3rd Newsletter, July 2010

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THE PLE CONFERENCE Newsletter – 3rd Edition No. 3, June/July 2010

This newsletter provides you with the latest updates on THE PLE CONFERENCE event

THE PLE CONFERENCE 2010

Cornellà // Barcelona //July 8-9 2010

http://pleconference.citilab.eu/

Hashtag for Twitter and Weblogs: #PLE_BCN

1st Newsletter (April 2010)

2nd Newsletter (May 2010)
Topics
1. The PLE Conference Programme is ready. Incredible but true!
2. Keynotes or UnKeynotes? That’s the question!
3. Sessions & Workshops – the Choice is Yours :)
4. The Sounds of the Bazaar LIVE – Join the Internet Radio!
5. The Conference Venue – all you need to know including
power sockets ;)
6. PLE_BCN Social Network – how to keep in touch & share?
7. Conference Badges? Design-It-Your-Self !
8. Registration form & Conference Package – What’s in for me?
1. The PLE Conference Programme.
The PLE_BCN Conference Programme is ready now! Incredible but true!

Oh well, it’s a “perpetual beta” anyway … and can be found here.

We have a FREE pre-conference workshop: the European ROLE project. Programme is here!
The ROLE project – Responsive Open Learning Environments – addresses
theoretical models and associated technologies that allow learners to
tailor learning environments according to their needs. As part of this work the ROLE project is investigating and evaluating the use of Personal Learning Environments. The ROLE workshop
will take place on Wednesday 7 July from 14:00 – 19.30 and is free for all conference participants. 



Remember that we have the informal opening after the pre-conference workshop. We
want to start at around 19:00, and finish at 20:30-21:00. We know,
there’s the World Cup semifinals that night! We will be broadcasting a
LIVE internet radio programme, Sounds of The Bazaar, at the social
event between 19.30 and 20.00 (read more below).



Registration:
registration desk will be open on Wednesday 7th, from 13:30 to 14:30
(for those attending the workshop), and again at 18:00, if you are
joining us for the opening social event. On Thursday 8th, registration will
start at 08:30 and close at 09:15, in time for the first keynote.

More about the ROLE workshop: http://www.role-project.eu/?p=335

More about LIVE radio: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=46907374852
2. Keynotes or UnKeynotes? That’s the question!
As you might be aware, we have challenged our keynote speakers – Graham Attwell, Alec Couros, Jordi Adell &  Ismael Peña-López – to
abandon the traditional keynote format in favour of a more interactive
presentation which would both match their personality (and content) and
involve the audience actively. They all responded positively and are
enthusiastically working on it.

How will the unKeynote format look like? Graham Attwell writes:

“In keeping with the theme of the conference
(PLEs), we’re hoping that individuals in our network would be willing
to help us frame what this might look like!!!”

So, as you see the Keynotes are asking for a
helping hand. Please do give them your support
and provide your input (see links below).
Graham Attwell http://pleconference.crowdvine.com/posts/11756623

http://www.pontydysgu.org/2010/06/the-ple2010-confernce-unkeynote/

Alec Couros: http://tinyurl.com/2docaad

Ismael Peña-López: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-3RCvE61co
Jordi Adell: http://vimeo.com/13057715
3. Sessions & Workshops – The Choice is Yours!
Although most of the sessions will be in English, the keynote on
Thursday will have simultaneous interpretation to Spanish. There will
also be three sessions of presentations in Spanish: one on Thursday
(Session 1, 10:15 – 11:30) and two on Friday; the first one is (Session 24, 12:00 – 13:15) and the second one is the Pecha Kucha session (Session 26, 14:30 – 15:45)



The session chairs should have already contacted you, if you are a
presenter. If they have not, please refer to the programme, you can
find out who is chairing your session and how to contact them.



We will have free WiFi available at all points of the venue during the event, so please
bring your laptops, netbooks, smartphones and i-devices. We want it
to be interactive, participative and innovative. Some Workshops make it
mandatory to bring your own laptop (BYOL), and who wants to be left out
of the Twitter chat anyway???

The workshop on “Audio-podcasting as self-reflection proccess within your PLE”
is a hands on workshop and is limited to twelve participants. If you
would like to participate in this workshop please sign up on the workshop form.

The workshop “Let’s work on the definition of PLE together!” is a collaborative mind mapping workshop based on Mindmeister. See more here. If you would like to participate in this workshop please set up your Mindmeister account before.
Twitter: @PLE_BCN , hashtag #PLE_BCN
4. The Sounds of the Bazaar LIVE – Join the Internet Radio
The Sounds of the Bazaar LIVE internet radio show is coming to the PLE2010 Conference. There will be two special conference shows, broadcast from the social event area from 19.30 – 20.00 on Wednesday 7 July and Thursday 8 July. Would you like to be on the radio. Just make
yourself known to our presenters. Or would you like to help in producing the show. Find Graham Attwell, Dirk Stieglitz or Joanna Turner Attwell and volunteer. Or, if you can’t get to the conference but want to stay in touch, you can tune in to the live show. Point your browser at http://radio.jiscemerge.org.uk:80/Emerge.m3u
and this will open the LIVE radio stream in your MP3 player of choice.
You can also send us your questions and comments by Twitter using the #PLE_BCN hashtag.
And to follow Sounds of the Bazaar LIVe events throughout the summer join he Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=46907374852
5. The Venue & Accommodation – all you need to know including power sockets!
- What’s the weather like in Barcelona?

- It’s warm. No rain. Sunny all day. C’mon, is Barcelona! ;)

Citilab is in Cornellà, a few minutes away from Barcelona. It has excellent communication, by Tram, Metro and trains (roughly 30 minutes from center of Barcelona using the subway, slighty less using the tram or trains – it all depends where are you staying. You can use this service to find out an estimate for your journey: http://www.tmb.cat/vullanar/en_US/vullanar.jsp ). If you are coming straight from the airport, a good idea would be to take a taxi, as it would not be expensive, and you will avoid a lot of transfers. We have lockers available at Citilab, so you can put your belongings there while you attend the conference, and then take them with you when you have time to check in at your hotel.



If you are staying in Cornellà, the NH hotel is 3 minutes away, by foot. Just
look for the huge brick building/chimney. That’s Citilab ;)



If you are staying in Barcelona, all the hotels we recommended are near a L5 (Blue line) subway station. Take the subway going to Cornellà Centre. Once there, go out of the subway (there is only one exit), and you will see the tram tracks. Cross them, and take any tram (both
lines, T1 and T2 go by Citilab). You want the Fontsanta-Fatjó stop.
Once there, you will see Citilab. You can also walk there from the subway stop, it’s around 8 minutes by foot. If you’re feeling adventurous, go out of the subway,reach the tram tracks and then turn left. What you have to do, basically, is follow the tracks. You will pass a shopping center/mall on your right, turn right as the tracks do, and walk three blocks, until you see Citilab.



Depending on where you are in Barcelona, the tram could also be an option. Just make sure
you DON’T take T3, as that one doesn’t go anywhere near Citilab. And please don’t be confused by the fact that T3 has a stop called Fontsanta. It is not Fontsanta-Fatjó. Just an unfortunate choice of name. Some of the trams have free wi-fi.

There is a last-minute deal offered by the Ayre Rosellon Hotel in Barcelona, please check the
conference website for details.

Last but not least: In Spain, power sockets match the two-prong plug popularly known as the
Europlug. The plug is ungrounded and has two round 4 mm (0.157 in) pins, which usually converge slightly towards their free ends. We will have multi-plug power strips available in most of the rooms and throughout the building, but we advise you to bring your own adapters
in case you need them.
Link to the accommodation page: http://pleconference.citilab.eu/?page_id=156

Barcelona Travel Goude: http://wikitravel.org/en/Barcelona
6. PLE_BCN Social Network – How to keep in touch & share?
We have created a crowdvine site http://pleconference.crowdvine.com where both delegates and people unable to attend the conference can congregate. Do join it, if you haven’t already. It is a nice opportunity to learn what other people are doing and identify researchers and practitioners who you might want to meet personally during the event.

Join! Now!

We encourage everyone to spread the word and write about the PLE Conference on the Web! When writing a blogpost, a Tweet, uploading photos to Flickr and videos to YouTube, saving your bookmarks or publishing any other information about the PLE Conference, please use
the tag #PLE_BCN.
Share your links on the PLE-BCN Conference in our Diigo Group!
7. Conference Badges? Design-It-Your-Self!
Initially we had thought about creating name badges for everyone, but that would mean to ’squeeze’ some of your personal information in ‘one-size-fits-all’ badge frame! Now… that would not be fair, would it? Especially when we are talking about Personal Learning Environments! So here is what we came up with:




We will not be creating name badges!!! You will get a conference pack all the same, but you will have to bring your Name badge…or whatever you decide to use/create to identify you as a PLE delegate. Yep, you got it. The goal is that you develop your personal, highly costumised Conference ID! (We are not even going to call it a badge anymore, simply because we don’t know if that is what you think you will create to represent you!)

It is in your hands to decide what your conference ID will look like, there is a prize for the most creative one.



So get cracking! :-) We look forward to all your Conference IDs ;-)
You can see some very creative badges here (Jane’s), here (Linda’s), here (Ricardo’s) and here (Wolle’s). Anything else?
8. Registration  & Conference Package – What’s in for me?

If you haven’t done it yet, please fill in the registration survey:

http://ow.ly/25HrY

The conference package includes coffee-breaks (one mid-morning, one mid-afternoon), lunch and wine+tapas on the evenings of the 7th and 8th. If you want to expand your gastronomic horizons after the conference:



In  Cornellà: for lunch or dinner, some places within walking distance of the venue/hotel are:



- Wok (In front of the NH Hotel)

- La Tagliatella, Italian restaurant, in front of the Les Aigües Museum,  Tram stop Les Aigües

- Les Aigües Museum Restaurant, inside the museum.



In Barcelona: lots of places. Some of our favourite ones:

- Catalan cuisine

  • Mil•lenari – near ‘la Sagrada Familia’. This restaurant offers a wide range on Catalan typical dishes at a reasonable price.
  • 4GATS – in the city centre. This restaurant-brewery dates back to the 19th century. It used to be the place where the intellectuals and artists of the time congregated. Today it continues to recreated that type of atmosphere. It’s an interesting place to visit.
  • Les Quinzenits – This restaurant display a wide variety of Mediterranean dishes. Good environment.
  • 7portes – Another restaurant whose tradition dates back to the 19th century. It primes for its different rooms typically decorated and its fine collection of wines. It only serves catalan food.
  • La Barraca – Tavern like restaurant from the beginning of the 20th Century. It is famous for its basque style grilled dishes (meat & fish) and cyder.
  • Tapa Tapa – Tapas restaurant. Offers a wide range of tapas from the most traditional ones such as ‘Patatas bravas’ to the modern ones such as ‘Alaska Crab tapas”
  • Mussol – Famous for its grilled dishes and its ‘esplanada’.
  • Fresco Co – “All you can eat’ restaurant. Only serves Mediterranean food
  • La Fonda – Frequented by locals, this restaurant is famous for its ’suquet de peix’ (fish soup), ‘pato con nata’ (duck with cream) and fried wallnuts with honey!

- Seafood
La Paradeta A shellfish self-service restaurant. Ideally if you like all sorts of shellfish.

- Vietnamese
Hanoi – n elegant restaurant specialized in Vietnamese cuisine, though the menu also includes a few Thai and Chinese specialities. Food is excellent and so is the service

- Tibetan:
El Racó del Sikkim – The only restaurant in Barcelona where we can taste and enjoy the cuisine from Sikkim, a small state on the North of India, close to Himalaya.

Contact

THE PLE CONFERENCE Newsletter is compiled by the PLE Organizing Commitee.
Please send any feedback, comments or suggestions to the PLE_BCN newsletter team at: plebcn@googlemail.com

For more detailed information on THE PLE CONFERENCE, please contact us at: ple2010@citilab.eu

Feel free to forward this newsletter to a person you think might be interested in the PLE Conference!

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