domenica 23 dicembre 2007

lunedì 10 dicembre 2007

My Personal Learning Environment (e-tivity 9)

My Personal Lerning Environment (PLE)
Click on the picture or click here to see my PLE


Hi everyone!

Thanks to e-tivity 9 I learnt how to build my PLE (Personal Learning Environment). Unfortunately, there’s not only one definition of PLE because it’s a new concept. If you want to know some viewpoints on PLE visit our course blog. I’d like to tell you my own definition of PLE. In my opinion, it’s a collection not only of free web-based tools (as Fitzgerald pointed out), but also of experiences, places, people contributing to someone’s learning. I think that building my own PLE can be helpful because I can realize what elements help me learning English. I can understand when, where and how I learn, and this can also prove useful in the future because I can keep those elements for my lifelong learning. Moreover, I can realize that I learn especially in informal contexts, which can be reproduced whenever I want. According to my definition of PLE I tried to build my own map through FreeMind.

I decided to divide my PLE into four sections entitled PEOPLE, GATHERING INFORMATION, USING INFORMATION, SPACES, and PAST EXPERIENCE.

PEOPLE: This section contains all the people that help me learning English. I mentioned native speakers such as teachers, professors, MySpace friends, American students participating in Albany-Padova exchange (forum). These people play a key role because they can teach me English from different viewpoints (pronunciation of words, intonation of discourse segments, vocabulary, grammar, etc.). Anyway, I also think that non-native speakers can be very important to help me learning English. For example I mentioned foreign people who are non-native speakers such as Skype friends, or other non-native speakers such as my sister, who spent two months in Namibia (English is the official language in Namibia) and some friends who studied abroad (in England and India). Thanks to them I can enrich my vocabulary and improve my English. Moreover, talking/discussing with my classmates can be useful to learn English.

GATHERING INFORMATION: I wrote many things in this section because I usually gather information from different sources. I divided the section into two subsections: ‘formal learning (at university)’ and ‘informal learning (at home)’. As you can see, the second subsection is more detailed because it deals with many web-tools, music and satellite TV. ‘Informal learning’ contains search engines (i.e. Google and Technorati), websites (i.e. blogs, educational sites, online newspapers), a social bookmarking site (i.e. del.icio.us), a feed aggregator (i.e. Bloglines), social networking websites (i.e. MySpace and Facebook), video and audio tools (i.e. YouTube and TeacherTube videos, podcasts, songs, satellite TV), instant messaging programs (i.e. Messenger and Skype), a forum (Albany-Padova forum), an online encyclopaedia (i.e. Wikipedia). ‘Formal learning’ contains lectures, lab and speaking lessons, books. I think that informal learning plays a fundamental role because I can learn English every day through my computer (or even through my mp3 player or TV!). All these tools show that learning can be available to anyone. That's great!

USING INFORMATION: Here I explained what I usually do with the information gathered from various sources. It’s an important section because it deals with my own work: writing blog posts, discussing with my classmates, participating in Padova-Albany forum, teaching English to a child, etc. As you can notice, I usually use information to communicate and share my ideas with others. I also use information to teach English to a ten-year boy, and I find great satisfaction in doing it. Moreover, I use and work with information when I check its reliability and correctness, for example by surfing the Net or consulting dictionaries.

SPACES: This section explains where I learn English. These spaces are virtual (web-tools/Web 2.0) and physical, e.g. university, home, or foreign countries (i.e. when I travel).

PAST EXPERIENCE: This section contains information on how I learnt English in the past. For example, I mentioned the lessons at elementary, middle, high school, the lectures I attended, my travels (e.g. in England), and my English pen pal during the high school years.

Is my PLE different from yours?

See you!

Giovanna

sabato 1 dicembre 2007

An interesting website...



A friend of mine wrote me an e-mail and avised me to visit an interesting website. It' s called FreeRice and it wants to help people enriching English vocabulary for free and provide rice to hungry people for free. Maybe you are wondering what I'm talking about so have a look at the site: FreeRice.

See you!

Giovanna

(photo source)

venerdì 30 novembre 2007

Evaluating sources of information (e-tivity 8)


Evaluating sources should never be underestimated because it enables us to start working properly on what we have to write, whether a theses or an essay. If we manage to find sources that are interesting and worth reading, we’re starting off on the right foot. The problem is not only to judge material, but also to know what and where we have to search for. In order to write my theses one year ago, I did research in many libraries and I surfed the Net. I think that the Internet is more and more used by people in order to find helpful material because online sources are often updated regularly. Anyway, the Internet is an overwhelming context; it provides us with a lot of information and sometimes it can be very difficult to choose websites.

Now I'll tell you the steps I've always taken and the criteria I have used and I’ll still use in the future in order to find helpful online sources.

For my search I always use Google, but if I have to find blogs dealing with the topic I’m interested in I prefer using Technorati. Whereas Google concentrates on websites in general, Technorati is a search engine focused on blogs. Nowadays it’s indeed very common to find blogs that deal with specific subjects and are worth reading.
When I use Google or Technorati I always try writing different keywords in order to find what I want. When I finally find many websites which seem interesting, I try to evaluate them through my criteria.
For example, let’s talk about Google.
First, when I’m in front of a list of potential interesting sites, I read the title of the sites and the few lines where my keywords are included.
Second, I look at the url of the sites (I also learnt what the domains are and how to check them). If the urls are very long, it means they’re not homepages. If they have odd names I consider them unreliable.
Third, I click on the button ‘copia cache’ placed near the websites I’m still interested in. This function was created to enable people to visit the sites even when they're not available. I found it useful because it also highlights my keywords within the sites so my search becomes very easy.
When I visit the sites I always try to search for the author (if there isn’t the author I consider them not very reliable), to understand if it’s updated regularly (if it uses RSS feeds too), and to look at the layout. The websites should be well-organized. For example, they should be divided into sections, and they should contain useful links to the sections within the site. They should not have many banners or ads as well.
Then, I search again for the information contained in the websites. If it is a blog, I try to look at the amount of information (if it has only few posts, it’s not very helpful) and to read if there’s something worth considering. If the websites are interesting, the amount of the information is huge and can be found very easily, I consider the websites useful sources.

Here are the criteria I use to do research in libraries.

I concentrate on the author and I always try to get information about her/his previous writings. In order to do this, I have a quick look at the bibliography, and at the brief summary of the author’s life and career. This kind of information is usually available on books. Then I look at the index, which contains the contents of the book. The books are usually rated. Sometimes they can be highly rated by experts, and this can be useful to understand if the sources are reliable. The book shouls also be updated.

Now let’s consider criteria advised by three different websites: the University of Essex, Purdue’s Online Writing Lab (OWL), San Diego State University

University of Essex

The tips given by the University of Essex are very similar to mine. They concentrate on search engine returns and how to evaluate them. I find this process very useful because thanks to it you can immediately decide what websites are trustworthy. Then you can go on with your check. This site advises people to ask themselves about the author, the partiality of information, the bibliography supporting the site, the updating, and the permanence of the site. I agree with all these tips. In particular, I think it’s important to know who the author is, and if the site is updated. Moreover, if the site uses RSS feeds you can be informed when new information is added on the site. I didn’t consider the partiality of information when I wrote about my criteria, but I think it’s fundamental. Perhaps I didn’t mention it because I take it for granted. I’ll pay attention to this in the future! We should always search for information providing us with a lot of points of view.

Purdue’s Online Writing Lab (OWL)

This site provides me with a lot of interesting questions to ask myself and it deals with online sources and written sources. The site deals with many topics, such as authorship, goals, access. I think that it’s important to know who the author of a website or a book is. Anyway, the site advise people to ask themselves a lot of questions such as ‘What has the author written in the past about this topic?’ or ‘Did a teacher or librarian or some other person who is knowledgeable about the topic mention this person?’ As for online sources, I think that sometimes it’s difficult to find information about the author’s previous writings. Nowadays more and more people collaborate to create websites, and if they haven’t written something interesting before, this doesn’t mean that the website we’re judging is not trustworthy. I find that it’s useful to look if there’s a brief summary of the author’s life. As for written sources, we have always to search for the author’s previous writings. It is possible thanks to bibliographies and book lists, which are available in the libraries. If we still don’t know what the author has written, we can use a search engines to find material.
The OWL advises to check the aim of the website (or of the book) too. That’s is very useful! I appreciated especially the section about audience. The audience of a site/book is very important. If we know the target, we also know the aim of the site. As I mentioned among my criteria, the OWL wrote that it’s important to check the domain of the site as well. I didn’t know that ‘.com’ domain means that the site wants to sell or promote something! Great! I will take advantage of this suggestion!
I also appreciate what the OWL wrote about the accuracy of information, especially about rating. For example, if the site has been highly rated by a reputable rating group, the site can be considered reliable. True!

San Diego State University

This site provides useful questions, like the other website I wrote about. I appreciate especially the question about plagiarism, which I didn’t mention among my criteria. Information can be often copied and pasted from site to site and we can’t know if it’s authentic. I didn’t think of how to contact the author. This is a helpful criterion. It can be useful to find an e-mail in order to interact with the author. I will profit from this suggestion!

These are the criteria I have used and I’ll use.

I hope you’ll find them interesting! Have a look at Easley Library-Bluefield College. I find it helpful.

Let me know!

Giovanna

(photo source)

domenica 25 novembre 2007

A music video...(e-tivity 7)



This video is entitled 'Mad World' and the singer is Gary Jules. There are different versions of this song (it was first written by Tears For Fears), but I think this is the best one. Thoughts wander through my mind every time I listen to it. I know that the lyrics are quite sad but I like them, and I like the song very much. As regards the video clip, it's moving. In my opinion, the most beautiful verses of the song are 'The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had'. That's true! What do you think about this video? Do you like it?

Let me know!

Giovanna

Let's improve English through YouTube! (e-tivity 7)



Hi everyone!

Today I’m going to write about YouTube. I think we all know what this website is about because it’s very interesting and famous. Anyway, if you want to get more information click here.
I found out this tool some years ago thanks to my boyfriend, and I immediately thought it was great, and I still think that. YouTube gathers a huge collection of videos, which can be watched by everyone. This website is clearly organized and easy to use. There’s a search engine at the top of the homepage. You have just to write a world and click on ‘search’: the website will show you all the videos related to the key word/s you wrote. Then, you have to click on the video you’re interested in. That’s all! Isn’t it easy?
The website also gives a list of other interesting websites related to the video you're watching so you can find other useful sources very easily.

Let’s stop for a while and think about the title of the website: ‘YouTube. Broadcast yourself.’ What does it mean? It means that everyone can add his/her own videos. We are the authors of the website, and we collaborate in order to widen it. We have just to register for YouTube and then we can upload our videos, which can deal with ourselves, science, politics, current affairs, music, nature…whatever we want.
The website links people who want not only to share their own videos with others, but also to offer useful and interesting sources to others. Unfortunately you can find stupid or offensive videos too, if they were not flagged as inappropriate. This happen when people don’t respect others, or don’t understand the importance of YouTube as a source.
Comments and groups are other ways to link YouTube users. When people have a YouTube account, they can leave comments on videos, or taking part in groups in order to discuss issues with others. I think this can be helpful in order to know others’ points of view. When people share their videos, they share their ideas as well.
Another positive aspect of YouTube are categories. If you click on ‘categories’ (you find this button at the top of the homepage), you can see that videos are divided into different topics, such as ‘comedy’, ‘news and politics’, 'entertainment'. This can make your search easier.

Videos are really good sources: while you’re watching them, you're learning from them and enjoying yourself. The collection of videos widens every day, and you always have the opportunity to find something you’re interested in. For example, if you don’t know anything about a town or a musician, you can search for some videos. That’s fantastic! You can get information just with a click.

This is true for language learning as well. I can find many interesting English videos to practise my listening and enrich my vocabulary, even when they don’t deal directly with language learning. For example, as I'm keen on music, TV, and cinema, I like searching for songs, pieces of movies, documentaries in English. I must admit I've always used YouTube only for these purposes. Anyway, I found out that there are videos aimed at ESL/EFL students too. They could help me improving my listening and enriching my vocabulary, or learning more about a topic (e.g. I found a video about essay writing, and a YouTube member offering videos for ESL teachers and students). There's another website dealing with teaching and videos. It's entitled 'TeacherTube'. Even though I'll search for more videos about language learning, I think I'll concentrate better on videos about my interests in order to combine learning with pleasure.

As we learnt how to use podcasts in order to improve our English, let’s compare YouTube videos to podcasts. Audio and video podcasts are useful because you can upload them onto your mp3 player, whereas if you want to watch a video on YouTube, you have to sit at your computer. Anyway, I think that YouTube contains a lot of interesting videos, which are very easy to find, whereas podcasts are scattered across the Web. I think that YouTube and podcasts are two different sources, but they're both useful to improve language learning. Do you agree with me?

I know that some people don't like YouTube because they find it confusing, and also because they think that using YouTube is a waste of time. What do you think about it?

Let me know!

See you!

Giovanna

(photo source)

domenica 18 novembre 2007

Learning through podcasts (e-tivity 6)


Hi everyone!

‘What podcasting does is it lets me pick out those precise things I'm interested in’ – Steve Jobs, co-founder and chief executive officer of Apple

Podcasts are very useful sources available on the Internet. As you probably know, they are digital media files that you can watch or listen to directly from your computer or that you can download and then transfer to your mp3 player. These files have an important characteristic: they can be syndicated thanks to feeds so you can be informed when new material is added. If you want to get further information, please visit our course blog or click here.

The first time I heard about podcasts was a year ago, when my boyfriend bought his i-Pod. While I was using his mp3 player, I found these files in his playlist and I asked him about them. He told me he had downloaded the podcasts about his favourite radio or TV shows. I immediately thought that podcasts were wonderful tools! Anyway, I could appreciate them better thanks to my university course because I realized there’s a wide range of podcasts that can be useful for my language learning, especially for my listening and vocabulary. I can choose the files which I’m most interested in, such as English lessons, news, business English. Some years ago this was not possible!

I can do whatever I want with these files:

- watching or listening to them from my computer

- download them onto my computer and then upload onto my mp3 player

I prefer the second option because I can listen to podcasts (I haven’t a video-mp3 player and I can’t watch video files ;-) ) whenever I want. For example, yesterday I downloaded a podcast about business English and I listened to it while I was taking the dog for a walk. I must admit it’s great! I don’t have to spend time on the Internet or watch satellite TV in order to improve my English. Moreover, it’s a good alternative if I'm not at home.

I found four useful websites hosting podcasts and I subscribed to their feeds thanks to Bloglines. Every time a new content is added, Bloglines lets me know.

Here are the websites:

1. http://www.china232.com/

This website was created by two English teachers living in Shangai. The site contains a lot of interesting and fun podcasts that can be useful to improve my listening skills. The files deal with conversation about many different topics, such as university, diet, English pronunciation. Moreover, there’s a section dealing with business English, a section with many videos, a blog, a discussion forum. The podcasts are divided into different lessons, and every lesson is followed by the transcription of the conversation, and by phrases and words occurring in the lesson. A good way to improve my listening and vocabulary!

2. http://www.businessenglishpod.com/

This website deals with business English and targets intermediate and advanced business English learners. It’s very interesting because it hosts a lot of audio and video podcasts about different topics: marketing, job interviews, telephone calls, etc. The podcasts deal with different lessons. I think this site could be useful for a job in the future. The podcasts are followed by their transcription and by some questions useful to improve my learning.

3. http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/

This website deals with news, which I can listen to thanks to podcasts. I can also read their transcription and do the exercises advised by the website. There are a lot of listening exercises: pre-listening, listening, post-listening exercises. This could be useful to improve my comprehension and my vocabulary. Moreover, there are many exercises I can do to improve my writing. There's only a problem with this site: it doesn't use feeds.

4. http://edition.cnn.com/services/podcasting/

CNN offers a lot of audio and video podcasts dealing with many different subjects, such as news, business, health, TV shows. I can find the files which I'm most interested in very easily and quickly because I can choose podcasts by title or topic. I decided to subscribe to 'The CNN daily' podcasts and the 'CNN news update' podcasts, but there are many other podcasts available on this website.


There is another website hosting interesting podcasts. I saved in my del.icio.us and subscribed to it a week ago, and I’d like to write about it briefly.

5. http://www.thebobandrobshow.com/

This website contains audio podcasts about English lessons, which deal with many different subjects. It’s a variety show performed by two EFL teachers living in
Japan.


I hope you’ll find these websites useful!

See you!


Giovanna


(photo source)