"MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT"



Wishing all bloggers a Merry Christmas and a wonderful, peaceful 2007!

Sarah

Photo from Flickr

Person of the Year

Hello everyone,

Every year TIME magazine (USA) chooses a "person of the year", i.e. somebody that represents the year that's ending. It's usually a politician (Bush) or a peace maker (Mandela) or someone else famous for this reason or that. Well, this year there's a suprise. The person of the year is YOU.

"You" not in the generic, impersonal form, but all of you bloggers from bloggingenglish. "You" refers to all of those people who spend time and energy online creating content, be it YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, blogs or wikis on what is called Web 2.0. It's YOU. All of you have contributed to making the Web a richer place to find information. Be proud.

Go to the article and read it, and you'll see that you are really a part of this revolution!

Check out the other articles on Web 2.0 at the same site.

Sarah

p.s. Feel free to send comments :-)

e-tivity 10

Final papers

Here we are, ten weeks later, lots of logins, passwords and registrations later and you’ve all made it, every single one of you! I have been extremely impressed by the dedication with which you have approached each e-tivity, by your patience when there were technological challenges, and the insight of your blog posts. Now it’s time to “digest” everything. What I mean by “digest” is stop and think about what you’ve learned. Your final paper (that’s what this e-tivity is about) is a time for reflection. Reflecting on the experience of the last ten weeks, reflecting on social software, reflecting on the Web, reflecting on what you’ve learned an how you’ve changed. You’ve got several weeks to complete this one so take your time :-)

Sarah

Purpose: To reflect on what you’ve learned in this course and express your thoughts in the form of a final paper.

Task: You could write a final paper on the experience of using the social software, on social software itself, on one of the particular genres we have considered, etc. The choice is yours. Please take some time to consider what you would like to write about. You may be objective (like writing about what you’ve already started researching for your wiki contributions) or subjective (like what you’ve learned and how you think it might be useful for other students of English) or both. These are just some ideas; I’m sure you’ll come up with more creative interesting ones!

The paper should be about 3 pages (see Course Syllabus).

In the next few days, please send a comment to this message saying what you intend to write about.

After Christmas I will be sending a message with the rubrics I will be using to assess your papers and some indications on structure.

Respond: There is no “respond” as this is an individual assignment.

Timeline: January 17, though this is flexible. If you’ve got lots of exams to study for just let me know and I can extend the deadline. Please send your papers to me via email as a .doc.

e-tivity 9: summary

Compliments to everyone! Not only did you manage to work on your wikis, but you did a very good job at looking at each other's contributions and giving useful feedback (Annalisa, Francesca and Lucrezia even managed to make changes based on your feedback). I think you all did a very good job at pointing out the good aspects and those that still needed to be worked on. It was also good to see that those of you who wrote feedback after others had already written READ what the others had written first. This means you're becoming REAL bloggers!

Below there are direct links to your pages and a summary of the feedback given by your peers (it was often the same).

Barbara and Giorgia (Educational Blogging)

- you could still stress the distinction between the two parts
- you could use more bold to highlight key words
- should personal opinions be separated from fact? should we use I and we? (to be discussed in class)

Svjetlana (Language Learning)

- you could use more bold to highlight key words
- is the introduction to the second paragraph useful?
- you could put the retrieval date of the link to our course

Marco, Maria Chiara, Alice (E-tivity)

- is the example a pure repetition of the theoretical part?
- what about the sections Links, References, See?

Francesca, Lucrezia, Annalisa (Podcasting)

(feedack before corrections made on Friday)
- you should integrate new contents with existing contents
- greater division into paragraphs
- you could use more bold to highlight key words

Then Annalisa gave a nice summary of your common mistakes, which could be interpreted as the following advice:

- avoid repetition of contents
- standardize how references and links are made
- use many short paragraphs rather than a few long ones
- internal links
- don’t use too many quotations
- use bold to highlight key words

All this said, I must say I agree with all of you that you have done an excellent job. It wasn’t easy, but as Maria Chiara says hopefully it’s definitely been a learning experience! I hope you can say the same for the course as a whole. I know that I have certainly learned a lot from all of you.

It’s been a pleasure teaching you, working with you and learning from you.

Job well done.

Sarah

Francesca's feedback on e-tivity9

HI COLLEGUES!!

Exploring my classmates’ contributions on Edutech I noticed that their corrections are all really good!

As regards the article about e-tivity delivered by Alice, Maria Chiara and Marco, they corrected the lay-out and made a clearer distinction between the descriptive part and the example with the result that now their article looks better organized and more effective. I also agree with Svietlana’s comment about the fact that they should try to put a link-paragraph (before references) which includes direct links. They did a very good work!!

As far as the article ( Blog) of Giorgia and Barbara is concerned I think that after their corrections, their article is better organized. According to what we noticed in class with Sarah their article was too long and for this reasons it was necessary to divide it into shorter paragraphs. Now it looks more effective and immediately captures readers’ interest. Moreover, the quotation was quite long and ‘heavy’, now it looks absolutely better, it is shorter and separated from the rest of the text. Very good corrections!

Finally I would like to comment on Svjetlana’s article about Language Learning, she did an excellent work, despite her task was even more difficult because she worked alone. Her article is very well structured and interesting. I appreciated a lot the divisions between the various sections and above all the distinctions of links into categories. Her article immediately captures readers’ interests. Excellent work!

In conclusion I think that with our corrections we all contribute to improve our articles. Moreover, I noticed that our ‘mistakes’ were more related to the form and lay-out than the content. We all wrote interesting articles; we need to improve a little the form and become more familiar with wiki’s writing features. In my opinion this was a quite difficult but very stimulating task!

Thanks for your suggestions,
See you tomorrow
Bye Bye

Francesca

Annalisa's feedback on E-tivity 9

Hello everybody!

Last week we contributed to Edutechwiki.
Although our work was quite good, we all made some mistakes,especially concening the general structure of a wiki.
Here there are my impressions about my classmates'wikis!

Marco, Mariachiara and Alice (E-tivity):
I think that in their contribution there were some repetitions of concepts.
Moreover, they had to make a clearer division between the theoretical part of the analysis and the numerous examples.

Giorgia and Barbara (Blog) :
I saw their corrections and I think that the layout of the article is definitely better now.
At the beginning I found their work too long and "homogeneous" and therefore, it was not so easy to capture the reader's interest.
Now it is more concise and clearer thanks to the use of paragraphs.
Perhaps, as we said in class, their contribution should be written using a more impersonal style(avoid the use of direct "we").

Svjetlana (Language Learning):
I think that her work was more difficult because she edited her contribution without any help.
In my opinion, in her text there is a clear division between the diversified sections of the analysis.
In particular I noticed and appreciated the original division of links into different categories.

Generally speaking , our common mistakes concerned:
-unuseful repetitions of concepts
-references and links (we have to written them in a standard way)
-division into paragraphs
-internal links
-excessive use of quotations
-different importance of some concepts; it implies we have to write some significant words in bold.

That's all for the moment.
See you next Tuesday.
Annalisa

Lucrezia's feedback on e-ctivity n.9

Hi bunch of wiki creators,
Annalisa, Francesca and me worked this morning on our page so maybe you didn't notice our corrections. We tried to integrate other people's sections with our ideas in order to avoid repetitions and to make our page simpler. Please have a look and let me know what you think about it now. I also surfed in all your pages and I have to admit that all of you did an excellent job! Well done ladies and gentleman!

As far as Maria Chiara, Alice and Marco's page is concerned, I really appreciate the idea and the structure of their text. Putting the example and its explanation makes the text less boring and I really like this practical part instead of always reading about theorists! Then one has also the possibility to see what its by click on the link, so anyone can better understand what e-ctivity is.I don't tell you to add the links, because this morning we tried many times so it is better to ask Sarah before. By the way you made your page better! Well done E-ctivity group!



Giorgia and Barbara did a good job too. Reading the blog page I found that the corrections you made are the one you needed, now everything is clearer and simpler, and I was suprised you managed to do it in such a short time, maybe they only need to add some bold words to grap the reader's attention.

Reading Language learning I was suprised again because Svjetlana did everything all by herself and again her corrections are well done and you don't need to change a lot on your pages

Summing up I 'm satisfied of our improvements and I hope Mr. Schneider will enjoy our changes.. It was quite a difficult task but in the end we all managed!So now we need only to enjoy the weekend!!

Alice's feedback on e-tivity 9

Hi everybody!!!

I agree with what Barbara said in her post: I'm proud of us! Contriubuting to Edutech wiki has been a hard work to do but very satisfactory at the end.

Sarah wants us to say something about our colleagues' work so here I am.
Assuming that all the jobs are really well done (especially if we consider that this was our first contribution to a wiki) and I am not able to criticize other people's works, in my own small way I can only give some pieces of advice.

1) Francesca, Lucrezia and Annalisa worked on podcasts. First of all, I agree to what Svjetlana says in her post, that is that there is a kind of separation from their article and the rest of the page. Secondly, there are some repetions: some parts of the article could be integrated to some sections that already existed without the necessity of creating another one. Other advise is to put some words in bold and create some paragraphs. It makes the reading more easier.

2) Giorgia and Barbara's contribution is about blogs, the corrections they made are very good and now the article is easier to read than before. I can only give two pieces of advice to them: one is to put in bold more key words in order to catch the reader's attention in a better way and the other to use a more impersonal style even though we know that you can also write in first person.

3) Svjetlana contributed to language learning. The article is well structured so I can only say the same thing I've already said about Giorgia and Barbara's work: to put the key words of her text in bold type, for the same reason, that is to catch the reader's attention.

That's all...and the only thing I can add is VERY GOOD JOB!! ^__^

Cheers

Alice

Dear Sarah, Could you pealse tell me how to make an internal link on edutechwiki? Because I managed to do only few of them . The others displayed in red, what should I do? Let me know. Thaks
Lucrezia

Marco's opinion about E-tivity nine

Hello everybody!

Last week we tried to contribute on Edutech wiki: it was not an easy task! At the end in my opinion we did quite a good work!

Since I am only one of your university colleagues, I don't feel like criticize other people's work in any way! So, everything I am trying to do is only giving some advices:

Francesca, Lucrezia and Annalisa contributed to the page about podcast:
in my opinion they did a very good work! The only think I want to comment is that I don't understand if some part of the article are useful or not: I mean that there are some sections that are very similar to others and don't add some new information. As we said in class, the best solution would be to elide some parts and try to integrate them with others speaking about the same things.

Svjetlana contributed to the page about language learning:
The text in the page is very well written. Besides, svjetlana did a very good work also if she had not the help of any colleague! She also put a lot of good links.
On the other hand, I think that some parts are unuseful, like the first introductive paragraph of the second section. In second place, I would add to the article only a detail: I would have put the retrieval date next to the link with our course, because the we do not know if and when our blog will be erased or modified.

Giorgia and Barbara contributed to the page about blogs:
the page is very well written and organised. I also like the way in which the quotation is underlined in the middle of the page thanks to a separated space like a window.
I only think that this page would better have been written using an impersonal style, because there are some personal pronouns that are not used in other pages of Edutech wiki. Probably, the better solution could have been to add a different part dealing with personal opinions.

Finally, in my opinion we all did an excellent job!
This is all!
Marco

Svjetlana's feedback on E-tivity 9

Hi collegues!
I cleaned up my wiki: "Language learning". The main changes I’ve done are all about the structure, that is to say the lay-out of the article (internal links, words in bold, paragraphing). I’ve also added some new references that I forgot the first time.

Now I am going to give some impressions on my collegues’ wikis.

1) Marco, MariaChiara and Alice:
I find changes on the lay-out very effective. The article seams more organized in this new way. But, as we have already pointed out in class, the second part of they article is a repetition of the first and theoretical one. So they should try to improve the second part and find a new solution to avoid this repetition. Perhaps it could be useful to add examples of other theorists, schools or universities.
Another advice is to add a new paragraph, entitled LINK, before REFERENCES, were to put direct links, instead of having a list with the repetition of “See...” (I noticed that in many pages they do in this way).

2) Giorgia and Barbara:
I think that their corrections are excellent. With this new layout the article capture the attention of the reader, definitely more than before. And I think that it is a plus the fact that the article now is briefer.
The only advice that I can give to them is to stress the distinction between the two parts of the article: they can put the two subtitiles in bold or as second heading (Teachers’ approach and Students’ approach). In my opinion it is not so evident if one looks without paing too much attention.

3) Francesca, Lucrezia and Annalisa:
Their article is interesting but it seems separated from the rest of the page, as regards the structure and some contents.
First of all, they put the article after “Links and References” and after their article they put their own links and references. In my opinion this is some kind of division from the rest of the article. They should integrate they links and references to those that were already there and put the article before Links and References.
As we pointed out in class last week, there are also some repetitions, that is to say that some of their sentences says same things as those said in other paragraphs of the article. Therefore they should integrate their ideas with that of articles that already exsists. Even though it is not so easy!!!
Other advise is to put some words in bold and create some paragraphs. It makes the reading more easier.

This is all. These are not critics, but advices. I hope you don’t mind...
I think that our works are very good. There are things to improve, but we all wrote interesting articles. ;-)
Buy, buy.
Svjetlana.

Feedback on E-tivity 9

Hi Everybody!
Last week we chose a subject, we developped it and we edited in Edutech Wiki. After analysing our contributions all together in class, we have to find our mistakes and correct them.

I have just corrected my work (there's a link in the comment in e-tivity 9) and now I have explored my peers' contributions. I noticed that some of them have already modified their pages.

In general, all our mistakes deal with the form rather than with the content. For example, Alice, Marco and Mariachiara contributed in "E-tivity" and they did, in my opinion, a good and interesting job; however, as we discussed in class, they had to make a clear division between the descriptive part and the example. I have just visited their page and I saw that their work is modified and I think that it is very very good!

Some of our mistakes, however, are also about the content. Annalisa, Francesca and Lucrezia contributed in "Podcasting"; in my opinion they wrote interesting things but some of what they said was a repetition of a previous paragraph, already existing. This is the real problem of editing in Edutech Wiki: you have to write something new and interesting, a subject which has never been developped. The task for them consists in trying to link their analysis to the previous one, eliminating what has already been described.

Reading Svjetlana's work I realised that she did a very good job in "language learning"; I think she could improve it in the form, for example writing in bold the most important ideas of each paragraph, in order to catch the attention of the reader.

Summing up, I think that we all did interesting contributions. Our biggest problem concern references, quotations and paragraphing. I hope that this week will be useful for our corrections!!

Have a nice week!

Bye

Giorgia

e-tivity 9

Cleaning up the wiki

You all did an excellent job during your first week of wiki-ing but I think it’s clear to us that we all still have a lot to learn and that there are improvements to be made. We will, therefore, dedicate another week to cleaning up and fixing up your wiki contributions. Fortunately you all seem to enjoy it and see how it can be useful, even if it’s not necessarily easy! I’m sure your wiki contributions will be very professional and academic in the end.

Just think, guys, you’ve almost made it to the end of the course and you’ve done everything so far. You can do it, just two more e-tivities :-)

Sarah

Purpose: To improve your wiki contributions based on the message from the wiki administrator (Daniel Schneider) and what we discussed in class in order to make excellent wiki contributions.

Task:

1 – Let’s do some more reading. Go to Purdue University’s online writing lab (OWL) and click around. In particular, since some of your difficulties are not copying and quoting sources, I would like you to read the following pages:

Quoting, paraphrasing and summarising

How to paraphrase

Paragraphs

Conciseness

Avoiding plagiarism

Evaluating sources (hint: it might be helpful to save sites that are good resources in your del.icio.us page, of course with the bloggingenglish tag!)

Citing Electronic sources

Searching the World Wide Web

2 – Go back and take a look at what you’ve written on the wiki. Ask yourselves the following questions (for example):

- Is my contribution a series of quotations or is it my own paraphrase and summary with the addition of my own ideas and thoughts?

- Have I quoted sources and cited them correctly?

- Have I compiled a correct bibliography?

- Have I made internal links to other pages in the wiki (e.g. if you use the word “wiki” have you made it a link like this: [[wiki]])?

- Have I been clear and concise?

- Have I used paragraphs, divisions and bold to make selective reading easier?

3 – Edit your contribution making any necessary changes.

Respond: Please make your corrections by Friday. Write a comment to this post with a link to your contribution. Go and analyse your colleagues’ contributions. Write a post back to the course blog providing feedback (both positive and constructive criticism) on the other pages. On Monday write a post to your personal blog in which you reflect on if and what you have learned in the past week.

Timeline: Friday, December 16 (task), Monday, December 18 (respond)