Analysing Wikis....

Hi everybody!!

Here I am in order to complete one of my English course's activities. This week I have to explore the world of wikis, in particular concerning Wikipedia, the most famous example of "wiki", (you can see a picture of its logo, taken from Google).

Reading the various explanations about wikis and listening to an online video course presented by the University of Wisconsin, I tried to understand something more about this kind of software and about the way it is structured.

First of all, a wiki is a tool for collaborative authoring; as a matter of fact, anyone can write some information about a particular subject . Then, this document can be edited inside the website without requiring users to know HTML. A wiki's most important characteristic is that pages can be easily created and modified by anyone!

Unfortunately, this characteristic is also a negative aspect; the fact that anyone can edit a document can be dangerous: wiki content can sometimes be misleading! In order to limit this problem, the software provides users....Wikiquette! What is it?? Wikiquette offers some principles of etiquette on how to work with others on wikis!

As far as Wikipedia is concerned, we can see that each language structures the whole website in different ways. The English version's main page, for example, presents a list of the various subjects at the top where you can click and enter a specific page in wikipedia dedicated to that subject (i.e. clicking on "history" you can find all the documents about this matter, from the etimology of the word to the latest news). At the centre there are the most interesting articles and images of the day. On the left you can read the most recent news and on the right there is generally (as in all the other languages) the "SEARCH" part where you can write what you need and then the software will go through all its documents in order to give you the results you are looking for.

Exploring this technology I realized that the language is simple, often made up of short sentences. I expected this language feature because the audience is very very wide: everyone can use a wiki and for this reason documents have to be understandable to all kinds of users.

However, it does depend on the subject and author (i.e. if a scholar in physics wants to write an article using technical language...then only students in physics will understand that page!).

Wikis, in particular Wikipedia, are full of hyperlinks for each subject, so that users can click on what they are searching for and the resulting website is at their disposal at once!

Surfing the Net, I explored other kinds of wikis and I found the following: Wiktionary (a collaborative project producing a free, multilingual dictionary), Wikibooks (a collection of free content textbooks), and many other examples such as Wikiversity, Wikisource, Wikinews, Wikispecies. I noticed that all these kinds of wikis are structured in the same way. The main purpose of each one is: simplicity and clarity!

Well, I hope you've read my attempt to analyse this software and found it interesting!

Bye bye

Giorgia

Podcasts: Listen and Learn!

Hi boys and girls!

This week I have a new activity to carry out: exploring the world of podcasts! Let's see what this technology represents!

First of all the word "podcast" links together two concepts: I-pod and broadcast. "I-pod" (as everybody certainly knows) is the most famous Mp3, while "broadcast" refers to the world of television and radio.

Podcasts represent a kind of technology through which you can record, download, watch and listen to audio or video files. How can we find podcasts on Internet? In my opinion, there are two possible solutions:

- Podcasts can be found inside a website; if so, audio or video files are attached to other documents.

- Podcasts can characterise a website as a whole; this means that these files are the main subject of the website and the reason for which it exists.

After exploring podcasts in the Net I found three examples which refer to the distinction I made above.

Eslpod. This website consists of learning English as a second language; all its activities are linked to listening an audio file which refers to a specific situation in which the student could be. This example represents the second kind of websites, those where the podcast characterises the whole site. I think it is very useful because audio files deal with social activities in everyday life and sometimes I realize paradoxically that in this field I'm not very good even though someone thinks that these are the simplest things to learn in a foreign language.

BBC. This is BBC's official website where the famous television channel tranfers all the news of the day. Most of its parts consists of written documents; sometimes, however, the document can present an audio or video file in attachment so that people can watch and listen to the news. This example refers to the first kind of podcasts as BBC is a journalistic website where sometimes the presence of audio files helps the comprehension. For me this is very useful because it represents an interesting exercise of listening.

Englishfeed. With this last example I think that the two solutions are linked together. As a matter of fact, this website explains various aspects of English grammar but while you read the pages you have the chance to listen to an English teacher; in this case written documents and audio files have the same importance. I think this can be very useful for us because various exercises are put together: reading, listening and checking pronunciation.

In order to have a direct experience with audio files I surfed into Odeo and I recorded an audio where I've spoken about my impressions of podcasts in general and making reference to the examples I found (sources: Google; del.icio.us); you can listen to my audio file clicking on the buttom that you can find at the bottom of this page.

I hope you have a nice week!!!
Bye
Giorgia

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Websites...What's their genre??

Hi everyone!

How are you?

This week I'm involved in a new activity dealing with genre! The question is... Do websites belong to a specific genre? and if so, what genre? I know...the answer is not simple.

Reading "Boundaries real and imagined: personal websites" I have understood that the real problem represented by websites is that web publishing is not governed by national laws or quality control; for this reason, nowadays linguists find themselves having to deal with a great variety of personal websites and the difficulty for them is how to classify these new documents in relation to their language and contexts.

The situation in which our English course is taking place is represented by a blog. This kind of technology can be compared for many aspects to personal websites: thanks to their contents and form they represent the link between a secret diary and public revelation. When people write in a blog, they reveal their sentiments but at the same time they know that their personal facts will be seen by the whole world.

Another kind of website is represented by institutional websites; these are characterised by the fact that they provide information to a specific audience. During our previous activity we searched for some websites which could be useful for us and we recorded them in "del.icio.us". Most of our bookmarks deal with tools for language learning and translation.

Searching for the most interesting websites (and most useful for me), I found two examples presenting different features : one deals with idiomatic English expressions and the other is about the use of articles in English.

The first, English as a Second Language Glossary of Idiomatic English Expressions, is a website aimed at teaching English idioms; this is a subject for advanced learners, who are the intended audience. I think that its creators want to provide a tool which teaches the use of idiomatic expressions in English, the context in which they are used and some examples to clarify meaning. Although it refers to teaching, language, it is quite informal, characterized by the presence of noun phrases, the use of the present tense and obviously descriptive sentences. There are also a lot of hyperlinks: each letter of the alphabet stands for all the idioms beginning with that letter. For example, clicking on "B" you can find the idiomatic expression "to beat around the bush" and its definition is: "speak indirectly or evasively; not directly address the problem". Other hyperlinks link to various English dictionaries.

The second website I've chosen is The Use and non-use of articles in English. It focuses on English grammar and in particular on a specific aspect: the use of the English article. This subject is at the basis of language learning and for this reason the intended audience of this website is beginners of ESL. The structure, in fact, in order to help comprehension, is characterized by complete but short sentences (e.g. "These indefinite articles are used with singular nouns when the noun is general; the corresponding indefinite quantity word some is used for plural general nouns") and by the presence of paragraphs explaining different aspects. The language is quite formal, as it is describing grammar. There are few hyperlinks, only for exercises at the end of each chapter.

In conclusion, The websites I have tried to analyse are similar as they are both aimed at teaching some features of English; but, as each aspect of a language needs particular explanation, it is not strange that each website is structured in a different way, using a different register in accordance with its intended audience.

Please, if you have something to tell me about my analysis, comment on my blog.

I'll be happy to read your comments and answer to you!

Have a nice week!!

Bye

Giorgia

Del.icio.us...A new source!!

Hi people!!
How are you?
This week I have explored a new web source...DEL.ICIO.US; This web site is a way to register your favourite web sites as if they were bookmarks and then you can visit other people's favourite web sites.

I have to tell the truth: at the beginning I couldn't understand very well what this source represented and I found it difficult to learn how this web site worked. For this reason I was not very enthousiastic about this new activity, but then I tried to face the problem and at the end of this week I can say that I have understood how this source can be useful for us and I'm happy that I'm able to use a new kind of technology.

In this activity I had to find at least 5 web sites to register in my page in del.icio.us and they had to be useful for our course "bloggingenglish2" and for all the contributors of this blog.

I have to say that it was very easy to find web sites about translations or language tools...Internet is full of sources of this kind. The real problem was to understand if they were valid or not!

In general, looking for all my colleagues' bookmarks, I noticed that most of them were about foreign languages, on line dictionaries, translation tools, experiences abroad... I think that all these subjects represent certainly what we (the contributors of this blog) have in common; for this reason it's not strange that all the bookmarks are about the same matter.

I think this is also a good way to compare our sources and find which is the best for our needs. Futhermore everyone can enrich his personal page with the sources which were found by other people...I think there could be a kind of information exchange!

Well, I think that's all for now and for my considerations about "del.icio.us".
Please, if you have something to tell me, if you agree with me or if you think I said wrong things...write a comment on my blog, I'll be happy to answer to you!
Have a nice week!
Bye
Giorgia

This is MY adventure!!!

Hi people!!
Here I am in this new adventure...and....welcome to MY personal blog!!..I can't believe it! I'm Giorgia and I live in Mestre!..Does somebody know Mestre? It's ten minutes far from Venice...I think you certainly know Venice!

I graduated last year in "Mediazione linguistica e culturale" at the University of Padua and now I'm attending the second year of the Specialistica in "Lingue straniere per la comunicazione internazionale". During all these years I have studied English and French. At the moment I'm beginning my final thesis but I can't tell you the specific subject because...I have not completely decided it yet! I can tell you that I will graduate in French and so my thesis will concern a french subject! I'll give you the web site of my University..the University of Padua (if you are interested in its courses, click on it!)

Blogging...What are my impressions about it??!!

You will think..what are you doing now on the blog!!!?? Well..this year the English course is about blogs and all the participants meet on blog, exploring this world and its language..or better..English language!

I began this experience two weeks ago and I admit that I have discovered a new world! Exploring the various blogs I realised that nowadays an infinity of people write, read, meet on blog, speaking about all subjects. There are blogs on tv, music, food, cities, politics, and I could continue endlessly! You think of a subject..you can be sure that there is a blog on that!

I assure you that for me it's a new world and every lesson I do on blog I discover something new! However, besides my positive attitude there are also some reservations, I explain better...I think that you have to be careful with what you read and what you write; everybody can write on blog and everybody can write what they want...and this is a risk! On the other side you have to be careful with what YOU write because then everybody can read what you wrote!..For my character I know that I would never introduce something too personal about me in a blog !

There's another important aspect about blogs...the language! Yes because the language is not the same as the one we learn at school...this is often colloquial language! I have to admit that in writing I feel free because I think that on blog people are more careful in what you write than in how you write it!
However I realised that the problem often appears in reading beacuse I have always studied on academic or literary subjects; on the other hand, on blog you can find a lot of words coming from English dialects..and here is the problem! However I have often said that this is for me a new adventure and for this, everything that concerns it, is a good reason to learn something new!

Well, I think that's all for now.
I really hope this new blog will be interesting for you!
Bye Bye
Giorgia