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

Photo Source

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