hellofromCH

Hello from Switzerland And thank you for having accepted me in inwikistorias. When I was a teacher - until 2001 - there were no free, easy-to-use wikis for collaborative writing. Sure, there was the "correction" feature (in Word - "modification" in OpenOffice) but the resulting multicolored patchwork made my head spin.

I discovered Wikispaces through [|wiki wiki wiki oi oi oi] (Oct. 7, 2005) in Bott's TAFE Place, the blog of Craig Bottomley, an Australian teacher. Since then, I have tried other wiki platforms. But for teachers, Wikispaces is great, because they can make a private wiki for their classes for free. If I were still teaching, I would be extremely wary of letting young students write publicly online, and moderation tends to smother activity. So having a private wiki where students can relaxedly explore the potential of online publication, discover what is safe online behavior and safely make mistakes, seems to me a great advantage.

I am member of a work group aiming at furthering the knowledge and use of web-based collaborative tools in Southern Switzerland. It is sort of called Noi Media, but that's rather a convenient label, because the username "noimedia" was available for all the tools we've been trying and reviewing. See [|Noi Media (Blog)] and the other tools linked to in it under **Noi Media utilizza anche...**, if you understand Italian. Actually, there are quite a few more, but as I said, they were mainly opened to see how they worked and review them.

Otherwise: I understand Portuguese but can't speak it, let alone write it. I live in Ticino, which is the Southern part of Switzerland that looks like a one-teat cow's udder on the map, but was born in Geneve, in the French-speaking part of the country. I am a free-lance translator and am presently doing a translation with 4 colleagues in Kinshasa using [|Google Docs & Spreadsheets] (a kind of wiki version of text treatment and of spreadsheets).

My main source of information about social software is the [|Digital Divide Network], whose resources I had the privilege to be a beta tester of, probably because of my exceptional knack for making go wrong anything that **can** go wrong, but also remembering where I goofed ;-) http://digitaldivide.net/profile/claude is my profile there. I have recently become a member of the [|Swiss Internet User Group].

That's all for now, because I must go back to the above-mentioned collaborative translation.

Best wishes to you all,

Claude Almansi (in my case, "Claude" is a female first name)

Olá colega, é um enorme prazer usufruirmos de sua companhia na nossa wikistória, seja bem vinda.Kisses,Izolete. Ei pessoal !! Alguém sentou no controle e sem querer apertou a tecla SAPI? Esta globalização!! É legal saber que alguém tão longe pode se inteirar de nossas experiências, mesmo que sejam as mais loucas, como a de tentar ler o texto à cima! Feliz natal e um ano novo de sucesso para você colega de Tão Tão Distante.

Hello!! Nossa que visita interessante! Embora não compreenda o texto, também acho que é prazeroso termos uma pessoa de outro país interagindo conosco.Thank you!

Olá! É um grande prazer saber que você entrou nessa história! Pena que sou péssima em inglês! Mas nada nos impede de tentar aprender um pouco... Beijos. Janete - Sapiranga.

Imaginem só, compartilhar com colegas brasileiras já é o máximo, que dirá uma estrangeira? Muito legal. Eu já havia deixado uma msg mas acho que sem quere alguém deletou, mas tudo bem. Thank you, kiss and one Haapy Cristmas. Welcome a nossa wikistórias. Beatriz.

Oi!Que genial poder conversar e trocar idéias com uma pessoa de outro país porque minha filha se encontra na Austrália há um mês e meio.Imagino como deve estar se sentido minha filha.Falo alguma coisa em inglês mas vou me despedindo,ok??Bye,bye...happy nem year 2007 Denise de Andrade

Hello, sou Stela Maris, moro em Arroio do Sal, Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil.Is it good a very important visit from another country in our history! Não sei absolutamente nada de inglês, mas tenho uma imensa vontade de ser lida na minha fala. Sou professora por prazer! Amo minha profissão e me realizo plenamente dando aulas. Para os pequenos, claro. Abraços. Stela, se quiser visitar meu blog http://stelamarisarroio.blogspot.com