Alberto's creek

Summer wind

2008-05-14T00:26:00.000-07:00

Things are changing in our English class: our Skype experiment with Dickinson College just finished and today we've our last lesson together.

What did I learn from my exchange experience? Answering isn't so easy...I can't talk about intercultural competence as it was something I can touch, I can measure with the metre bar: it's more like a huge picture I'm always painting.

I didn't encounter misunderstandings, probably because we both are Western cultures, but I discovered something interesting.
At the beginning, when I talked with my American peer for the first time, I was quite frightened and worried, because I spent five years writing at university, but I rarely speak in English. However, I perfectly knew that it was a great opportunity to improve my skills and to know more about the USA, so I started this exchange with enthusiasm.
I was lucky, because my American peer, Kelsey Taylor, was very nice, open and ready to share with us something of her culture. My stupid fears of being treated with a sort of veiled superciliousness just because the USA is the main power in the world, were absolutely groundless.

I noticed some interesting things by skyping with Kelsey. For example, I discovered that American youngs know quite anything about politics of their own country (exactly as, I'm afraid, Italians), they don't like talking about the war in Iraq and university fraternities may also be genuine groups and not just mixture of drinking, sex and violence as they often seem in movies.

I liked this experience very much and I believe that it 's one of the most useful activities I've ever done at university.

After the end of our collaboration with Dickinson College, our time together is going to end too. This is the end of this demanding but very, very stimulating course and also the end of something else...

Summer wind is blowing. And things are changing.

I remember my first day at the elementary school...I looked at the the plate on the door of my classroom: "I C"...it was so high for my child stature. Then, faces, homeworks, school plays, pencils and papers, exams, unforgettable good and bad moments...and the last ring of the schoool bell at the beginning of summer...

All this is dancing in my heart, now...Because I know, you know this time the ring is a bit different...it sounds a bit like a closing door...

Summer wind, take care of us.

Thank you all.

Alberto

And what about the weather?

2008-04-17T07:40:00.000-07:00

We have been subdivided in some groups of three-four Italians (Serena, Martina, Alice and I) and a student from Dickinson (Kelsey) in order to start working on our final project...(what a lovely confusion skyping in five is!). Unfortuantely, my idea has been dropped: the American dream isn't the right topic for us. Alice and Kelsey liked what I proposed, but our teacher thinks that finding aspects of American dream in Italy isn't impossible, but quite difficult, so we decided to change subject... :(

Then, the disaster! A topic, a topic! Somebody suggest us a topic!!! Immigration? Too many people is already thinking about that! Education? ...Uhm...No, too much boring! Sanitary system? too much complicated! Oh my God, our hour together is going to end and we're still without a subject!...Well, well, and what about univeristy life here and in the US? Confraternities, parties...Is it ok? It must be ok: we've no time!!!

After our Skype session, I was talking with a friend of mine, in class:
- "What's your final project about?"
- "Death penalty. And yours?"
- "Ehm...Immigration?" :)

Last games

2008-04-16T01:21:00.000-07:00

I must start off by saying that this post is NOT an arraignment against American or Italian youngs: it's just a reflection on how politics is seen by them.

Last Wednesday, Serena and I skyped with Kelsey about elections in Italy and in the USA. For the scond time, after our talk with Leah, our nice interlocutor said that she knows quite anything about American politics and its election system. I don't know if their answers reflect the general situation in the USA, but the fact that only 54% of eligible voters really voted during the last four decades of presidential elections, makes me think. Why the first democratic country in the world reveals lack of public spirit? It seems to be a contradiction.

In Italy, things are a bit different, in my opinion: a lot of youngs, as in America, don't know very much about Italian politics, but our turnout is very high. This is another strange fact, isn't it?

Youngs' interest in the most important aspects of their own country seems to be discouraging, but I believe (and hope) that politics is going to become a more important part of their lives in their near future.

So, keep an eye on them, world, but don't worry: this is just a period, I think. They're (and what about me?) just playing their last games: all the toy trains and the dolls are going to end in a box in the storeroom soon and a new, more sinsible time is going to come...

Technology and me

2008-04-15T10:56:00.000-07:00

My computer has some problems...again...That (and my work in a polling station) are the reasons why I've not done my task 6 yet. I'll remedy as soon as possible.

C U!

Alberto

A country that's changing

2008-04-15T07:28:00.000-07:00

Immigration is quite a new experience for Italy, that, for centuries, has just been an emigration country. Nowadays, a lot of people decide to leave their own home in order to look for a better future. Italy started a big changing process in the 80's and it's still changing. So, our actual social survey is very different from as it was, for example, just twenty years ago. Things changed, are changing and will continue to change. So, I think that pretending that our reality is always the same would be quite silly: we all should awake to what's really happening to utilize new Italy's potentials an to prevent problems.

Immigration is an important resource for a country and its economic mechanism. Italy needs immigrants for those indispensable jobs Italians unlikely chose and their work is also fundamental to pay pensions in a country in which the number of old people is continuosly growing. Moreover, there're also important consequences from a cultural point of view: sharing different cultures and styles of life surely is an opportunity to enrich us.

However, things in real life are a bit more complicated. Italian politics has always had huge problems in regulating immigration phenomenon properly and the consequences of this "lassez-faire" policy has been disgraceful. Criminals for poor countries decided to move to Italy, mingling with honest people, encouraged by unclear laws and short-sighted behavoiur of some politicians. So, things started going wrong and discrimination feelings were born. Someone believes that the presence of different cultures in the same country is going to destroy Italian traditions and doesn't understand how immigration is necessary for everybody.

The way in which immigrants are often treated, saddened me, because I perfectly know that the majority of them are honest workers that just hope to leave in peace. But a lot of Italians maybe don't know it (or acting as if they don't, is simply easier...). This is what came out from our elections, in which a quite racist campaign, such as "Lega Nord"'s, took a lot of votes. I'm scared about this fact. I strongly hope immigration is going to be carefully regulated, so fear and anger shadows will be defeated.

As regards the voting right for immigrants, I think that everybody that works and pays taxes should have the right to vote. Obviously, they should know something of Italian culture, before voting. This is the reason why I think that they should wait for some years (4-5?) to obtain this important right.

Sarah, you can't vote, but we all know your situation is completely different...That's how things work...

American dream?

2008-04-06T08:43:00.000-07:00

Well...I've been reflecting for days, but I must admit I have some problems in identifying a good idea for my paper. I've just an undefined topic in my mind that may be interesting, in this moment: the American dream.

I'm curious about this topic, because I believe it's at the basis of American society and it someway also involves our country, that, for different reasons has always seen the USA as a sort of "beacon".

What does "American dream" mean? How did it shape American society? What did it become when it was imported in Europe and in Italy, in particular? Does it still exist nowadyas? And if it does, is it different, someway?

These are just some questions I may use as starting points, to explore this issue.

Do we really know our own country?

2008-04-04T01:17:00.000-07:00

This time, Serena and I talked with another Dickinson student: Michelle Mercaglione. Our issue, this week, was election systems in Italy and in the USA. Things are very different in these two countries from this point of view. Election system is not the same in the whole USA: American states are subdivided into proportional system states and winner-takes-all system states and people vote directly the politician they prefer. In Italy, on the contrary, the system doesn't change region by region and we simply count all the votes at the end of the elections to designate the winner. Then, the seats in the Parliament are assigned in proportion to the percentage of the votes received by each party. We can't vote directly the person we'd like to be the Prime Minister, for example: we just vote a party and if that party wins, its members chose the Prime Minister among them. However, in fact things are a bit different: in every political coalition there's a leader and we all know who really can become Prime Minister..

Michelle is just eighteen, so she wasn't very prepared in her election system and in politics in general. I think that this probably is a common characteristic of Italy and America. Youngs are often not vey interested in politics, but I think that we all should pay a little more attention on it because it's the base of our civilization. However, don't worry, Michelle, I think I knew anything about politics when I was eighteen...

La mia Italia

2008-03-30T08:31:00.000-07:00

After Berlusconi's and Veltroni's questionable campaign jingles, here's my personal answer.

I hope a day I'll be able to post a song, somewhere, that will be beautiful like this one, bur more postive.
Waiting for that moment, that's how I see my motherland...

Learning to become part of...

2008-03-27T02:28:00.000-07:00

Intercultural competence. What a meaningful, topical and controversial term! Nowadays we all continuosly hear words like multiculturalism and globalization, but what do they mean? Our society has changed a lot and is still changing: immigration and new media have radically transformed our old concept of order, based on single countries with their own definite identity, creating a more complex reality. So, the way we used to know our world doesn't exist anymore and we've to deal with other situations, with their own benefits and challenges. But how do we do it? Here is our intercultural competence. That's the way in which we move into our contemporary jungle, trying to understand who we are and who are the others, looking for a way to live in peace together. Learning how to deal with others in our own or in their own context, is important for everybody, but it's necessary (and I hope, also normal) for languages students, like us.

I've always thought to my intercultural competence as something continuosly changing inside me and difficult to weigh up. So, this is the first time I've had the opportunity to assess it thanks to a form: YOGA (an acronym which stands for Your Objectives, Guidelines and Assessment form). It's subdivided into five main areas, that reflect the “dimensions” that compose our intercultural competence: awareness, attitude, skills, knowledge and language proficiency. Each of them is further subdivided into four levels, in order to estimate people's degree of knowledge of a foreign culture, with reference to their personal experiences: educational traveller, sojourner, professional, and intercultural/multicultural specialist. Unfortunately, I’ve never been abroad for long periods, so I had to skip some parts of the questionnaire.

I generally am a bit sceptical about tests like this one, or, for example, the European Portfolio, since I believe that learning is a continuous process and we don't need to assess it point by point, in a so strictly way. We can't weigh up everything and that's the reason why these types of test generally are very long and take a very long time to fill in, in my opinion: they simply try to deal with every aspect of complex issues like learning or intercultural competence and that's no possible to do. However, they might be very useful for other reasons: for example, they can offer some occasions to reflect about what we do and how we do it.
In fact, from this point of view, I found this YOGA form very interesting, especially because it presents some aspects I've never considered before, such as awareness and attitude of learners. It made me reflect about the way in which I generally match my culture with another one. So, I realized that's there are situations in which my intercultural competence is more lacking and how I can try to improve it...waiting for the moment in which I'll become a little part of the worlds I'm dreaming about...

Shhh!

2008-03-25T04:02:00.000-07:00

Our Skype exchange with Dickinson College goes on...This time, Serena and I talked with Leah Barreras. The topic we had prepared for that day was "terrorism". We discussed about terrorism of the present day, September 11th 2001 and how life in the USA have changed after it, but we also talked about Italian "lead years" ('70s) and Red Brigades. I particularly enjoy this type of exchanges, because I believe that when we study a language we also need to deal with historical and social aspects of its country. I think it's a fundamental step to really understand and give a sense to what we study every day on the books. It's incredible how little we know of the rest of the world, even of those countries like America, that thanks to movies and its leading role in international questions, has always been present in our lives, someway.

Obvoiusly we also talked about other things. Since it was the first time I Skyped (I do love using "Skype" as a verb!!!) Leah, we sarted talking about our universities, families and lives in general.

If I have to be honest our exchange was a bit strange at the beginning because we (Italians) were talking in a room where there was another lesson in the same time. So, our teacher told us to chat instead of talking, until the end of the lesson, but...it was impossible! The situation was more or less like that:

TEACHER: - Please, chat instead of talking until the end of the lesson...ok? - ALBERTO/SERENA: - Ok... -

ten seconds later...

ALBERTO/SERENA: - Hello? Leah? Hel...Do you hear us? Le...Ha ha, yes, technology is not our field, ha ha ha! -

TEACHER: - Shhh! -

ALBERTO/SERENA: - Ops, sorry -...(in a whisper) - Leah, we've to chat,ok? -

LEAH: - Oh, ok! Why? -

ALBERTO/SERENA: - Because there's another less..-

TEACHER: - Shhh! -

ALBERTO/SERENA: - Sorry! -

ALBERTO/SERENA: - (in a whisper) Let's chat! -

click , click, click...five seconds later:

ALBERTO/SERENA: - Ha ha ha! -

TEACHER: - Shhhhhh!!!! There's another lesson!!! -

ALBERTO/SERENA: - Oh, yes...Sorry! - ... - Oh, can you repeat, Leah? We didn't unders...- -Oh, yes, sorry, sorry, sorry -... - Leah,we've to chat...Eh? Ha ha ha!!! -... - Oh, why is she looking at us this way? Oh my God, we're talking again!!!... -

We must seem stupid! :)

Happy Easter!

2008-03-22T08:25:00.000-07:00

Mmh...You may say I love dogs with hair bands...Well, I love dogs with hair bands! Anyway, happy Easter friends, classmates, teacher and people in the Web !!!

Waiting for Skype...

2008-03-15T10:50:00.000-07:00

No Skype this week, :( but all our activities with Dickinson College made me meditate. So, while we're waiting for another exchange, I'd like to talk about an issue that may sound strange if handled by a foreign languages student: the other side of the coin of intercultural competency.

I do love languages and discovering new cultures, ways of life, knowing how people live, work, stay together, laugh and cry and why they do it in countries so far from mine. I like figuring the world like a series of stars in the same sky or a series of snow flakes in a winter day and I like finding that my life as I know it, is just one of infinite possibilities. This thought doesn't diminuish the love I feel for it, but makes me curious about others. I believe we're all at the same level of a huge, beautiful mechanism called life. This is the reason why I decided to study languages and I hope to go round the world.

Nowadays we can improve our intercultural competency very easily: the Internet and its potentials let us to share thoughts, pictures and experiences and put us in touch with the rest of the world as if we all were in the same room. No walls, no distance...no difference. Current tools are an important opportunity for us, but I'm afraid they also represent a great risk, that's the loss of our greatest richness: our differences.

I do love discovering others, but I think that everytime we share we also drop something of ourselves. We grow and it's good. And it's normal. And ineluctable. But I think that my grandparents know anything about India and somewhere in India, other grandparents know anything about Italy. And it's perfect exactly as it is, in my opinion.

Let's Skype!

2008-03-10T01:35:00.000-07:00

After a loooong examination session, here we are again!

Our first Skype exchange has gone…and I do love it!
When I read the descriptions about the projects that Sarah proposed us, I thought they both were interesting, but when I found out that just the project with Dickinson would enable me to use Skype, I had no doubts. I had heard about this chance at the beginning of the course and I was very impatient to try it. It’s definitely my favorite activity, this year .
We generally don’t have many opportunities to talk in English and very rarely to do it with native speakers. This is the reason why I had (and still have) great expectations about this exchange.
My group is composed by Kelsey Taylor, Serena Santi and me.
When we came in contact, I think I said something like “Oh...Hi!...Well, yes...mmh..hello?”. It’s incredible how the first thing that came up in mind as I heard my voice was: “I can’t speak English any longer!”,
- “...Kelsey? ...mmh...I’m Alberto...” - “Why the evil I said my name with an Anglophone accent?!...I must be totally insane...”-.
Fortunately, after my initial mental confusion, things went on well and we started a real conversation. I perfectly know I make a lot of silly mistakes when I’m talking in a foreign language, but experiments like this are necessary, in my opinion, to really understand at which level I am and in addition, they spur me to improve.
We talked about the differences between public and private universities in the U.S., how’s life in a campus and how university system is organized in Italy and in America. However, I admit we didn’t talk just about education (that was our topic), since we were also interested in other, more general, issues, such as hobbies and family. I think that developping topics like these is a good first step to make somebody’s acquaintance.

I look forward to do another exchange!

Snowow! (snow + wow) :)

2008-01-03T02:55:00.000-08:00

It's snowing!!!

Congestion? Cold? It doesn't matter...I DO LOVE IT!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2008-01-02T07:28:00.000-08:00

PLE

2007-12-10T01:54:00.000-08:00

PLE is an acronym that stands for Personal Language Environment. It is the totality of the formal and informal tools we use to store information, rfelect on it and use it. Well, what's a PLE, then? It's not easy to define it, since it's not something you can touch, you can see...Our PLE is our personal learning world; it's something we create around ourselves and that change, increasing day by day. It’s a sort of space in which we find everything we need to develop our skills, according to our personal cognitive style. There're no right or bad choices, useful or unuseful tools; a PLE works just for the person who need it.

Honestly, I'm not sure that writing down my PLE (and even thinking to my PLE to awake to its strucuture) can help me very much, since I do anything special to study languages and my PLE is probably the same PLE of a lot of people. I rarely reflect on what I'm doing and ask myself the reason why I'm doing a specific thing to improve my knowledge...I simply do it!

However, this activity may have some intersting consequences...I believe we all can learn something by listening to other experiences; it's a way to enrich our PLE and to discuss about learning strategies...

Writing my PLE on paper and making in this way my learning world visible, hasn't been simple. There're things that are obvious for me and I do them without realizing I'm following the instructions of my PLE.

I like the idea of imaging my PLE like a map; a sort of map I use to find something, to achieve something...There are four main groups; GATHERING INFORMATION, CHECKING INFORMATION, PEOPLE and SPACES. I subdivided the "gathering information area" into two smaller groups: FORMAL LEARNING and INFORMAL LEARNING.

I found some difficulties in classing some entries, since some tools tend to be part of more than one group.

Just some months ago, my PLE was different; now new tools like del.icio.us and Bloglines enrich it, giving me other possibilities to improve my knowledge of English (and of anything I'm interested in).

A PLE is a changeable concept that's always grewing into something different; it reflects our approach to learning and given we all never stop to learn and discover something new, our PLE is destined to follow us...

Sources jungle

2007-11-28T00:51:00.000-08:00

Looking for sources when I have to do a research is never something simple. When I was younger, I used to spend hours and hours glancing through the pages of the books in the library near my home. It was a bit inconvenient since I needed to dress and go out, but there was a undeniable advantage: I never had to worry about soundness, since the fact that the library had decided to buy a specific book, it meant it was enough for me to trust it.

Nowadays things are different. I rarely look for my sources in the library if I'm not doing a particularly important research. I generally try to find what I need in the Internet.

The first thing I do is typing one or some key words in a search engine and then I start skimming over the first proposals it gives me. It's definitely not an easy pass; there are often plenty of results. After that, I generally read or take a look at the passages under the URLS which contain the terms I'm looking for. If I think a website could be useful or interesting I click on its URL ( and if I recognize the website address as belonging to an important magazine, a reliable organization or if I know the author, yes, all these things would be further guarantees for me).

Most of the times, I understand what type of website I'm dealing with, just looking at its layout and at how information is presented. I chose the websites in which the presentation of the topic I'm interested in is particularly detailed and preferably enriched by some useful links. In this way I can always find more information if I need and obtain further material for possible connected examinations.
However, I admit I look for the date in which the site has been last updated in few occasions; if I like it, I generally pay attention just to the contents.

The main difference between looking for sources in a library and in the Internet is the fact that the Internet provides us an incredible quantity of material, more than any library, but this virtual world is also full of rubbish and useless things. As a consequence, our views become wider by surfing the Web, but we run risks we wouldn't find on the dusty shelves of a library, where the worst thing that can happen to us, is not to find what we need.

I think that all the suggestions given by the University of Essex, Purdue’s Online Writing Lab and San Diego State University are good even if they obviously tend to repeat the same things. I do recognize it's very easy to fall into temptation, accepting whatever I find, especially if I'm not doing a very important work and search returns don't satisfy me very much. I'm a bit lazy, it's true... :)

Looking to each other - Youtube

2007-11-24T08:02:00.000-08:00

Our exploration through the secrets of the Web goes on...The latest creature we descried is...Youtube!

Fortunately, this time wasn't the first time I found myself in touch with this character of the endless moors of the Internet, so I wasn't panic-stricken as usual.

http://www.youtube.com/ is one of the sites I proposed in our first E-tivity and as I wrote in that context, I think it can be very useful since everybody in the world can share videos and watch what others have decided to show. In this way we all can can watch and re-watch something we're interested in or find something nice just for fun. In addition, we can improve our listening skills and our knowledge of other cultures by using this tool, so it can be useful for languages students like us! On the contrary, I've never heard talking about TeacherTube...I just visited it and it's fantastic!

Obviously, there's also the other side of the coin...In Youtube everybody can find a lot of interesting things, but we all risk to meet something vulgar, offensive or simply stupid. A friend of mine showed me a video in which a person explained how to create a virus for computers...(there's no need to comment, I think...). Unfortunately, some people don't use Youtube properly so, as I said in my first post " Youtube is an opportunity in proportion to the intelligence of its users"...(I don't know if I'm quoting in the right way, but there's no problem, in my opinion: I'm not going to report myself) :)

Here there're the videos I chose:

I'm not a doctor but I WANNA work in a place like this...

and this is me last year...ha ha, I'm joking, but I'm really following an ice skating course (maybe with a bit less elegance...)

Listening to other worlds

2007-11-19T06:43:00.000-08:00

After my search in the Web (looking for something in the Web is very boring, in my opinion...- Sorry, but I needed to admit it-)I found three podcasts I like.

Choosing a speific podcast has been very far from being simple, since generally I found some interesting Web pages which contained a lot of useful podacasts.

Anyway, that's what I decided to share with you:

1) http://pinkgeek.net/weblog3/rss.xml

It's not a podcast; it's a page in which " The adventures of Sherlock Holmes" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is subdivided in different parts. You can click to listen to the story. I think it's a wonderful way to spread culture.

Oh, I love Sherlock Holmes! He was one of my favorite character when I was younger...I think I red everything about him...

2) http://eslpod.com/website/show_podcast.php?issue_id=467

It's an example of daily conversation. In this specifc case, the topic is car renting. The characters speak slow and there is also the transcript of the oral text, so everybody can follow the argument. It's a very useful tool for improving students' listening skills.

In this Web site you can find other conversation models to practise your ability.

3) http://www.voanews.com/english/customcf/podcastxml.cfm?id=3

Here global issues in science, technology and the environment are the main subject. It's useful to improve everybody's listening skills and in the meanwhile you can learn something about culture, society (especially American) since all the podcasts offered by this Web-site deal with real topics and problems of the present day.

What about the world of podcasts?

I'll probably seem to be banal, I know, but they're...USEFUL. Listening to them you can improve your ability and you can also can learn something. However, as for everything in the Internet, there's the other side of the coin...The Web is a huge tub where everybody in the world can put something...and something is just rubbish...so, pay attention!

2007-11-17T11:24:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody!I'm sorry, but my computer has some problems, so I'm going to write my post on podcasts on Monday afternoon in the lab...I perfectly know you're hating me now... :(Sorry, sorry...See u!Albe

Del.icio.us

2007-11-13T07:36:00.000-08:00

Ohh, the Web...what an amazing world!
We (or at least I) just discovered “del.icio.us”. It’s not a simple search engine; it’s a sort of search engine in “small format”. Thanks “del.icio.us” users aren’t destined to wander in the Internet looking for something; they will find just the websites other people have considered interesting.
I took a look at the websites chosen by my peers; there is something I really, really like.
I enjoyed Laura’s quotations website very much because I think that the use of quotations enriches a conversation and surely there are some that are very well-known and shared by a specific cultural and linguistic group. So, quotations may be a detail that brings a conversation to a higher level.
Alessandra proposes an online dictionary which also offers the right pronunciation of the words. It’s very useful, since it’s easy to use and if you have a doubt on pronunciation, you can solve it just with a click.
I liked Claudia Turolla’s special dictionary very much. It’s totally dedicated to slang expressions. Generally, nobody studies them at school, but they’re important, in my opinion, since native speakers always use them, especially young people.
However, a language has both formal and informal aspects. This is the reason why I also appreciated Claudia Trivellato’s suggetions about the drafting of commercial letters. The choice of appropriate words is fundamental to gain one’s ends and to be considered trustworthy.
Among Serena’s websites, I chose that which enables people to read American radios transcripts and listen to different audio files. It’s very interesting, because you can learn about American culture and society while you’re improving your listening skills. In this way you’ll probably have something to talk about besides your ability for understanding what native speakers say.
Thanks to “del.icio.us”, our searches in the Web are a bit easier now.

Halloween

2007-11-04T10:09:00.000-08:00

The first time I heard about Halloween I was 8 and my English teacher described that strange custom in class. I was very fascinated by it and decided that from that moment I would celebrate Halloween. My friends and I used to prepare all things down to the smallest details, from the fancy dresses to our jack o'lanterns (or "jacks o'lantern"?). We all loved it, even if it wasn't so simple in those years, since nobody knew that usage and we were compelled to repeat the same string of explanations in front of each door. However, it was always a magic night and this is the reason why I still feel touched by the kids who come to me looking for some candies.

However, I believe that Halloween may be a great moment just for children. I don't hold with the general leaning towards the celebration of this day as it was part of our traditions. Watching a horror movie with some friends or doing something similar is enough, in my opinion. It isn't a crime, on the contrary, may be an acceptable compromise; a good idea to spend a nice night without exaggeration. You may say I'm too conservative, but I simply don't like this mixture of different traditions very much. Italian Halloween is the price of globalisation, but I strongly believe that variety in the world is a virtue, isn't it?

A world in a pocket (E-tivity 4)

2007-11-02T03:37:00.000-07:00

I'll be honest; I wasn't acquainted with the existence of feed aggregators. Evidently, I'm very green, since I discover something new every single day in the inextricable (in my opinion) world of technology. When we started our lab-lesson on last Wednesday, my first thought was something like "My God! I'm going to lose myself in a virtual maze!". However, trying to overcome my innate distrust-panic towards computers and the obscure reality they serve, I drew a deep breath and started working and...surprise, surprise...I found out it can be very useful! This is true especially if you are intersted in a lot of things on the Web, so you can save time (at least if your curiosity doesn't spur you to start clicking around everywhere, whenever you are on the Internet, like yours truly). Thanks to feed aggregators, you can easily manage everything you are interested in; it's like a private door to the Web.

What I liked the most is the fact that Bloglines permits you to choose the websites and the blogs you consider interesting among a number of proposals, so you can control your whole "virtual personal world" at the same time. Then, you can organize your choices by creating some playlists in which you subdivide the different elements. In this way, your "space" will seem in order, the search of what you're looking for will be practical and you won't waste your time.

Opening Bloglines is like holding your little world in your hands and managing it!

E-tivity 3

2007-10-24T07:03:00.000-07:00

We have written in the course blog for two weeks and this is the moment for our first impressions on this activity...
Well...maneging a blog may be a bit complicated or, at least, a bit stressful, since I tend to forget it is necessary to update it with new tasks and I'm generally scared of leaving a post with some unacceptable mistakes. This is the reason why I always read and re-read my messages trying to resolve the doubts that hover my mind whenever I write. However, it is surely useful, since I rarely write in English. I also like reading the posts of the other components of my group; I believe that this "peer collaboration" can teach many things. This blog activity also influences our language learning, especially as far as colloquial English is concerned, stressing sayings and a characteristic type of style. So, this activity pushes me to keep my skills up; unfortunately, my wits don't need so much time to go rusty and some little efforts are the right price for improving, in my opinion...
So, using the blog, we do an excellent writing exercise and we can improve our skills. However, there is also another aspect of this activity I've not mentioned yet and I'm afraid is unchangeable; the scare of writing something wrong, pushes me to avoid some stylistic and lexical choices I like but that may sound "unnatural", preferring other forms, that are less interesting, but safer.

2007-10-17T06:26:00.000-07:00

This is a theatre stage. I chose this image for different reasons. I am in a theatre company and I love acting (or at least I try to do my best). Whenever we rehearse our scenes we invent a new world full of situations and people do not exist in our real life. That is what everybody sees when we put on a play. I think it is fantastic, but there is also another part in actors' work; a part audience never notices. It is probably the most important aspect of acting and it deals with taking pains over elocution and movements on the stage. It may seem to be simple, but I assure you that taking under control memory, elocution and movements while you are talking on a stage is very, very difficult.

A theatre stage is also similar to life; sometimes we all come on the scene and sometimes we all quit it to move to the backstage and wait for our turn...

These are two websites I frequently use:

http://novacompagniadelcorso.it/

It is the website of my theatre company. Here you can find the pictures of our performances and our backstage (at least those we do not censure...), the days in which we play and some information about each member. There is also a forum where we write to discuss about different aspects of our work, even if sometimes we quarrel...Yes, it may sound strange, but the life of a comapany is something sweet, but also bitter; different ideas, jealousy, and "love stories" on the stage often complicate our "artistic life", creating some little problems we hide with a smile when we bow at the end of a performance.

Unfortunately we are renovating the website right now. I hope you will be able to visit it soon.

http://www.youtube.it/

Most of you probably know it. It is a huge "video data-base" that everybody can use all over the world. Thanks to youtube, you can put your videos in the Internet, enabling the rest of the world to watch them. So, youtube may be a great opportunity to watch and re-watch something you care, such as interviews, sports competitions and documentaries. Moreover, using youtube, you can test your knowledge of foreign languages, since it is an excellent listening exercise.

Although youtube is useful, we can not forget the other side of the coin. Unfotunately, not everybody in the world uses it properly, so you can find vulgar or offensive videos.

Youtube is an opportunity in proportion to the intelligence of its users.