It is already the 4th edition of the Mindanao Bloggers Summit but it is my first time to attend such event. It was held at Zamboanga City on October 29-31, 2010. I didn't know what to expect from the event. My boss just instructed me to attend and get some information we can use in Iligan. On the first day, a Blogging Seminar was scheduled at Ateneo de Zamboanga University. I was thinking this could just be an introduction to blogging, for beginners. When we arrived at the venue, the seminar already started and most of the participants are students. There were also a few teachers who attended.
The first speaker was Ryann Z. Elumba, lead convenor of the 4th Mindanao Bloggers Summit. He talked about what blogging is. Some information I already know from my attendance to a blogging seminar in Manila last year. I told myself, "yeah you know them already, but you are not applying it still." And it made me smile and ask myself how many times do I need to attend seminars to be able to religious apply the techniques and religiously post in my blog. So, I listened on.
After sir Ryann's lecture, he showed us a video of Ms. Janette Toral, the author of Blogging from Home and www.DigitalFilipino.com She was supposed to be one of the speakers but could not make it so she just sent a video giving her message to the participants.
The second speaker was Ericson Alieto, a faculty member at Western Mindanao State University. He discussed Blogging for Education. This topic was really new to me. I was amazed to know that they already started using the blogging format in teaching their students. They have found a way to motivate the students into acquiring knowledge, which for most of them are boring stuffs but when delivered in a different medium - the internet - the students' interest to the subject changed. They are now more responsive and more eager to learn and discuss. While listening to the lecture of sir Eric, I thought of Iligan City and said, "is this teaching method already in our schools?". I have to find out when I get home.
The first speaker in the afternoon was Yolynne Medina of eLearning Centre, Inc. Her topic was about "Conquering the Net in 140 characters" which is actually the use Twitter. :-) 140 characters is the number of characters allowed when posting messages. I could think of it as a cellphone- the old models which has a limit of 150 characters. It was a short talk but an informative one specially for those who have not yet used Twitter or just started using it, like me. ;-) And I like the way Yolynne presented it. Simple yet catchy because of the graphics.
The second speaker was Oliver "Blogie" Robillo from Davao City, founder of the Mindanao Bloggers Community created in 2007. He talked about web publishing in Wordpress. I have first learned of Wordpress last March 2009 when I attended a Problogging workshop in Manila with Abe Olandres. I started creating my blog about Theory of Constraints in Iligan City using Wordpress. But when I attended Jomar Hilario's internet marketing workshop in September 2009, I shifted to Blogger to try earning a semi-passive income since Wordpress does not support Google Adsense advertisements, but Blogger does. :-) Sorry po Sir Blogie, hehe.
The second and last speaker was Avelmar Manansala from General Santos. He talked about Place/Locality Blog. This is a blog which focuses on promoting a locality, your own community. In his case it is General Santos City. His blog URL is www.GenSantos.com - GenSan's News Online Magazine. He talked on how blogging has changed people's perspective of General Santos. He blogs on everything good happening to General Santos - new businesses, celebrities performing, the best food to eat, the best place to stay, etc. And the biggest effect of blogging so far, is that General Santos (together with Cagayan de Oro and Davao City) has been excluded in the French, Japanese and Canadian Travel Advisories in June 2010. Which made me think, Iligan City has to have those kind of blogs too since many are also hesitant to visit Iligan because of the peace and order situation in the neighboring communities. So, my first project before the year ends is to improve the iligan tourism website which me and my husband has been currently developing.
After a very inspiring talk from sir Avel, we had a photoshoot of the group - participants from Davao City, General Santos City, Iligan City and Zamboanga City. We waited for the arrival of Ms. Aileen Apolo-de Jesus of Google Philippines and proceeded to a mini-city tour. And that would be another post. :-)
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