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Joining hands in skyping!!!

Last Monday our final Skype exchange with our Tulane peers was with VIDEO!!!

Since Sarah told us that our last exchange would have been with video, my first thought was not to come :-( Finally, I did obviously come! And I'm still exciting about it!!! It was really an instructive experience!

Since we've talked over Skype almost all the times with the same peer, we all were interested in meeting our peer ;-) We were skyping altogether in a big conference and, luckily, there was only one camera in the lab which was zooming in on the person who's speaking at that moment. At Tulane's they had one fixed camera so whenever they wanted to speak they had to move to their teacher's desk and take a sit down there.

At the very beginning of the conversation -I guess- we were all a bit embarassed by the camera: we broke the ice asking the Americans what their opinion was about Virginia Tech massacre. Since we all are university students, what happened on the american campus impressed us probably more than anyone else. We got into the gun control debate in the United States and I felt we were all not really confortable with the subject matter.

Sarah probably realized it as well as she promptly moved the conversation forward: we asked them something regarding the topics of our final presentations (i.e. something about their eating habits, their university system including the existence of fraternities and sororities, something about their national celebrations and even something about immigration down there) and the atmosphere became more friendly and relaxed.

Learning experiences made of feeling strong emotions and gathering knowledge at the same time are the most effective ones! Skyping with video is really one of these experiences which has enriched not only our English learning career but also our intercultural competence.

Alice

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Next week there will be our last Skype exchange WITH VIDEO with our American peers from Tulane ;-) I guess we'll skype altogether in a big conference and, as Sarah has already told us, a camera will zoom in on the person who's speaking at that moment :-( I'm quite exciting about it but also a bit scared to talk -let's say- in front of such a big audience :-( However, I'm sure it will be veeery funny seeing our very Italian speaking hands moving quickly!

Francesca, Lara and I will probably ask them something about their 'eating habits' that we chose as the topic of our final presentation; we decided to compare American and Italian eating habits: our starting point is the opposition between FAST FOOD and SLOW FOOD.

The Slow Food Movement was founded in 1986 after Carlo Petrini had led a protest against the construction of a McDonald’s in Rome. Developed in opposition to the globalization of fast food and the McDonaldization of life, the Slow Food Movement has evolved into a lifestyle that stresses the need to slow down, to protect and preserve local food culture, and to re-educate society on the importance of taste and food.

Not only Italy but also the United States, which is the biggest violator of Slow Food ideals, has developed a growing Slow Food community that is changing the way Americans approach food.

I'm very interested in preserving the regional traditions of our culture and food plays a vital role in reaching that goal. The topic of my final project at the University of Verona was on the multifunctional roots of farm holidays within the Mantuan countryside. The Mantuan farmhouse hotels and restaurants have the important role of both protecting the landscape and promoting the sorroundings.

Healthy eating is directly linked with taking the time to enjoy food in a relaxed state of mind; however, destructive eating habits and production practices have affected the health of the American public. I think in their small territory the Mantuan farmhouses are trying to be a good alternative to such unhealthy lifestyle.

Alice

Collaborative!


My peers and I have been working on wikis for several weeks within an intensitive collaboration to create texts by working closely together both talking through and writing the text together. Given that writing is a complex and never-ended task, collaborative writing with multiple authors adds to the complexity.

All our e-tivities have certain steps in common: at the very beginning of a new wiki page each of us write an individual part then the team edits and revises the draft in small groups. At the end we get feedback from our e-tutor Sarah mainly concerning the grammatical and lexical aspects and the wiki page lay-out.

Given that group work takes more time than if we all do it ourselves, I'm sure it provides a better learning experience . I guess it is simply a matter of students being lazy and group work is great for motivation: they force you to be responsible, to do more and better work! I've already observed that the result can be both enjoyable and frustrating: it can be a pleasure because responsabilities are divided and problems discussed and solved together but it can be also frustrating because there's always someone else judging our work.

I think my personal contributions within our collaborative wiki pages are improving thanks to the use of Skype too. On the wiki page there's always the possibility to leave a comment and my peers and I have widely use this comment botton to leave ideas, suggestions or help requests but it's often taken some time before someone's replied; using Skype chat for instant messenging it's quicker and you can easily go on with your work.

Since I've been using Skype I think I'm doing better my work and I don't feel alone in front of my computer ;-)

Alice


Photo taken from Flickr

Alcohol... negative effects.


During our 3rd Skype exchange Laura, Isabella and I had really a good time. It was Laura's first day after the Spring Break which is a week where no lessons take place at the university and students are usually very busy with alcohol parties on campus. She told us something about the fraternities and the sororities at Tulane University: Isabella and I
were very interested in it because in the italian universities they don't exist. Of course we wanted to know if what we're used to see in the american films really happens in everyday life at the american universities.

Fraternities and sororities are famous for drinking: they organize hard alcohol events best known as keg parties. Laura explained us that to join a fraternity or a sorority one has to commit hazing violations which are much more tragically famous in the southern universities. At Tulane, for example, fraternity hazings mainly consist of getting completely wasted.

She said she left her sorority only after one semester because she didn't like it and above all because it was very expensive: she had to pay dues in order to stay, money used to rent venues for drinking games and crazy parties, to buy hard alcohol and to hire the room where they were used to meet every week to organize their activities.

Unfortunately alcohol has been a part of university life since ages and remains nowadays the drug most abused by students. Alcohol has become a prominent point of discussion on campus because students who engage in high-risk drinking are at the most risk for negative consequences such as academic problems, legal and disciplinary sanctions and injuries.

Alice


Photo taken from Flickr