EXAMS AND PAPERS

Hi everybody!

Today I am going to write a short post on my last university exams. In these days, I am quite busy because I have not only to study for the exams, but also to write three (!) papers. As I already said in other posts, I like writing but it takes me an awful amount of time to write papers for the university courses.

I always spend a lot of time reading things that often in the end are not even usefulJ. Moreover, I always tend to re-read and correct the paper at least one hundred times, before I am satisfied… Actually to say the truth, I am never really satisfied, but that’s me and I can’t do anything about it;-).

Anyway, I will try to do my best and as these are the last exams of my university career, I’m particularly motivated!!!

Susanne

Blogging English Course & Tulane-Padova Wiki Course

Hi everybody!

Today, I downloaded this pictures from my camera and when I looked at them I started to feel a little sad. Last week, after our English lesson nearly all of our class (unfortunately, Alice could not come because she had to work) and Sarah went to a bar in the city center to have a drink and chat a little. It was our last lesson and for most of us it was not only the last English lesson, but also the last lesson in general.

It is very hard to describe my feelings. On the one hand, I always wanted to finish my university studies as soon as possible, but on the other hand it is really strange to think that I won’t attend courses in October anymore. I still have to write my thesis, but it is not the same as sitting with other students in a classroom and taking notes. I think I am soon going to miss the lesson!!!!


Susanne March

MY PERSONAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

This week, we were asked to think about our personal learning environment, in other words, to reflect upon the tools and the processes we use to learn. Usually, when we think of learning and study the first things that come to our mind are classrooms and teacher. However, it is important to bear in mind that learning means more than that. Learning is a lifelong process and we learn something new everyday. We live and learn using different tools.

It is important to critically reflect upon the different tools we use in our learning process in order to exploit them effectively and in an appropriate way. As Sarah suggested, I used the software FreeMind and created a mind map of my PLE. First, I had a look at Sarah’s first draft and at Michelle’s mind map and afterwards I divided the different tools and sources I came up with into similar categories as Sarah and Michelle did.

A little description of my mind map:
In order to create a clear and well arranged mind map I tried to answer some fundamental questions:

1. Where does the information come from?
I realized that I gather information from texts such as books, e-mails, blogs, newspapers, etc, from audio files such as pod casts and CDs and from video files. Moreover, I listed the tools that I use to gather information, for example google, wikipedia, online dictionaries, etc. and I also listed the people which inform me.

2. What do I do with this information?
When something interests me, I underline parts of the text or I take some notes. In some cases I summarize the main points and discuss the pieces of information with someone.

3. What do I do with what I have learnt?
After our weekly tasks of the two English courses, I write on my blog about the new experiences. This is actually a good way to become aware of the things we have learnt during the week. Moreover, for many courses I have to write papers and give presentations or else to do an exam.

Finally, I tried to identify my formal learning environment which can be said to be university courses, workshops, conferences and tutorials.

Creating a mind map of my PLE, was useful in order to see and become aware of how I learn. It is now possible for me to use these tools in a more conscious way and to expand my learning environment in the future.

Susanne

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Reflective Blogging on webcasts

About three weeks ago, we started to prepare our final presentation for the English course. I decided to work together with Maria Chiara and Alice and we chose the topic fraternities in the USA and goliardia in Italy. We were really enthusiastic about the topic and the following day we started to surf the web searching for useful information. We came up with a lot of interesting material and pictures and we started to prepare our PowerPoint presentation.

After to weeks and a good deal of work, we finally completed our work: our presentation was ready. That was the moment when I started to get a bit nervous also because we had to give the presentation not only in front of our classmates, but also to some American students who were listening to us online. This was possible using a new technology, so-called webcasts. Webcasts are online presentations where you can here the voice of the people who give the presentation and see their slides on your screen.


I have to admit, that I was a bit scared and nervous at the beginning, but when the first group gave their presentation, I realized that we couldn’t see the American students and they couldn’t interrupt us, so that it could seem a presentation just in front of our classmates and that made me feel less nervous.


At the end of every presentation, every student had the opportunity to ask questions and give feedback. It was a very nice part and I appreciated that the American students asked a lot of questions because this demonstrated that they were listening to us and that they understood what we were talking about; that means that our presentations were probably not that bad.:-) Moreover, it was very encouraging to see comments like brava, perfect, etc. on the screen while we were talking.


I think webcasts are interesting tools and we can exploit them in two ways that is, give presentations and also listen to presentations given by native speakers and improve consequently our language skills. Moreover, it is very useful to get feedback from people who do not know you, because they are probably more objective and honest. Another advantage of using webcasts is the fact that the presentations are recorded and archived.


I enjoyed this experience and I think I will listen to other presentations in the future.


Susanne

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EduTech Wiki vs Tulanepadova Wiki

Last week, our task was it to contribute to a public wiki (EduTech Wiki on educational technologies). In my eyes, it was a great experience because I contributed actively in the process of worldwide information sharing. In other words, I wrote something that might be useful and interesting for other people.


On Monday, I usually attend the wiki course, that is a lesson in which we develop wikipages on different topics. Every member of the group contributes to the different pages and we always come up with a lot of interesting information. At the beginning, it was difficult to structure the pages in an appropriate way, but we soon started to improve our skills.


We realized that, in order to avoid repetitions and annoy the readers, it is very important to read what the peers have written before. This basic rule was fundamental for the contribution to the public wik,i as well: I first read carefully what others had already written and than added new pieces of information.


One big difference between our university wiki and the public wiki is certainly the audience. I think most of us have (consciously or unconsciously) a certain readership in mind when they write something. When I do my contribution to the university wiki page I know that, with a few exceptions, only my teacher and classmates are going to read what I have written. This does not mean that I work less, but I know that if they do not understand something they can always ask for further explanations. This not possible when you write on a public wiki, as the readership is much larger and you have to write in such a way that it can be understood by the majority of the readers. In order to achieve this aim, I sent an e-mail with the my contribution to two fiends of mine and asked them about their opinion. This was a good way of getting useful feedback. In addition, our classmates gave us useful tips of how to improve the page.


I have to say that I learned a lot about wikis during this semester attending the wiki lessons and now I am even able to contribute to a public wiki and share information in an active way. To sum up, the most important thing is it to keep in mind the readership, trying to explain the ideas in a clear and structured way. Moreover, things are much more easier if someone gives you feedback.

It was a nice experience

Susanne

Reflective Blogging 6

Wow this week it is easy to do the reflective blogging. Unfortunately we did the last skype exchange and I am quite sad about that, because I really liked it to do this exchanges and I think they were very useful in order to improve our language skills and our cultural knowledge.

The good thing about our last skype exchange was that we did the exchange with a video camera, that meant that we could see each other!!! I really wanted to participate in this last exchange and when I finished my exam (I had an exam this day) I hurried up in order to make it to lesson. It was fun! As I wrote in the last posts I talked to different people during the skype exchange and it was so nice to see what they look like!!! It is always nice when you are able to associate a face to a voice, I think.

Obviously it was a bit strange and when we had to talk I felt quite nervous and not that comfortable because we had to talk in front of the whole class. Anyway, a part from blushing and experiencing some embarrassing seconds, I really enjoyed it :-)! If I was a teacher I would organize skype exchanges, they are fantastic!!! Thank you sooooooo much, Sarah! (I know that we should not address the reflective blogging to somebody but I couldn’t hold my horses:-))

Today, I surfed the net looking for a picture of the Tulane University and I was really impressed by the pictures. The university is sooooooooo beautiful. It looks like a building in a Harry Potter film. Well, it is better not to write anything about the comparison between the universities from a aesthetical point of view...:-)) I'm joking, I would never complain about my University... On the contrary, I have to say that the video camera worked very well and we had no technical problems during the exchange!

Susanne

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Reflective Blogging 5

The next Skype Exchange will be the last one and therefore I want to write about this experience. When we did the first Skype exchange, I was quite nervous because I did not really know what to say to a person that I had never met before. It was a strange feeling. “What if everything goes wrong? What if I cannot utter a word? What if the other person asks me a lot of questions which I cannot answer?” These were basically the thoughts that crossed my mind when I entered the classroom (I’m not that pessimistic normally – I just had a bad day).

I started to talk to my classmates and I realized that they felt quite the same way. We logged in on Skype, creating a new account and talked about the questions to ask our American peers. “If I don’t know what to say I’ll read one of those questions,” I thought.

Finally, they were calling us. “Hello?” “Hello can you hear me?” “I’m Nichole.” “Hi Nichole, I’m Susanne!” Surprisingly, it was not difficult and she sounded really nice. I suddenly felt at ease and had no more doubts about what to say. It was just an enjoyable conversation between two girls of the same age talking about their different life experiences. I nearly forgot about the questions…;-)

After this first skype exchange I brimmed over with enthusiasm for having had the opportunity to speak with a native speaker for almost one hour. It was an amazing experience. We left the classroom, but we went on talking about what we had learnt from our American peers. We all enjoyed this first exchange.

The following week, I had to attend another class and could not participate in the Skype exchange. I was very sorry about it. While most of my class mates talked to the same person every week, I had a new peer every week. I did not mind to change every time, because I enjoyed talking to different people and getting to know different points of view.

Now, I am looking forward to the last Skype exchange. We will do the last exchange all together as there will be a web cam and we will be able to see each other! I really hope I will be able to attend this lesson. I have to do an exam on Monday and, as it is oral, I do not know how long it takes me to finish, but I will do my best.

Susanne

I took this picture last september in my hometown

Reflective Blogging 4

Here we are again!!:-)
This time I post my thoughts quite late, because I had some trouble with my computer at home. It is not always easy for me to surf the net when I stay in Padova because I do not have Internet access in my flat. :-( Therefore I usually use the computer at university during the week. However, this weekend I stayed with my parents in Bolzano and as they have a brand new computer my brother (who thinks that he is a computer expert) had to install the new programms and made a mess... . I had to call a friend of mine who finally was able to fix up everything. This week, it will be difficult to use the computer, too because I have to study a lot. I have an exam next Monday and therefore it will be more difficult to surf the net frequently but I will certainly do my best:-).

Last week, we were talking about water resources in Italy and I did a search on the web. I found many interesting sites and learned a lot of new things. I like the fact that during this English course on one hand, I improve my language skills and on the other my general education. It is a good and pleasant way of learning. Moreover, we use the computer a lot and I have to say that I was a bit scared at the beginning because I am not that good at using computers but I realized that it is not that difficult and sometimes I feel like a real computer expert.:-))

Susanne

My YouTube experience

YouTube is a very interesting tool. I first used it some months ago because a friend of mine published a video and told me to have a look at it. I first thought that there were only few videos and did not realize that it works like a search engine, in the sense that you just have to write in the keywords that interest you and a list of videos appears. These days, I watched a lot of videos, most of them were just funny, but others were really interesting.

I think YouTube can in some way replace television because you can choose what you want to see and people publish many things that were first shown on television. Moreover, it gives you the opportunity to watch videos in foreign languages and is therefore a useful tool to improve our language skills. The only problem using YouTube for me is that I get easily lost because when I do not know what exactly I am looking for I watch a lot of dull videos.

I found one video that particularly interested me. It is called "Crazy shirt folding" and when I saw it I was very surprised about the fact that actually there is another way to fold t-shirts. I did never think about it and I was really fascinated by this discovery because I love to find out new things about other cultures and I think it is extremely interesting to know that cultural background affects small things in everyday life.

Susanne

P.S. I tried to fold my shirts this way: it works perfectly and it is faster. Let me know what you think about it.

YouTube

Reflective Blogging 3

During the last skype exchange I talked together with Maria Chiara to an American boy whose name is Anthony. At the beginning, it was a bit difficult because sometimes we interrupted each other but after a few minutes the conversation was fluent and we had a lot of fun! Anthony told us about fraternities (he belongs to one but could not tell us about the initiation which seems to be top secret), about spring break and American culture. As I pointed out last week, I think that these skype exchanges are great and very useful because apart from speaking in English we learn a lot of things.

We have been dealing with the topic renewable energy for two weeks and I have to say that there were many things I did not know before we started to create the Alternative Energy Resources in Italy and in the USA pages and before our skype exchange. One issue that particularly interested me is the use of ethanol as an alternative fuel. We talked about it with Anthony and afterwards I surfed the net looking for useful information and wrote something about it on the wiki page.

I read what my classmates wrote and I think that we came up with a lot of interesting stuff. In this sense, collaborative writing is very productive and creative because as we all have different ideas, we write different things in a different way. However, I realized that people often write very interesting things but do not care about the form. In my opinion the form is important in a wiki page because, in order to attract the reader’s attention the page should be coherent and well structured. Moreover, if we collaborate respecting each others ideas we are able to create fantastic pages.

Susanne

My impressions of my new experience with feed aggregators

“Oh no, we have to explore another new tool!!! Last time it took me sooooooooooo long to understand how del.icio.us works. Hopefully, it will be easier this time! Ok, it seems not that difficult…I think I am able to follow Sarah’s explanation…?!?! Nooooooooo, what the hell does feed aggregator mean?!?!”.

Above I wrote down the thoughts that entered my mind last Tuesday, when we started to talk about bloglines. It was not easy to understand how del.icio.us works, and now, that we finally became more or less accustomed to use it, we have to explore a new tool. Do not misunderstand me, I really like the fact that we learn many useful things during our English course but I was a little worried that I may not understand immediately how bloglines works. However, this time it was not that difficult, because we managed to explore the tool during lesson and Sarah’s explanation was very clear.

My computer knowledge is improving day by day and I am very happy about that. Discovering bloglines this week was great! It is a very useful and practical instrument: you do not have to go to your favorite websites and check them out everyday but you get informed when new information is added. Websites which are regularly updated offer the possibility to subscribe to their site and consequently news aggregators visit the site and collect new information for you. This way you save time and energy. Moreover, bloglines offers the possibility to create playlists, that is, to give the blogs and websites you saved a ordered structure.

I subscribed to various sites, such as National Geographic, Delicious, Rolling Stone, etc. and I added all of my peers’ blogs. One interesting site I subscribed is The New York Times; if you subscribe you will be able to choose from a huge list the topics that interest you. Finally, I enjoyed exploring bloglines and it was easier than last time:-).

Susanne

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Social bookmarking

According to wikipedia social bookmarking is “a web-based service to share Internet bookmarks”. The word “share” has a central importance in this definition: people collect internet addresses, that they find interesting and share these links. This way, it is possible to build up a list of useful links about one topic and to collaborate with a group of people with the same interests.

To be honest, I have to say that until last Monday, I did not know what social bookmarks are. However, as the purpose of our English course for this week is to start social bookmarking, I had a look at the del.icio.us website searching for information and I discovered that social bookmarking is a useful tool in order to filter information on the Internet. The Internet is full of websites on very different topics and it is possible to find information about almost everything one can think of. If you do not really know what you are looking for you risk to go mad:-/. Therefore, every additional help a part from search engines (which everybody knows how to use) is important and facilitates searches.

Finally, I managed to create my own list of bookmarks:-). I used the search engine google to find websites of interest which involve the topic of language learning and writing. Obviously, I had to read a lot of boring stuff before I came across some websites that really interested me. I chose the most interesting sites and wrote brief summary of these pages. Now, my list is ready and I share my bookmarks online:-)).

I really appreciated the bookmarks my classmates chose: some of them are very useful for students who study English as a second language. Below, I will list some of the most interesting links.
-Tania, Elena and Ilaria suggested one site that shows common errors in English and is useful because the student becomes aware of the primary difficulties in learning English.
-Alessandra T. and Alexandra saved the pages Englishpage.com and VOANews.com to their bookmarks. These sites provide lisenting resources to help advanced English learners to improve their English.
-Martina came across one site that particularly interested me. I like the online etymology dictionary as I love to investigate where the words come from.
-Moreover, Alida suggested the website englishclub.com, that provide lots of materials and suggestions to learn and teach English.
-A funny way of discovering and learning about the differences between American and British English is the American's guide to speaking British I found in Elena's bookmarks.
-Alessandra P. saved the Gossary of ideomatic English Expressions to her bookmarks wich might be helpful for English learners when they come accross ideomatic expressions while reading other people's blogs, for example.
My classmates discovered other useful websites which deal with writing. These websites are very interesting because they can be helpful when I have to write my thesis, on my blog but also my curriculum vitae. Erica suggested a website wich provides CV samples and tips about how to write a good CV, Viola found a site which can help you to improve your public speaking skills, and Ilaria discovered a page that can help you to improve your writing skills.

Finally, sharing bookmarks online is very useful and, as you can see, thanks to social bookmarking I came across very interesting and useful webpages! I want to thank all my classmates for the great job they did!:-) It is great to share information:-))

Susanne

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Reflective Blogging 2

Alternative Energy Sources

First of all, I realized that last week, I talked about reflective blogging, but I did not really explain what I meant and what it is, so I will do it now:-).

Our English course is devided into two parts. One course is about bloginng and the blogsphere and in the other we do a Skype exchange with students from the Tulane University, New Orleans. Normally, we attend one course during the fist semester and the other one during the second semester. As I was studying in Madrid last semester I could not attend the English course in Padua and that is precisely the reason why I am attending both of the courses this semester:-).

In the Skype Exchange course Sarah (our English teacher) asked us to write, each week, about our experiences, thoughts and about what we have learned in class on our blog. This activity is called 'reflective blogging' and I will do it regularly:-)! I like this task, because we are supposed to write freely and not to worry that much about grammar and spelling (that is always good news for the student, isn't it?):-))

The topic we deal with this week, is alternative energy. I always thought that I was quite well informed about that issue but when I started to look for information in the net, I realized that there were quite a lot of things that I did not know. There are a lot of alternative energy resources. I was surprised about how many organizations are doing research in order to improve the existing renewable energy sources and to discover new ones. Even tides are used to produce energy! As fossil fuels become more and more expensive it is necessary to find alternatives.

Generally speaking (and it is not my intention to offend anybody) in Italy, people do not worry too much about environment. From the last skype exchange, I learned that in the US it is quite the same. I am really looking forward to the next skype exchange and talk about renewable energies and see if there are differences in attitude. The exchange is a great opportunity to become more culturally aware, reflect upon the differences and similarities.

In class we talked about cultural awareness, cultural competece and stereoptypes. I would like to talk about stereotypes with the Tulane students. I think it is interesting to know how people who come form a different cultural background see and judge our culter. Obviously, stereotypes are only a generalization and nothing more than a possible starting point. They do not tell us anything about the "real" culture of a country. Therefore, I cannot wait to talk to my American peers!!

Susanne

P.S. I took this picture two month ago in Spain near Madrid:-)

Reflective Blogging

Skype Exchange

As I did not have my own blog before, this is my first reflective blogging. I really enjoyed the skype-exchange with the students of the Tulane university of New Orleans. Last time, I talked to a very nice girl and she knew a lot of things about recycling. She told me that most of the people in the United States do not make the effort and do not take the time to separate their garbage. After the hurricane government put all the garbage and material in an open space in the outskirts of the town and this is not really a save place.

Personally, she recycles when she can, but it is not always possible, for example there is no way to recycle plastic at university. She said that people’s attitude towards recycling is different in the north and south: generally, in the north more people recycle than in the south.

However, we also talked about other things… She told me that she is from South Carolina and that she has been studying in New Orleans for two years. She studies psychology and is doing this Italian course because next year she would like to study in Florence. She asked me some information about Italy and in particular Florence and we started talking about the differences between Italian cities and cities in the United States. We realized that our idea of distance is completely (!) different. I told her that Padova is quite far away from the capital Rome, that is it takes more than four hours to go there and she started laughing and said that is she wanted to go to the capital she had to take the plane and, even so, it is a very long journey.

I enjoyed the exchange because I had the opportunity to speak in English (unfortunately my exchange mate did not want to speak in Italian) and I learned a lot about recycling in the States. It is a great opportunity to compare two cultures and to enrich one’s cultural knowledge. Unfortunately, last Monday I had to go to another lesson but I am looking forward to the next exchange!

My Blog Experience

My blog experience

First of all, I have to admit that I am not what one would call a blog expert. Six month ago, I did not even know what a blog exactly was. Fortunately, my brother is a computer freak and every now and then he brings me up to date on the situation in the computer world. Unfortunately, we do not meet very often as he is studying abroad and unfortunately he is not very patient but I have to say that since I am willing to learn and improve the situation is getting better and he shows me a lot of things.

Everybody knows that Internet is an enormous network which allows us to connect with computers all over the world, do research, publish articles, book flights, etc. However, I did not expect to find within this huge network an immense amount of blogs. During the last two weeks I learned a lot of new things about blogs and blogging.

I realized that there are a lot of people who regularly write things, in order to share information and help other people not to get lost in the net. In fact, as blogs are structured in an interactive way, they often contain useful links and can be more helpful than search engines if one is looking for information on a particular topic. Moreover, almost all blogs not only contain text, but also pictures, comments, multimedia files, etc.

The topics vary very much from one blog to another; it is possible to find movie blogs, travel blogs, music blogs, gossip blogs, etc. Some of the blogs are more personal than others. In order not to get lost in the blogsphere it is important to select information using search engines or having a look at the tags that describe the blogs. Every blog is structured in a different way and language and style depend on the author and the readership he/she is writing for. Moreover, every blog has its own rules but there are general rules, which one should follow when writing a blog.

I think it is a good idea to use the blogsphere in order to improve our English. Most blogs are written in colloquial English, the way people talk in everyday life. At university, we are supposed to read many books in English, we study grammatical aspects of the language and are taught how to write in a correct way. To know these things is, without doubt, important but in order to communicate in English speaking countries, one has to know the slang and the expressions people use, otherwise it is very difficult to be able to follow a conversation between native speakers.

Finally, I have to say that this blog experience is useful for both, language learning and in improving my computer skills.

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Welcome

Hi everyone!

Welcome to My Never-Never Land! This is my very first blog experience and I hope to become soon a blog expertJ. I really like writing and I would like to share some of my life and university experiences with you.

I called this blog Never-Never Land because I am a habitual daydreamer:-)! When I have a moment to rest a little I like to imagine stories; my mind often wanders to other things and I loose track of what I was doing. This may be the reason why I like writing and I love reading. However, it does not mean that I am living in a fantasy world. I simply enjoy to let my imagination go walkabout. I admire children’s imagination and I think that we should not loose this fascinating ability.

In My Never-Never Land everybody has the right of citizenship. Absolute freedom of speech and political freedom reign in this place. It is a peaceful place where people are invited to exchange ideas and opinions and to share their knowledge without any distinction between poor and rich, black and white, tall and small, left and right. Everybody has the opportunity to be what he wants to be.

I hope you like traveling just as much as I do because I would like to invite you on a virtual journey through My Never-Never Land! I hope you discover a lot of interesting an pleasant things. As this is the first time I create a blog, I obviously will accept your suggestions as well as any kind of criticism:-).

Have a nice trip!!

Susanne

My blog includes "Reflective Blogging" Posts: as I was not in Italy last semester I am doing the skype exchange this semester.

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