Wednesday 27 May 2009

I write, You write...Everybody writes!

Hello all!

Hope you're doing well!

I was googlin' around in search of some good tips to improve my writing skills and I found an interesting blog called Copyblogger. Go and take a look to the right side bar...there's plenty of articles, concerning blogging and writing in general. The style is fresh and catchy.

Have a look to the article on Ernest Hemingway's tips for writing well...as Copyblogger says "Who better?" :)

Hope you like the blog!

Bye
Giorgia

Wednesday 20 May 2009

My Tube!

Hello all!

I know classes have just finished but - as I said in my previous post - my learning path will go on and on, and on...and my blog will keep on helping me in this process!

During our last class my classmates and I talked with Sarah about the benefits of music & videos in learning English. Almost everybody agreed on the fact that listenting to music and watching videos in English turn to be particularly useful to improve our vocabulary, especially when combining these practices with the reading of lyrics, original subtitles or translation into English.

Personally, I've always thought about the fact that music was helpful to improve my pronunciation & vocabulary but I never tought before that rhythm could help me with intonation. Good discovery for me and for my obsession with 'paduan' accent! :)

As you can read in some of my last posts (here and here), I love music, videos and I join these passions using YouTube. It's an amazing tool!
In particular, I like the fact that in YouTube you can find loads of cartoon videos, such as The Simpson or Family Guy. I find this kind of videos extremely useful. They represent a good way to approach - in a foreign language - difficult communicative techniques, such as irony, cynicism, mockery or satire, using simple and immediate tools, that's to say images/cartoons.

Well, I can't post there every single video I found interesting but I want to give you an info to key in YouTube: "Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy". It is a channel that is broadcast directly on YouTube by BurgerKing®; the cartoons that are broadcast are drawn by Seth MacFarlane (the same cartonist of Family Guy). Hope that nobody get offended by the "adult-oriented" content ;)
BTW, they are awesome!

Have fun!

Bye
Giorgia

Saturday 16 May 2009

Mapping my mind out!

Hello all!

You know that my classmates and I have been through a long process of building up our own learning environment (see here and here). What I want to do in this post is to recap what I've done and learned so far.

My big little steps:

  • I took Sarah's language classes to be guided in the building up of my PLE (from both a linguistic and computering viewpoint);
  • I started running my own blog;
  • I made a first draft of my possible [desired ;)] language path. I wrote on a piece of paper the aspects of my English that I'd have wanted to improve (writing & spoken interaction);
  • I worked on mutual feedback with my classmates;
  • I tried to take advantage of any profitable situations, using English whenever it was possible (e.g. DVDs, books, TV programs);
  • I learned to use many interesting tools, such as GoogleDocs or Google Scholar (see Utilities on my blog's sidebar); they helped me to limit, perfect and focus my exploration of the Net in search of useful tips to improve my English.
As you can see the project involved a lot of aspects that had to be handled simultaneously. It was difficult to learn, search, study & improve at the same time but in the end the hard work is worth it. What's more, this kind of work - building up my PLE - will finish by neither the end of the English course nor the end of my academic career: your PLE is your own learning path, it's yours so it can last forever and be changed whenever you want!

Here it is the mindmap of my personal learning environment: MY PLE.

Bye
Giorgia
(photo source)

Sunday 10 May 2009

Internet: I'm loving it!

Hi guys!

I want to share with you something EXTREMELY funny (I mean FUNNY in its real sense!). It is a video from YouTube. The video shows two Korean girls who are performing at a national karaoke TV program...They are simply amazing!

The video: Korean Madness



YouTube and its videos are just another way to show that the Internet is not simply good or bad! It is always a matter of choice...your choice, made with consciousness!

BTW, hope you like the video!

Bye
Giorgia

Friday 8 May 2009

A tangled Web of traps!

Hello all!

I wanna tell you something before you start reading: I'm going to be long-winded but the subject is worth it!
I want to talk about the risks of the Internet and the related observations that we came up with last Wednesday during class.

Let's go through a brief list of the most common web-traps we might encounter while surfing the net:

Well, as far as I'm concerned, I'm a Web enthusiast and I know that my enthusiasm comes from a responsible and fruitful use of the Internet. The technical and intellectual information that we've learned during classes should have given us the proper tools to be - reasonably - safe and curious when using the Internet and its services.
What I want to say is that if you don't have the basic, background information on how the net should be handled, you could run into the above mentioned traps and get frightened by the Web.

What we've learned so far through Sarah's classes is that the Web is huge and we are far from knowing it properly, in all its aspects. However, if we manage to keep our eyes firmly open the net can become a 'good friend' of us.

Let's see some actions that can be useful to turn a 'bad egg' into a 'good fellow':

  • when you subscribe to any website, blog or create your account into any free, online services (e.g. Bloglines, Del.icio.us) always remember to read carefully the terms of the service/(web) contract you are subscribing to. We (too) often think that if something is not printed (i.e. vitual) is less valid and legal: WRONG! It's always a matter of rights...and duties too;
  • be aware of what plagiarism, IPR and Creative Commons are; they are crucial concepts that turn to be useful in printed works too;
  • be careful when giving your personal information (e.g. credit card number, personal e-mail). I've personally decided to have a second e-mail address to use when subscribing any online services;
  • moms, dads, brothers & sisters, anyone who are informed about web-traps: never let children alone in front of a computer, and when they are sufficently grown up give them the needed tools to deal with the Internet properly.

However, despite reading, learning, searching any information about these risks, the traps are always around the corner. So, the only thing I can say and suggest about these issues is: keep your eyes open!!!

Well, let me know what's your point of view and your possible solutions to these problems.

Bye
Giorgia
(photo source)

Tuesday 5 May 2009

Family Guy

Hello all!

A few days ago I was surfing the net searching for something fun, and I thought...Giorgia, why don't you look for something entertaining and useful at the same time, that's to say, something amusing and linked to English?!?


So, I decided to put here a video from YouTube. The video is part of an episode from 'Family Guy', an American animated TV sitcom. In Italy the sitcom was broadcast on Italia1 changing the title into 'I Griffin'.

I love this show and I bought many DVDs with its episodes. After all, I bought them in English so they are useful for my personal learning environment! LOL :)

The show is known to have an adult content but I consider my readers grown up enough to handle it ;) and I know that you will enjoy it! I dare you to find somebody who doesn't like Family Guy at all!

Episode: Chicken Fight



N.B. No chickens were harmed during the making of this video ;)

See ya!
Giorgia

Saturday 2 May 2009

A tough nut to crack!

Hi guys!

I wanna tell you a creepy story about 'references'...

I was a little girl - 2yrs ago :) - when I first heard about 'references, bibliography and quotations'. I was preparing my BA thesis and my supervisor (the professor who helped me out) told me how to quote others' works, make in-text citations and write a good bibliography.
I was unaware of how this experience would have dramatically changed my life. From that moment onward, I started to get extremely anxious and sometimes fussy when putting down ANY piece of writing...even a shopping list!
Recently I was having a quite peaceful period but - guess what? - Sarah has given us (my classmates and I) a tough work to do: adjust a HUGE amount of references and in-text citations. My nightmare...again! :(

Well, joking aside, I think we all have learned that the referencing issue is tough but crucial. Making proper citations and writing down a respectful bibliography protect us from plagiarism and the infringement of IPR. What's more, we now have a fresh new tool for taking advantage of collaboration and shared feedback, for referencing too: GoogleDocs (see here).

Talk to you soon
Giorgia
(photo source)

P.S. In the light of what I've learned so far during Sarah's classes (see here), I think that in my BA thesis I used the APA style...more or less. I was unaware...and perhaps it was better to be unaware!!! :)

Friday 1 May 2009

Google Docs...rocks!

Hello all!

Do you know what
GoogleDocs is? Well, believe me, it's a wonderful web tool.

GoogleDocs is a free, web-based tool offered by Google. Creating your account in GoogleDocs enable you to write, edit, store and share documents online. The types of documents that you can work on are: word documents, worksheet (like in Microsoft Office™ Excel™), PDF files and presentations.

That said, one might observe that what I've just mentioned is more or less what we can do with
Microsoft Office™ or OpenOffice; therefore, I'm going to tell you why this is not the case.

The peculiarities of
GoogleDocs are:
  • GoogleDocs is NOT a software package so it's different from Microsoft Office™ and OpenOffice. It is an online service, you don't have to download it on your pc or buy it;
  • you can always have access to your documents. Since is a web-based tool (like Bloglines and Del.icio.us), you can log into your account from any computer and work on your documents wherever you are;
  • you can upload, create and edit documents directly online. You can also share them - in a private way - with your peer students, friends or workmates. You just have to send them an invitation mail to join GoogleDocs;
  • you can benefit from an online, real-time, shared collaboration. All the people you share a document with can edit it simultaneously and see who's working or worked on it (see 'history function'). The funny thing is that all these people can be wherever they want, they just need a computer.

What comes out is that, like any other tool in Web 2.0, GoogleDocs allows you to work, communicate and share information with peers, no matter where they or you are...You just need a computer!

Bye
Giorgia
(
photo source)

P.S. I love GoogleDocs 'cos I won't lose hundreds of usb devices anymore ;)