WEBCASTS PRESENTATIONS

Here I am to sum up this last adventure in the technology jungle ( lions were wikis, hi hi!):the experience this time was using webcasts!

On monday we presented in groups different topics using wecasts and powerpoint! One could say:ok, what's new?

The audience was made up of students at Middlebury College and they could interact with us using a chat! This was fantastic!

I was so nervous and excited at the same time, it is so difficult to describe the feeling.

My peers and I managed to give clear and coherent presentations about National celebrations; Fraternities and Sororities, Eating habits and Immigration.

It was such a good experience, as we didn't just learn new topics but also new tatics to speak clearly and to seem more natural and professional. I really liked how people reacted in the class, no one seems annoyed or tired, all of us were enthusiastic and pleasant!

Then Americans were really kind, they always listened to us and asked interesing questions about our research, and this made our efforts worth.

I enjoyed their presentations as well. They dealt with difficult topics: l'amor cortese,il concetto di pazzia referring to Dante, Jacopone da Todi, Virgilio..

I think they worked very hard to do such a informative job, and as the topic was not easy one so they also had to pay attention to their references.

This was our last experience and next week we 'll have a sort of revision. I have to admit I'm quiet sad: during the year I was always complainig because of the amount of work to do, but now I feel I had a great time,I didn't learn just new topics and new expressions, but also how to collaborate with other persons! Share experiences ideas and efforts is not loosing something but making it better!

WEBCAST!!!

Last lesson we had a chat with our American peers and for the first time we could see them on the screen! I felt really embarrased to speak to all these people, neve seen before, but already known, as every time we had had our SKype exchages,at the end of the lessons we spoke about our impressions of Americans..
I don't know if I prefer the webcast conversation or Skype, obviously when you use sKype you feel more comfortable, you share with your interlocutor only your voice, whereas with webcasts you share also your image and your personality. Seeing someone you can understand many things, from the way he/she is dressed, how he pays attention to what your are saying.. ect.
Skype is a more detached way of communicate, the different between the two systems is comparable to the relationships we have in our lives: Skype is like having a coffee with your colleguaes, whilst Webcast is like a dinner with friends, so you need a certain confidence.
I think that Sarah's decision of letting webcast exchange as last lesson was quite good, we had our first experience and after two months we needed to do a more step and finally see each other!!

AFTER EASTER

After Easter coming back to everyday life is always very hard, so before leaving the joyful atmosphere, go and watch this funny video of an Easter rap bunny:http://i.flowgo.com/greetings/rapeasterbunny/rapeasterbunny.swf
For one moment you'll be back to your Easter holidays!! ( which is always a great idea)
This week we were supposed to search for water resources in Italy, and I have to admit I was shocked by how important water in our life is , and how it can change our existence.
It's indispensable for human health and without safe water we are all exposed to a wide diseases, which now affect people from the third world.
Surfing the net I discovered that 1.7millions deaths could be avoided each year providing access to safe drinking water,sanitation and hygiene- I was wondering why wo do not try to stop these deaths,and why we do not try to behave in a more responsible way.. We need to set in our everyday life goals to reach, may be not too difficult,but which enable also other people to have what we use as duty.

The third Skype exchange was really funny, the teacher suggested us to do a conference, so the members of my group were Francesco, Alice and me. We spoke just a little about alternative energies in Italy and America, as none of us was really competent in the topic, it was difficult to keep on the conversation. We didn’t want to say pointless things or information so we move to an easier subject: stereotypes. We talked about what we think about Americans and he told us what Americans think about Italians.

To be honest our American peer is not 100% American and has Italian origins, so he was a bit partizan and in my opinion he didn’t say all the truths about the considerations that Americans express usually on Italians. However, I discovered many interesting things as the following ones: in America it is thought that PIZZA is a local product and that all Italians are fashion victims!!

During the conversation I noticed that Francesco had some problems in understanding me, and I think the main trouble is associated to intonation: even if a word was already a part of my vocabulary, and I was sure of its pronunciation, he didn’t understand me: Using a completely different intonation creates misunderstandings. For example I told a joke but I couldn’t convey the idea of irony in English and only Alice was able to understand me( Life is hard!). I think that listening to a native speaker is a perfect exercise to improve amd learn the right intonation, even if I have never been taught to paty attention at it.

The task of this week activity was to find information on alternative energies in America and to correct grammar and content mistakes in our wiki page about renewable sources of energy in Italy .I think it was a really effective assignment as to become a better conversational partner, we have first to develop a critical eye on the topic, otherwise it is an unprofitable job. Anyway one can find information by himself and then ask his/ her partner if what he found was correct or not, so he/ she improves their vocabulary and can try to guess the pronunciation . In my personal experience when someone corrects my pronunciation is easier to remeber the correction.

In the last class we didn't have our skype exchange, but we spoke about ICC (Intercultural competence), which is a topic really close to what I'm studying. As one who wants to work in a multiracial society, he/ she should at least be aware of different cultures and their different habits. Our teacher Sarah gave us a complicated test called (YOGA) about multiculturalism and I have to admit that if even we are living in the 2007 and in Italy the number of immigrants is increasing every year, I'm not competent and I'm also far distant to become. In meanwhile I discovered I could also become aware of the difference and try to do my best to develop my skills. T.S. Eliot said that " The vital importance for a society is friction between its parts" and in the wiki made by my colleagues in the first semester there is a large amount of definitions which describe culture in a proper and specific way. Belief, art, morals, law but also immaterial and material expressions of our everyday life determinate a man's culture. An essential part to become competent is to be in contact with people of other cultures and be open to new ways of life.
In my opinion trying to be nowadays intercultural is a challenging task, all the public opinion states that different cultures make your knowledge and your life flourish but in my personal experience is really difficult to interact with foreigners. Maybe the institutions in Italy don't work enough to integrate people who come in Italy for different reasons (jobs, family.). Most of times we are afraid of the differences and a part of foreigners do not effort to learn our language, our habits. Coexisting and respecting each other are the first steps we should do toward a multicultural world. I don't think Italy is still a multicultural nation: it's true that in Italy live people from all the five continents but the majority of them live in sort of ghettos.
Openness, emphaty, patience, curiosity are the essential elements to not loose a part of the next future world. Being able to leave off misunderstandings and give a chance to tolerance is already a good point.

TEN MINUTES TO REFLECT UPON OUR SKYPE EXCHANGE


The second Skipe exchange was.. unpredicted. First I had some technical problem and I couldn't phone, so at very beginning I was a little bit disappointed, all my peers had already started speaking.. and I was the only one waiting for Marcello's help!
However, in a short time I started my Skipe exchange with a new partner, his name is Francesco and as everyone can guess, he has Italian origins! On the contrary to what my colleagues said, I had no problems in understanding him as he speaks Italian fluently with few mistakes and the pronunciation was that of an Italian from Bologna! To be ho honest we spoke for all the time in Italian, I asked him if we could speak in English, but he prefers bel paese language!
Form the linguistic point of view I didn't learn very much this time, but I discovered a lot of interesting things.
I was interested in the reactions Americans have towards the collecting of garbage and how it was possible that they were supposed to be less attentive after hurricane Katrina.He told it was true, Americans seem to be undeceived as the government hasn't done much effort to rebuild the city and there is a still too much to do..
I asked him what he thought about the competion between universities aimed to find new and proper ways of recycling. He told me that he hopes this project will touch the public opinion as it is created by students, who are the future of a Nation but, he is not so convinced they will do many improvements to the current situation.
I thought we could also make a project for improve our environment, when I found the information about Naples, I was shocked. No one seems to be interested in the future and in what we will leave to the next generations, people behave as earth is only for us. Everywhere in the world governments and instutions do just a little of the gigantic amount of things we could do to ensure our children a better world.
Anyway these considerations are not so new, everyday we come across to injustices and problems, which could be easily solve..
I think this exchange will help everyone (Italian and American students) to reflect and consider what we really can do for our earth.

Monday we had our first Skype exchange, it was such an exciting thing!
Before starting to speak with American colleagues we tried to talk to each other in class, and it was really funny, as we know each other and we also joked a lit bit. But, when the Americans called me up, I was totally embarrassed and I think also Timothy and Bari were. At the very beginning we spoke about lives, our hobbies and ourselves. (It was so strange for me speaking with someone I have never met before!) Sometimes I didn’t know what talk about, and there were some pauses. I had to think in a short what to say in English trying to reduce the mistakes! This is a really good exercise to improve your ability in speaking.
Then, as the Americans were less than we were, we start doing conference, and I have to admit that I was more confident because I had on my side Francesca and Annalisa that could help me when I didn’t manage to express properly. But there was also a con, when we were in the conference, it was more difficult to understand when someone wanted to speak, and I didn’t want to seem interfering.
To be honest we talked just a little about recycling, only Annalisa and Bari could tell us about their experiences and the problems in their countries. However, the important thing was to have a clearer idea of what is going on in New Orleans, and we discovered how Hurricane Katrina destroyed evrything in the city.Hearing from someone who was present during the disaster, it's really different from reading about it in a newspaper or watching it on Tv.