"...the time is coming..."

Dear guys...

It's seemed one year ago that I did't write you someting and so I want to apologise for having abandoned this blog for a long period, but exams have started and the time to spent to this wornderful activity is not much... (as many of you have already noticed in their blogs!!!).

I'm a little bit nervous this week... on Thursday I have my last exams of this section: Global Comunication... It's quite nice, but the amount of notions to learn by heart is too much and I'm extremely tired too to feel quite and secure... so.. sorry for my brief disappearance, but I promise you that I will come back as soos as possible...



Good luck for you exams...

SEE YOU SOON

Hi Guys!!!

How are you??

First of all I want to wish you all HAPPY NEW YEAR, and a wonderful 2008!!!

Secondly I must to apologize being completely disappeared during the last two weeks, but I decided not to work on my computer during this Christmas holidays, taking time to relax and thinking about my next future. But I must to confess that miss you a bit. I'm used to check blogger every day to read your messages and it became a pleasant habit.
I spent wonderful and relaxing holidays, doing practically nothing. I stayed at home, with my parents and grandparents, and what is more, I spent a lot of time with my closer friends. During the last year we spent little time together because our studies or jobs, so, during these holidays, we decided to make up for lost time and meet together anytime it was possible. It was great!!!!
I had the possibility to restore my mind and "recharge batteries" too, so now I'm
I just read one Laura's post, where she suggested us to send each other our mails for better making feedbacks of our last activity. I think, it's a wonderful idea; I write here my mail, so please, write to m a comment with yours.
Hearing from you soon.

Bye Bye

ps: lino.squaquara@tin.it

During our last lesson in the Lab, Sarah talked to us about the PLE (Personal Learning Environment). Luckily for us, it's not a tool or another technological "engine" provided but the Net! No, it doesn't. As Sarah explained, it's simply an idea, a kind of project that a group of researchers developed to help students thinking about "new approaches to using technologies for learning".

According to these studies (Cross, 200) the majority of what we learn is "informal learning" (80%); it means that this process takes place outside institutional contexts in different periods and in different way of anyone's life. Every kind of learning (language learning as in our case, but there are other innumerable things to learns) takes place in different contexts and situations, and I think that it's completely wrong to limit our knowledge in a "formal learning".

Therefore, it's time for me to start thinking about the ways I used to learn languages up to now and organized my previous experiences in an orderly manner.
Therefore of my PLE (see the ink below) is divided in 5 categories with are, more or less, the 5 main contexts where I usually come in contact with languages in a "incidental way"(sorry or this expression; I'm not so sure if it's correct in this context!). There are:

Contacts;
Materials;
Experiences;
Self-production;
Personal curiosity.

Each of these groups has several "subgroups" and some of them are then repeated in other categories. This means that the PLE is not a static and close scheme of learning skills, but an "attempt" to link experiences and tools for learning together in a structured way.

Anyway, in my opinion, the most important "category" among these I select, is the one called "contacts". I think that, especially for foreign languages the best way to learn something is oral practice. Grammar rules are useful only at the beginning but only with a constant interaction with the foreign culture; the learner can test himself and improve his language abilities.

How to judge online sources???

Hi guys!!!
Luckily this week in our e-tivity we won’t learn how to use a new tool but we will have time to restore our poor minds and reflect on and discuss what criteria we use to evacuate the “almost limitless amount of information” we have come across on the Internet during our previous e-tivities. Usually when I need to research something; I prefer to use Internet because it’s easier and it “will give you absolutely everything”. But, on the other hand, I perfectly know that when you decide to work on Internet you must be aware that you have to make more efforts that with a simple research in the library.

First of all you have to select and “filter” information you really need from others that are simply “rubbish”. Then you have to pay attention to the authenticity of the materials and check if what you find out inside the blogsphere is true or not. So, at the beginning, the fir step you have to do is “the judgement of online sources” and after that you can take them as the main material for your works. I liked too much reading a definition, which I found in Internet, which compared the “evaluation sources” as a kind of DETECTIVE WORK!!!
What about me, I haven’t any strategies to filter information from the Net, but I tend to be more critical as possible in my readings. Most depends on what kind of information one is looking for. If I’m looking for facts, historical events or news reports, I think that some sites or sources need not to be checked because they are so popular and well-known that anyone could trust them – I’m referring to sites as the BBC or the CNN networks or the site of “Il Corriere della Sera”. I think that no one could doubt the validity of the materials that these sources presents (I mean, I’m speaking about the validity of the site and not whether the content is right or not; that’s another crucial point!).

On the other hand, if I’m looking for personal opinions about a specific topic, further researches or studies about an issue or simply out of curiosity, I tent to check the author and the publisher. The way in which information is presented is important as well; it should be accompanied with a list of further explanations or with an updated bibliography on that topic.

Anyway, in my opinion, the most important thing when someone search something online is to have a lot of patience and to read the more s possible about that particular topic; in this way one has the possibility to compare different opinions, noticing points in common or in contrast, so finally one can chose properly.

YouTube

I'm thinking about a way to describe our English course and the first image that flashes through my mind is a kind of jigsaw. Every week in the lab we have added a new piece to this jigsaw and during the last lesson we definitely completed the work with the final piece: YouTube!!!

I think that anyone, who has even the smallest experience of computer, has visited this site at least one time in his life. YouTube is the largest on line videos sharing tool and maybe the fastest-growing tool on Web 2.0. In my opinion YouTube is a distinct site from the others that you can fine in the Net, with the only difference that all the information you need are given by videos or images and not only in written form.

In YouTube you can really find whatever you want: videos that inform you on what's going on in the world, videos that you can use to learn something or even practice English (as in our case), and videos that you can watch just to have fun or to relax.

But, if on one hand this huge amount of material represents a great potential for YouTube's development, on the other hand it's its great limit too; because of when you open YouTube you're literally overwhelm of everything, what it is difficult and "danger" is to be able to filter and select what is useful to your purposes from what are simply "rubbish".

As regards our English purpose (if YouTube is really useful to improve English skill) I totally answer: YES, IT CAN!!!
First of all the majority of videos you find surfing the YouTube are in English and so you can "dive" into English language in an easy way. Then, I think that you can learn more if the information you need are accompanied by videos and images; they will remain better engraved in your memory if you learn them by having fun!!!

I decided to add a couple of videos to my blog to show you how opposite things one can find in YouTube:

The first one is just to relax, after this exhausting experience on the Net. It's a little scene, taken by the movie "Pride and Prejudice" that is the film that by far I love the most. It's the moment when Mr.Darcy proposes to Elizabeth Bennet for the second time and she finally accepts.
How a romantic scene!!!




The second it's one of the innumerable videos that I found searching for "Learning English". It's from MadridTeacher and this man gives us some good advices to improve each own English level.



Look at those videos... they are very interesting!!!
Bye bye guys!!!

WITH PODCAST YOU CAN !!!

This time it wasn't so difficult to understand what the new tool, introduced by Sarah during the Lab's lesson, is and how it is supposed to be used.
At last, "podcast" has joined our BloggingEnglish and it has already produced it positive effects.

But, what is a PODCAST??

It's a multimedia file (audio or video) distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds. These files can be downloaded onto computers and mobile devices, like mp3 players, so that we can listen to and watch the podcast whenever and wherever we want. I already knew what a podcast is before the lesson of last week, because my "hi-tech" friends shown me this wonderful tool sometime ago and try to explain how to use it as well. But, I want to be sincere... up to now I've never thought about the possibility to use podcast to improve my English skills, downloading English materials. And now, while I'm surfing the net, I'm discovering huge and incredible numbers of sites and podcasts to practice my listening skills. I want to share this material with us. Here below I describe 3 podcast that most have caught my attention:

1. The first is the BBC's podcast, I have already use it when I created my personal social bookmarking; however, I think that this site is multifunctional. In my opinion every English student should download in his mp3 player a "radio" in English to constantly be informed about what happens around the world. Its URL is http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/globalnews/;
2. Then I was curious about the fact that some Universities, like Stanford or Duke in the United States, as Sarah informed us, offer many lectures online in the form of podcast. So I try to visit one of their sites, and... Surprise, surprise... it's true!!! Entering in those sites, you can download courses, faculty lectures, interviews, music and sports and than play this material onto your iPod or pc. Think a minute about that... it's great!!! You have the possibility to follow in videoconference, lessons or other activities and to see how foreign universities work...oh, oh...stop a second... my head is spinning!!! The URL is http://itunes.stanford.edu/;
3. And finally I decide to find some useful podcasts to improve my English pronunciation. Many times I find myself in difficulties because I don't know how a word must be exactly pronounced. So, don't worry... now podcast can make your English study easier and quicker. One of those sites is http://howjsay.com/. (I've noticed that also Alberto, one of my peers chose it. Well-done, Alberto!!)
   

Social Bookmarking

SOCIAL BOOKMARKING: is it really useful???

Dear guys,
Another lesson in the lab, another adventure inside the blogsphere, so now I can definitely say that this English course is a sort of "work in progress", which is serialized week by week. We have started three weeks ago with the surfing on the blogsphere, then we created our personal blogs, next week there was the discover of feed aggregators and this week we can add another word in our technical English dictionary: Social Bookmarking!!!
As feed aggregators, I've never heard about bookmarking before and so, when Sarah pronounced these words for the first time last Wednesday, I could hardly figure out what she was talking about.
But I must to be sincere; after her explanation too, ideas in my mind didn't become clearer! Maybe because she compared "bookmarking" with the most common Italian tool " Preferiti", and this is exactly the problem: I have never used it before and I didn't know its purpose, so you can clearly understand that at that moment my mind still continued to be blank.
After the same old problems with registration and confirmation, I started to manage this new tool and I have to admit that I was, and I'm still sceptical about its usefulness. I mean, I used to write down in pieces of paper the URLs of interesting websites I found on the web and for me this is the easier way "to build up a repository of information and websites"- as Sarah wrote in a post. Maybe I have to gain more experience with "bookmarking" and I'm still waiting to see its advantages in my English improvements, but up to now, "social bookmarking" remains a sort of "blackhole" in the universe of my mind.
Concerning my classmates' choices, I've notice that they are more or less related to English learning, as mine. The website we have selected more is the BBC's one, and it's used for various tags, such us sport, English listening, media, networks and so on. It's a multifunctional and updated site and we agree with the fact that it doesn't miss to our social bookmarking.
However, I've noticed that none of my classmates decided to add to their tags some online English Dictionaries. I believe that they are essential tools for every student.
Anyway, now I'm curious to know what will be our step inside the blogsphere and I hope I will be easier to manage and understand that the last one.

See you soon!!!!