PORTULANO - reloaded

Feliz Natal - Merry Christmas

2006-12-12T14:09:00.000Z

A todos os amigos e colegas umas Festas Felizes!

To all friends and colleagues - Happy Holidays!

Exercício Hot Potatoes (JCloze)

2006-10-15T12:37:00.000+01:00

A suite Hot Potatoes é uma excelente ferramenta para se criarem vários exercícios interactivos que os alunos podem resolver autonomamente. Clicar aqui para aceder a um exemplo de exercício de preenchimento de espaços.

Faluas do Tejo - Madredeus

2006-10-14T17:21:00.000+01:00

O antes e o agora de Lisboa, na voz de Teresa Salgueiro e o som dos Madredeus.

[Para ouvir esta canção carregar aqui.]

Faluas do Tejo

Faluas,
Vaga lembrança
Qu'eu de criança
Guardei para mim

Se as vejo ainda
Às vezes no Tejo
Revivo a alegria
Do tempo em que as via no rio a passar

Faluas do Tejo
Que eu via a brincar
E agora não vejo
No rio a passar
Faluas vadias
Que andavam ali
Em tardes perdidas
Qu'eu nunca esqueci

E era tanta a beleza
Que essas velas ao sol vinham criar
Belo quadro da infância
Que ainda não se apagou

E eu tenho a certeza
Que as Faluas do Tejo hão-de voltar
Outra vez a Lisboa

Bubble Album

2006-10-12T16:16:00.000+01:00

A slider view of a Bubble album (Portuguese sign language).

This album is powered by
BubbleShare
- Add to my blog

A square view of the same album.

This album is powered by
BubbleShare
- Add to my blog

A little humor added.

This album is powered by
BubbleShare
- Add to my blog

Click here for a jigsaw puzzle of the sun picture.

Workshops on Web-Materials Design

2006-08-14T19:25:00.000+01:00

Ana Cristina will be tutoring two workshops for Portuguese teachers based on Portulano's platform. Registration for both events is currently open. You are invited to read the information below and participate.

1. Professional development for Portuguese Teachers in California

Designing Web-based Materials for the Portuguese Class

The Department of Extended Education at California State University, Stanislaus, in Turlock, CA, is offering a Special Session workshop for Portuguese teachers. This workshop on web-based materials design for the Portuguese class is offered in continuation of over a decade-long campus involvement in the promotion of the Portuguese language and heritage. By providing participants with a hands-on, praxis-oriented experience, the workshop addresses immediate needs of practitioners in the field, and concurrently develops a community of learning and practice.

An introduction to the workshop is available here.
Pre-registration is available here until Thursday, August 17.

2. Oficina de Formação MIPLE
Materiais Interactivos para Português Língua Estrangeira

Coordenador: José Moura Carvalho
Tutora: Ana Cristina Sousa

O Instituto Camões vai lançar a 5ª edição da oficina de formação a distância MIPLE (Materiais Interactivos para Português Língua Estrangeira), com tutoria de Ana Cristina Sousa, anterior leitora na California State University, Stanislaus e actualmente doutoranda do Departamento de Didáctica e Tecnologia Educativa, da Universidade de Aveiro. A coordenação está a cargo de José Moura Carvalho, Instituto Camões. A oficina decorrerá inteiramente a distância, através da plataforma de aprendizagem distribuída disponível no Centro Virtual do Instituto Camões.

Os candidatos à frequência desta oficina de formação a distância deverão preencher o formulário que está disponível na página do Centro Virtual Camões. A sua entrega será feita por correio electrónico até ao dia 31 de Agosto de 2006.

Feira Mundial do Livro Electrónico/eBook World Fair

2006-07-09T17:44:00.000+01:00

Feira Mundial do Livro Electrónico

São cerca de 330 mil obras em formato digital, em mais de 100 línguas, que poderão ser descarregadas gratuitamente até 4 de Agosto. A iniciativa assinala o 35º aniversário da colocação do primeiro eBook online, pelo fundador do Projecto Gutenberg, Michael Hart, a 4 de Julho de 1971. Desde então, o número de textos gratuitos à disposição dos internautas não parou de aumentar - o objectivo é chegar a um milhão em 2009. Entre os mais de 50 títulos em língua portuguesa, encontram-se «Os Lusíadas», de Luís de Camões, várias obras de Camilo Castelo Branco, incluindo «Amor de Perdição», Eça de Queiroz («A Cidade e as Serras», «A Relíquia» e «As Farpas», com Ramalho Ortigão), Florbela Espanca («Livro de Mágoas»), Cesário Verde («O Livro de Cesário Verde»), António Nobre («Só»), Júlio Dinis («Uma Família Inglesa»), Almeida Garrett («Frei Luís de Sousa») e Fernão Lopes («Chronica de el-rei D. Pedro I»).

2006 World eBook Fair Collections

Free Access to the public from July 4th to August 4th, in celebration of Project Gutenberg's 35th Birthday

The World eBook Library Consortia Collection shelves more than 330,000 PDF eBooks in 100+ languages contained in 112 of the finest eBook and eDocument collections published on the Internet today. The mission of the World eBook Library's Acquisition Department is to add new eBooks 24/7 to our shelves.

SlideStory

2006-07-02T13:26:00.000+01:00

A very easy to use photo album type presentation software. I can see lots of potential in it. Here´s a quick example that was put together in half an hour (or less). To view it on the original site click here.

O esférico rolando pela relva

2006-06-08T11:52:00.000+01:00

Claro que o Campeonato está quase a começar. Mesmo para quem não liga muito a estas coisas da bola, não passam despercebidas as bandeiras nacionais penduradas por todo o lado. Quem não se lembra como foi o Euro em 2004? Finalmente os portugueses gostam da sua bandeira e já não é mau gosto andar vestido de vermelho e verde.

Agora reparem melhor na imagem. Engraçada a disposição das bolas, não? Brasil - o maior, ninguém o nega. Mas a bolinha portuguesa ali a espreitar por detrás da americana - que dizem?

Translation of "empowerment"

2006-05-29T17:28:00.000+01:00

Empower, empowerment, empowering are interesting concepts. Even the sound of these words reflect their meaning. They are sanguine, optimistic, powerful. They interest me. Technology can empower people to do more than they thought they could. Sometimes you only need to learn a small trick and go "Wow, I can do this almost like a pro!"

Now, a question. How do we translate this into Portuguese? Any suggestions?

Building critical mass

2006-05-29T16:44:00.000+01:00

I have been busy with my doctoral dissertation; however, I feel that I have been neglecting this community a bit. In fact, Portulano is an essential piece of the dissertation, but a difficult one to write about at this point. For there's not much I can say yet.

The community is still more of a concept than a reality. The truth is that there's no member activity. The literature is ripe with suggestions, advice, admonitions about what makes community and what not; how communities are formed, stormed, normed, and so on and so forth. Here are two quotes that really sober me up, on the one hand, and give me hope, on the other. Maybe it is still too soon to tell whether Portulano is perceived as a valuable project for its members?

For an initial pilot, practitioners and researchers can be invited to participate. To be effective in the long term, the collaborative environment needs to achieve critical mass - we need a lot of contributors generating valuable material that attracts a lot of readers, and in turn makes it worthwhile for contributors to participate. (ThinkCycle)

One third of the groups represented in this study had a membership of more than 500 persons. This fact is important because discussion groups need a critical mass of members who post in order to sustain activity, as the majority of any public online group are listeners or lurkers given that posting is voluntary... (Mauri Collins, PhD Dissertation)

The common good

2006-05-05T04:31:00.000+01:00

"Technology enables community building, but does not animate it."

(Howard Rheingold, Face to Face with Virtual Communities, Syllabus Magazine, July 2001)

The other day I went to Coimbra to attend a 2-hour session on Knowledge Management. The facilitator, Ana Neves, is a University of Coimbra alumna currently working in the public health sector in the UK. The participants contributed with different points of view (from business, education, management, HR, etc.), all interested in knowing how do we really manage individual and organizational knowledge.

Some words kept coming up: share, exchange, motivate, acknowledge. In the name of that elusive goal - the common good. Someone said, the common good is my good plus the good of others. But sometimes we tend to forget one of the terms, especially the second one.

And that rang a little bell. Perceiving where the common good lies may be the first step towards forming a learning community. Maybe this common good is too abstract a concept at first - people need to wait and see what is in there for them. Then, if they perceive that the first term of the equation has been addressed, they start investing on the second. Of course it should be a win-win situation, a virtuous circle - the more I give, the more I receive in return, with value added.

Um blog de Cabo Verde

2006-05-04T19:48:00.000+01:00

Encontrei este blog de um grupo de teatro cabo-verdiano, que se define como "GRUPO DE TEATRO DO CENTRO CULTURAL PORTUGUÊS DO MINDELO - INSTITUTO CAMÕES - O mais produtivo e internacional dos grupos de teatro de Cabo Verde. Para recordar, debater, criticar e ser mais feliz! "

É uma boa ideia para um blog - uma espécie de portfolio, arquivo, pensamentos andantes. E é bonito graficamente, também.

Communities are not like mushrooms, or are they?

2006-04-28T16:10:00.000+01:00

Gertrude Stein, the American author, is credited to have said "There is no there there." My idea for PORTULANO was to create a "there" (inasmuch as virtual spaces are really "there," or a place "where") for advocates of the Portuguese language. Perhaps the relative (un)reality of that place is not what matters now, since it does function, change, grow, and even links to other such spaces.

What matters now is: "There are no people there," or better, "There are only virtual people there" (40 something registered members already!) This is my biggest concern, just like a diligent homemaker who has prepared a large meal - even tried a new recipe - but fears her guests won't show up.

Under the right conditions, mushrooms quickly grow and form communities. What is our translation for humidity and sunlight? How are we going to start growing?

Hidden Links & best browser

2006-04-27T07:48:00.000+01:00

Have you noticed that the post titles may contain a link to another site? Just hover your mouse over this post's title and click to see where it takes you.

Also, I'd like to recommend you use Firefox as your browser. It enables more secure, faster, tabbed navigation and sharper pictures. For best view of pictures uploaded to Blogger, go to Preferences and set the following permissions:

1. "Block popup windows">Allow>www.blogger.com, blogger.com
2. "Load images, from the original site only">Exceptions>www.blogger.com, blogger.com, www.portulano.blogspot.com (if your profile picture is located somewhere on the web and you can't see it, you may have to add that site to these exceptions as well).

Há 32 anos

2006-04-25T19:53:00.000+01:00

Há 32 anos eu tinha 14. Nessa madrugada de 25 de Abril, alheada à noite que se movimentava, diferente das outras, estudava eu para o ponto de Geografia dessa manhã. Estava no 5º ano.

Naquele tempo, a Geografia, tal como a História, aprendia-se ao quilo - ou seja, nessa madrugada a minha preparação para a prova consistiu em ler e memorizar os dois livros dos anos anteriores e parte do livro desse ano. Foi aliás, a última vez que o fiz, pois de súbito eles deixaram de ter qualquer importância.

Eu sabia quase tudo sobre os desertos, montanhas e planícies dos vários continentes, conhecia de cor as produções, as vias férreas e os principais rios - mas não sabia o que era democracia.

Nesse dia, não houve aulas, as pessoas moviam-se espantadas e quase todas surpreendentemente alegres apesar do cinzento do dia; pela primeira vez em minha casa o transistor ocupou o centro da casa e não parou de tocar todas as marchas militares que foram desencantadas para a ocasião. E as calças eram à boca-de-sino e os cabelos compridos uns, e encaracolados outros, e o meu penteado afro tornou-se moda.

E agora vejo as imagens de então, quase incrédula por sermos aquilo, naquele tempo, mas não é todos os dias que se vive uma revolução.

Hello - Olá

2006-04-25T18:36:00.000+01:00

This is my first experience at blogging, can you believe it? I am told this sort of diary will be very much unlike the journal I kept when I was a teenager. For one, it is openly public and, most importantly, everything that is published here can become the starting point for a dialogue. In fact that is precisely the goal. That's why I'm inviting you to make comments, ask questions, add view points, agree with some things and disagree with others.

In short, I hope this blog will provide us with a few things:

- an informal communication space parallel to the official or institutional site of the community;
- an easy, dynamic and friendly way to exchange bits and pieces of thoughts, feelings, information that might be difficult to put anywhere else;
- an ice breaker, facilitating or mediating tool for all members;
- an incubator for other blogging experiences;
- a live record of the development of the Portulano community.

Enjoy it!