Almost the end...: Webcast-ing!

Last week, we had a webcast exchange with a group of students from Middlebury College in Vermont, U.S.A, studying Italian. We all presented a PowerPoint work about a specific topic. Alice, Susanne and I chose to talk about fraternities and sororities organizations in North America and the Goliardia in Italy, while our classmates discussed about eating habits, national celebrations and immigration. On the contrary, the topics chosen by American students were all focused on how women and love are represented in Italian literature. The main aim of these presentations was to compare Italian and American cultures.

In a few words… it was a great experience! Thanks to webcast technology, we had the possibility to do a cultural exchange “in real time” with people on the other side of the Ocean and immediately comment on each presentation, either by means of the microphone or by chat.

What I really appreciated was the fact that the audience could intervene, comment on each presentation and ask questions. That way each student could give and receive feedback. It was not a ‘unilateral’ process in which one student talked and the others simply listened to him/her, but rather a 'multiple communication', an exchange with many ‘tentacles’, since everyone had the opportunity to talk and intervene.

I think that each of us contributed with his/her presentation to the construction of a wide interactive environment, where each piece of work was the fruit of the collaboration, co-operation and negotiation between students. In my opinion, what really mattered was the fact that everybody’s knowledge crossed the borders of their respective countries to create an ‘intersection of experiences’, a cross-cultural world.

Maria Chiara

The last two “–ings”…: Video-ing and Webcast-ing!

As I have already pointed out in my previous posts, the whole coursework can be divided into some subgroups, a series of three basic “-ings”, i.e. blogging, wiki-ing and Skype-ing, which have triggered other kinds of significant “-ings”, such as learning, reading, writing, searching, reflecting, talking, discussing, comparing, etc. Today I’d like to add a further “-ing” to the list: video-ing.

On Monday 16, we had our last exchange with the students from Tulane and it was not a Skype exchange, but rather a “video exchange”! Obviously, if on the one hand the fact that we had to talk to someone we had never seen before by means of a video camera raised our curiosity, on the other it also presented a significant challenge. While in the context of Skype exchanges we only had aural contact (and it was difficult as well!), in this case we had both aural and visual contact. I think that our initial “hesitation” (nobody wanted to break the ice…!) was due precisely to this “double contact”. However, after a few minutes of “disorientation”, we all talked to the students from Tulane and it was very nice!

Talking together “in real time” through a video camera laid the basis for an interactive environment, generating a particular kind of “distant connection”, and provided a face-to-face “meeting” with people physically located in a different continent.

As far as I’m concerned, it was a powerful experience and, most importantly, it was the “crowing” of our online exchange with the students from Tulane.

Next week, we will have the possibility to try out a new technology: webcasts. We will have a webcast exchange with a group of students from Middlebury College in Vermont, U.S.A. We will present our PowerPoint work (Alice, Susanne and I chose to talk about fraternities, sororities and the Goliardia) and they will do the same, presenting a work on women in Italian literature. The voice of those giving the presentation can be heard and their presentation slides seen on the screen, but, most importantly, the audience can intervene, thus laying the basis for a wide interactive environment, as was the case of “video-ing”. Even though this time there won’t be any video on the webcast, I think it will be nice to do a presentation online, mainly because it is the fruit of our collaboration and co-operation. We’ll see!

Maria Chiara

A focus on technology...

“Knowledge sharing and creation is at the heart of innovation in all fields […] Knowledge cannot be transferred; it can only be enacted, through a process of understanding, through which people interpret information and make judgements on the basis of it […]” (Leadbeater, 2000:12) [1].

This is the statement I chose in January to start my final paper of the first semester. I pose it again because, in my opinion, it well sums up the way we have worked so far with wikis and Skype exchanges.

If I think of all the things we have learnt and done so far and the things we will learn and do in the next few weeks, I realize how important new media tools are in the context of knowledge creation and acquisition. At first, knowing that the computer and new technologies would accompany us throughout the course worried me, because I wasn’t accustomed to learn English by means of media applications and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to deal with them. Fortunately, as the course went on I experienced quite a positive use of technology, experiential and interactive.

Developing our six wiki pages and conversing every week with my American peer made me understand the importance of ‘learning-by-doing’, co-operation and negotiation and, most importantly, made me reflect on the close, triple connection existing between the communicative function of language, the use of technology and the process of creating and sharing knowledge.

Maria Chiara

[1] Source: Bruns A. and Humphreys S. 2005 “Wikis in Teaching and Assessment: The M/Cyclopedia Project”.

Wiki-ing and Skype-ing: two ways of building knowledge

“Knowledge work requires people to be actively creative, to collaborate, to understand the shape of project work, and to be willing to learn continuously”(Bruns and Humphreys, 2005: 3).

I think that what Bruns and Humphreys state about knowledge work well sums up the kind of work we have done and we are still doing for the English course: blogging, wiki-ing and skype-ing are all good ways for exploring the immense, boundless, never lasting world of knowledge.

There are many ways of acquiring knowledge. Some of them are “traditional”, i.e. reading a book, going to a library, listening to a teacher, etc.; others are brand new, the “sons” of the Digital Age and the abovementioned “-ings” are three of these sons. These new media tools are helpful vehicles which oblige all of us to enact our understandings and give our contribution to the construction of knowledge.

The notion itself of ‘student’ has changed. In the context of social project-based strategies for learning, a student is no longer a separate part of the whole community, but a part of the main and every single student’s contribution is indispensable to the process of knowledge building. Far from being mere passive consumers, we have become active producers of knowledge who write collectively on a wiki page for the same purpose: learn and have our peers learn.

The notion of ‘classroom’ has changed as well. Thanks to Skype, I realized that the traditional classroom has virtually enlarged and become a potentially infinite learning space. The fact that students who are physically divided by an ocean have the possibility to use a computer to reduce distances and share their knowledge by means of a small microphone is absolutely amazing... How powerful knowledge is!

Source Bruns A. and Humphreys S. 2005 "Wikis in Teaching and Assessment: The M/Cyclopedia Project"

A reflection on wiki-ing...

Throughout the first semester I learned to create and use blogs to express my ideas about coursework and share them with my peers, through the comment function, whereas now I’m writing on my personal blog, my ‘online diary’, to express my thoughts without my classmates being supposed to read what I write. In a few words, I am blogging in a reflective way, translating my ‘flux of thoughts’ into words. My last post, for instance, was focused on stereotypes, simply because in that moment I felt like thinking about “stereotypes” and discussing a little bit about that particular topic. Now I feel like reflecting on wiki-ing, in particular on how difficult collective writing is, how delicate and challenging… This is precisely what I think wiki-ing is: a ‘collective challenge’.

Challenges can be both ‘personal’- if they affect your private life - and ‘collective’, if they involve a group of people, for instance a band, a team of doctors, researchers or… a wiki group! These two kinds of challenges may imply different ways of facing the problem, different approaches, strategies and solutions, but there is one aspect that binds these two categories together: they both require great effort and determination.

In the case of a ‘collective challenge’, if it is true that every group of people working together has its peculiarities (its goals, problems, etc.), it is also true that all kinds of collective activities require a specific approach, based on co-operation, collaboration, negotiation and sometimes it’s not easy for all the members to integrate in the community and find a common ‘line of action’.

Perhaps, this is the basic problem university students encounter when dealing with wikis and I think that it is mainly due to the fact that at school students are not accustomed to working in group, they are entire of themselves and compete with each other. On the contrary, wiki-ing wants each student to be a piece of the wiki world, put his/her knowledge at the class’ disposal and accept that his/her contribution might be questioned. If these ‘rules’ are respected by all the contributors, collective work turns out to be highly constructive, but, unfortunately, collaborative writing can end up being highly destructive as well, if within the group there is someone who is not motivated to be ‘a part of the main’.

That’s why I really appreciated the fact that last week Sarah divided us into small groups of 2-3 people to edit the wiki page Alternative Energy Sources in Italy. That way, I think that each of us can carry out a better work: as we pay more attention to a smaller piece of writing and collaborate effectively with a few classmates, we are ‘unconsciously’ more motivated to improve the wiki page. We can better ‘control’ our work. At the end of the whole process, however, what counts is the overall work, that is, the sum of every single contribution.

A focus on culture: a reflection on stereotypes

On Monday, the complex, delicate topic we discussed about was culture. In particular, we cast light on how Italian culture is perceived by the members of other national communities. We visited a website containing quite a detailed list of all the most significant social habits, attitudes and behaviours Italian people show in ordinary life and we realized that most of the aspects highlighted may reflect to some extent our real way of dealing with people, but they are mainly a series of stereotypes.

But what are stereotypes? What do they imply? Are stereotypes positive or negative? According to the Collins Cobuild, English dictionary for advanced learners, a stereotype is ‘a fixed general image or set of characteristics that a lot of people believe represent a particular type of person or thing’. L. Sciolla (2002: 153) states that a stereotype is a pattern dealing with certain beliefs on the personal characteristics of social groups as a whole and focuses on the “self-protective reasons” implied in stereotypes, i.e. the need for national communities to keep or achieve a positive image of themselves. Therefore, stereotypes are some sort of categories that people use, or rather “build” over time, in order to “classify” the human, social, cultural, religious and political reality round them, but also to “represent” themselves and the community they belong to. In so doing, the whole reality is categorised, simplified, but also homogenized. In my opinion, this last aspect is particularly worth of note. The reason lies in the fact that we can’t apply a pattern, that is, something fixed, “fossilised”, to a community of people, as it is human nature to evolve and change over time.

With regard to this issue, I’d like to mention the Hofstede Model, according to which national culture differences can be subdivided into five dimensions:

1)power distance

2)individualism

3)masculinity

4)uncertainty avoidance

5)long-term orientation

This model, though being very interesting in itself, is a double-edged weapon, in that on the one hand it allows us to make an in-depth analysis of cultural differences (or similarities) all over the world, but on the other it seems to take it for granted that the data referred to a particular country do not refer to each of the group members. It may be obvious, but I think that, unfortunately, it is not so obvious as we might think… And that’s why it often happens that the members of a certain community label the members of a different community as self-centred – just to cite one example – without considering the crucial fact that a population is made up of individuals, with their own points of view, perspectives, opinions, beliefs, etc. Hence, this model is not to be taken as gospel, simply because what can be applied to a general cultural community can’t always be applied to a single person (there are always exceptions to the rule!). Besides, as I previously pointed out, people’s behaviours, as well as their way of thinking, can change over time and, therefore, what can be applied to a certain community in a certain period, can’t always be applied to the same community in a different period.

To sum up, there are multiple factors we must always take into account if we want to analyse the great cultural variety characterising our world, but, most importantly, we must always be aware that, if on the one hand exploiting models is a good way for organizing and simplifying the reality, on the other there is a danger that we simplify too much and “build” a distorted view of humankind.

My second Skype exchange: a kind of "chain reaction"

Hello everybody,

on Monday I had my second Skype exchange with my American peer and it was even more stimulating than the first one. The reason lies in the fact that the guy asked me a question I was not able to answer simply because I wasn’t prepared in that particular topic. My conversation partner asked me, between the North and the South, which one has more environmental groups. Given my “information gap”, I surfed the Internet for a while – the Web-sphere is always helpful…! – and, even though I didn’t succeed in finding out specific information about the numerical superiority of environmental groups in one of the two areas, I picked up the website of the Legambiente, which is the most important Italian environmental association with its 1,000 local branches located in different places all over Italy.

This website has many links. Two of them, in particular, grasped my attention: “calendario delle iniziative” and “scrivici”. The first one is a real calendar with all the meetings of the current year. When I saw that a campaign on recycling is taking place in these days, I clicked on the second link and wrote an e-mail to the association, whose head office is in Rome, in order to request more detailed information about the initiative. I’m waiting for the answer…

The most interesting aspect of the whole issue is the fact that the question asked by my conversation partner triggered a sort of “chain reaction”: functioning as an input, it pushed me into searching for the piece of information I lacked and, though I didn’t find out specific sources dealing with the distribution of environmental groups in northern and southern Italy, I picked up an important Web source which can help all of us to be constantly informed about the most significant initiatives that are taking place or will take place in the near future.

Another meaningful aspect is that, after writing the link to the site on the “Notice Board” of our wiki, one of my Italian peers wrote me a comment saying that she visited the website and found it quite interesting. Therefore, what at the beginning was my lack of information turned out to be a positive way of enriching not only my knowledge fund, but also my peers’.

To sum up, I think that one of the most positive aspects of Skype exchanges is that we can all benefit from every single conversation, that is, not only from the exchange with our American conversation partner, but also from the other exchanges: each of us can learn from the experience made by other students. Therefore… the more we listen and talk to our peers, the more we learn…!

That’s all for now.

Maria Chiara