouldn´t show up and pages closing during uploads, participants did get their flicker accounts up and running and with some pictures. During the process, some pictures got lost between files, we are trying to locate them.

Participant´s flicker accounts:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yennifersame-momentos/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/zanpuesart/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/platero/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carovl90/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/imagofotos/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/parches/

salida de la bibliotecaWhat can be said is that independently of technical issues, pictures taken by participants turned out amazing, and those who could get them up on flicker felt quite proud to be able to put them on their blogs. Some even managed to get the java flickr banner on their blogs to show the latest pictures.

At the end of the session, we gave them homework: they would write up a participation contract: they will promise to write on their blogs, go to the lessons and catch up if they miss any session, as well as comply with established group goals.

They also picked a topic of the month: My experience with Hiperbarrio, of which they will have to write on their blogs.

Some of the pictures taken:
celulares iglesia