Reflective Blogging on Webcasts

Well, I think we could say that our English wiki course is characterized by a climax in exciting experiences! First the Tulane-Padova exchanges on skype, then the video exchange and now the webcast presentations! Each time more exciting, each time more difficult, each time something new.
As I had already mentioned in my final paper of the first semester, through this course with the excuse of practicing our English we got to know a lot of new things; and, with the excuse of concentrating on carrying out in the best way tasks we had never done before, we improve our knowledge of English without even noticing it.
This week we all had to prepare powerpoint presentations in groups of two or three on any topic we wanted, as long as a comparison between Itlay and the U.S. could be done. The topics chosen were National Celebrations, Eating Habits, Fraternities&Sororities and I, together with Svjetlana, chose to talk about Immigration. You can have a look at the slides on http://tulanepadova.pbwiki.com/FrontPage . We had a relatively short time to prepare them but we all managed to finish on time.
It was a group work and, even if Svjetlana and I did not know each other very well before this project, we had the same ideas and the same eager to get this job well done. Through the comments page on the wiki we took most of our decisions. We first gathered as much information we could on our topic and then began to draw a general outline of our presentation. Then we chose a part each and developed it making logical slides that could guide us and the audience throughout our speech. Finally, we put together our slides, corrected each others' and uniformed font and layout. But the best part still had to come!
On Monday 7th May we presented our powerpoint slides not only to our class but also to a class of advanced Italian learners of Middlebury College in the U.S. We were all nervous but really enjoyed the experience. You can listen to us at http://tulanepadova.pbwiki.com/Webcasts.
Through this experience we came once again in contact with the American people and culture. I noticed how encouraging they were towards us and how accustomed they seemed to be with this type of presentations and with the use of informatical instruments. I had the feeling they were older than us, more mature, and that they had a much bigger dedication and passion towards their university studies. It seemed to me that, contrarily to what happens in Italian universities, they have more space to express their ideas and to get into the subjects they study by working on them creatively. Perhaps here a literature teacher would have considered too foolhardy making a comparison between l'amore cortese and country music. Perhaps the teacher would be right in terms of literature criteria, but I think that intelligence is not fully fed and developed by a passive knowledge of facts; student's intelligence must be kept active through tasks which require creativity. This, in my opinion, is a part of the American university culture from which the Italian university should learn.

VIDEO SKYPE EXCHANGE

This week we experienced a new way to finish our Tulane-Padova exchange: through a videocamera!!! Oh, I wish we had done it since the very beginning, I enjoyed it very much, it was really fun!
I appreciated the whole exchange experience. Talking with the Tulane students and in particular with Bari was.. how could I define it.. interactive! I talked a lot in English about different topics and I really used this language, also because when you talk on the phone and cannot use your hands and body to communicate what you want to say, you concentrate all your effort on selecting the write words and putting them into clear sentences. I also paid as much attention possible on my pronounciation in order to be more comprehensible to native speakers. Thinking about it now, perhaps this attention on pronounciation was also a sort of natural behaviour typical of when we try to become similar to the people we have to do with. However, I really liked this experience.
I'm just a bit sorry that I really didn't do much to encourage my peer to speak in Italian. I mean, they just didn't feel very comfortable to speak in Italian and after the first two sentences they switched on to English. Perhaps, if we had had more time it could have been easier to convince them, or it could have been possible to do half of the time in English and half of the time in Italian... ?ill keep this in mind if I ever do any exchange again!
As far as this week's video exchange is concerned, as I mentioned before, it was really fun! Especially when Roberto got the microphone!!! Well, the first part of the exchange, when they talked to us about Virginia was certainly more serious. By listening to them you could understand how much this story shocked them, they really seemed to be very intimately involved with it, especially the first girl who talked. However, then we moved on from this sad and dreadful fact and asked them some questions that had to do with the topics of our presentations. We all had a very good time, we were able to see them, their faces, how they were dressed and how they gesticulated, which, in my opinion are other important factors which helped us to get to know the American culture better.

That's all, I really appreciated this experience and will always remember it as an effective way to get more into a foreign language and culture.

Isabella

REFLECTIVE BLOGGING 6

This week I still want to talk about my last skype exchange. As far as our class wiki is concerned, it's developing more and more. Our last page was on 'water resources' both in Italy and in USA. I learned a lot about the Vajont dam and the Mississippi river.
This week my skype exchange with Tulane was again with Bari..this time I asked her how they pronounce her name in America, she said it's pronounced like the word 'berry'. It was our last skype exchange because they finish university this month and next week we are going to do some sort of a collective exchange with a video too!!
However, this week Bari and I talked about her group's final presentation. They did it on recycling in Italy and presented it to an association in order to suggest some new ideas concerning recycling. In fact, as we were able to notice when we analysed this topic in class, they are having many problems with recycling because of the hurricane Katrina. So we mainly talked about how they organized their collaborative work and their presentation. Then I told her about what topic my group was thinking to analyse for our final presentations (immigration) and she gave me the name of an important corporation of the US which looks forward to prohibit illegal immigration in America. It is called 'minuteman'. I searched for more information about it on the Internet and perhaps I'll talk about it in my final presentation.
Moreover, we talked a little about water resources in the US and in Itlay. She told me about the dangerous floods of the Mississippi in New Orleans and this is why I decided to talk about this river in the 'Water resources in the US' page.
That's about it for the moment!

Isabella

REFLECTIVE BLOGGING 5

Last week we had another skype exchange with our American peers. This week I talked with Bari, with whom I had talked already two or three weeks ago. We talked a lot..most of our conversation was done in English!
First of all we talked about easter because I wanted her to tell me what they usually do in Easter during this period.. but she is jewish!!! So it was me who talked for a while about what we do here in Italy and she seemed to be interested.
Then we started talking a little about alternative energy sources and also about recycling. Differently from what my last American peer had said to me, Bari said there are some solar pannels in her city, and above all near the highway.
Then we talked a lot about a hobby we have in common, e.i. going to visit new countries, and she talked to me about the ones she liked best. After talking to her my will to go to visit Russia grew even more!
In the end we talked a little about what kind of job we would like to do in the future and also about universtity and some differences between Italy and USA in the years of university.
I had a good time and liked this last exchange because we were able to touch many different topics in just about half an hour.
Lets see how the next one is going to be!
bye,
Isabella

REFLECTIVE BLOGGING 4

I have just finished with my last editings on the 'Alternative energy sources' pages and I'm exhausted!! I mean, the work we have to do to look for information, read it and then reformulate it, is hard work..but it's nothing compared to what you have to suffer when waiting in front of your computer for that pink rectangle to disapear!!!..I mean the one that says: "X is currently editing this page but has been for more than five minutes (really 1000000 minutes)..."; this is a real pain!! Without mentioning when you do your part at the beginning of the week and then go back to see how the page is developing on Friday, and you can't find your part anymore...because it finished at the end of the page withput any reason!!!
Of course, these are all things we can survive with..I just needed to write it down and joke a little about it.
The skype exchange this week was fun. Alice and I talked for more than half an hour with Laura. To say the truth we didn't talk a lot about alternative energy sources...we spent most of our time talking about fraternities, which she called just "frats", and sororities. She told us how they work in Tulane and how expensive they are (this is the main reason why Laura decided to stop being part of a sorority after one semester). Moreover, she told us what she had done during her spring break and was very pleased to answer to our questions.
In the end we talked a little about biomass and solar energy. She told us that where she lives she has absolutely never seen any solar pannel! We also talked about our behaviour towards a responsible usage of energy and found out that, even if she too tries to be careful, perhaps we are a little more careful than she is. I'm looking forward to the next exchange!

lsabella

REFLECTIVE BLOGGING 3

This week at our wiki course we finished our Recycling pages and talked about culture and Intercultural competence. The recycling work on our page this time consisted in putting together neatly what we had all written and perhaps add something more. I looked through Sarah's corrections and modified my pieces of writing and then I also added some things here and there. I edited very little of the content, I modified much more of the grammar and then I also put some of the things I had written inside somone else's paragraphs where they fit better than before.
Then we had to do with intercultural competence and culture in general. I had a great time getting to know the different ways of thinking of different cultures and now I just had a look at the website on the differences on power distance and uncertainty avoidance.. the results pretty much were what I thought they would be. Reading the pages we were given I had the chance to get an overall vision on culture and intercultural competence..and I think I will try and read some more about it as soon as I have some time. In the meantime, I'll try to learn as much as possible about the American culture through the Skype exchange and the information gathered on recycling and alternative energy.

Isabella

REFLECTIVE BLOGGING 2

Today I want to stop and think about my English imrovements thanks to my knew English course. The course has just begun a few weeks ago but I feel already the importance of it for my English. In my opinion this course, thanks to the exchanges with real American students of our age, is just the best way to practice spoken English. With other people of our age we feel more free to speak in a foreign language and the fact that they are native speakers is positive because they can correct us whenever we say something wrong, just like we do when they speak in Italian.
Moreover, the fact of working on the same topics allows us to see the differences between the uses and costumes of our countries and, therefore, this lets us now each others cultures better. This is great.