Dear friends,

After a very difficult and exhausting year, here is the latest news
from this side of the world:

I have finally decided to give myself some time by asking for a
sabbatical year at Franco-Brazilian school (24 years non-stop)
<http://www.43things.com/entries/view/371106>
Although I will not be teaching my classes f2f every morning, I am
planning to devote lots of my time further exploring e-learning
possibilities, networking and informal learning using different
technologies. I have not yet painted my hair blue like in Second Life
but both Bee and Bee Kerouac intend to hit the open road this
year.<http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=UlwLAEzHBcg>

I start right after Christmas on December 26th, by flying to
Australia, invited by Alex H. and Rose R. from the TALO (Teach and
Learn Online) community. I will spend about a month there getting to
know the country and culture, meeting and talking to the different
people of the Australian flexible network I have met through their
blogs, the list , SL and a series of online events . OZ Webheads get
into action and let me know where you are so we can also get together
and talk! I am also planning to attend the Linux Conference in
Melbourne at the end of the month.

While travelling, I will be moderating the Social Media in ELT 6-week
EVO session <http://dekita.org/smielt> and weaving it to the FLNW2
(The Future of Learning in a Networked World) event
<http://learningnetworkedworld.blogspot.com/>, during which we will be
exploring, experimenting and reflecting on how these new technologies
open the possibility for different groups and individuals to
collaborate in cross-cultural projects around the world - something
the WiA all know a lot about :-). I will be holding a session to
give an outline of how this may happen at the Blogstreams Salon at
Tappedin <http://tappedin.org> on Sunday January 6th 21 GMT (8 am on
Monday in Sydney), which you are all invited to join.

As soon as I come back, I will be participating in the Campus Party
Brasil <http://www.campus-party.com.br/>, lending a hand in workshops
for public school teachers.
In April, I am planning to use my hard-earned miles to attend and
discuss Social Media in ELT at the NY Tesol conference and from then
onwards...we will see what comes my way :-)

And here - a special X-mas post for Teresa, my Portuguese twin (as
John Hibbs affectionately calls us) : http://dekita.org/
Wishing you a peaceful and joyful holiday season and hoping 2008 will
make our dreams come true.
Warm regards from Brazil,
Bee

--
Barbara Dieu
http://dekita.org
http://beewebhead.net