I found out about James Kariuki's blog today "Random reflections about elearning in Africa". James is also a CIARIS friend in that he was a shadow-facilitator in the STEP course of Strategies for combating social exclusion ...

And I recommend his blog!

I watched an interesting video recording of a "brown bag lunch" on client communities of practice at the World Bank.

I was interested to hear about this free book written under a Creative Commons license by a Danish hacker activist and his colleague: "Over a period of a few months, we have produced a complete book that documents our efforts to build wireless networks in the developing world." It is already in Spanish "Redes Inalámbricas en los Países en Desarrollo" and there are volunteers translating it into other languages.

Sorry to be so quiet. I have just returned from a Dialogue in Florence, Italy about Communities of Practice. It was a privilege and interesting to share stories and experiences with people who are working in this area in different parts of the world.

This is what we said we got from our meeting in Lisbon. As comentários do que nos tirámos do encontro no Domingo:

This is a summary of the themes that I heard from the four different tables about their work in CIARIS and what people had in common.

The importance of:

• adapting CIARIS resources and tools to the local context;
• CIARIS as a means of professional development
• informal discussions between different members of CIARIS
• facilitation skills - "we are all facilitators"
• the conceptual foundation of CIARIS that still needs to be put more into practice
• building on and developing existing networks in the different countries
• continuity and "old" members of CIARIS and new ideas and ownership of the resources and tools
• tension and the importance of this for learning.
  

A minha estória começou há dois anos quando o José Manuel Henriques me telefonou. Lembro-me que estava a fazer as compras no Jumbo enquanto estivemos a falar!

Do que me lembro é que ele foi um avaliador externo para um projecto com ACIME em Portugal, e que também foram parceiros num projecto sobre exclusão na escolas onde eu fui a avaliadora externa.

O José Manuel me apresentou ao Phillipe Vanhuynegem. que me convidou para preparar os módulos "Estratégias para combater exclusão social no nível local". No princípio eu disse "Nem pensar. Estou a tentar acabar escrever a minha tese de doutoramento" Mas ele foi bastante convincente.

My story in CIARIS began one afternoon nearly two years ago when José Manuel Henriques telephoned me. I was doing my shopping in Jumbo at the time!

My recollection is that José Manuel was an external evaluator for a project with ACIME in Portugal. ACIME had also been partners in project about exclusion in schools where I had been an external evaluator.

José Manuel introduced me to Philippe Vanhuynegem who invited me to prepare the modules "Strategies for combating social exclusion at a local level." In the beginning I said "No way Phillipe! I am trying to finish writing my doctorate." But he was rather persuasive!