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Calendar for tulanepadova: Spring 2007
Week 1: Introduction to the project
- 26/02/07 14.30-16.00 in Maldura Lab B
- In class: Introduction to the wiki and the exchange.
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e-tivity 1
Recycling in Italy, in the Veneto, in your town
The theme for our cultural exchange this semester will be recycling, alternative sources of energy and similar topics. Not only are the United States and Italy different, but in particular in New Orleans these issues became more evident following hurricane Katrina. In a cultural exchange the aim is for you to share your knowledge of your culture with your peers in another country and to find out about the other culture through your peers. You might realize, as we discuss culture and cultural issues, that you can’t actually know everything about your own culture. Therefore, this e-tivity is a mix of sharing knowledge you already possess and gathering new knowledge. Not only will you learn from your peers but you have a lot to offer. So in preparation for that, let’s start sharing within our group.
Sarah
Purpose: To gather knowledge for your first Skype exchanges and to share this knowledge with your peers on a wiki page.
Task: Based on your personal experience and searches on the Internet (you guys are experts, right?), start adding information on the situation of recycling in Italy, the Veneto, or even your particular town. Consider the following issues:
- What do you recycle? How do you recycle, e.g. bins that the town picks up on certain days or do you have to take the recyclable material somewhere? Are you obliged to recycle? In what way? Do you (or your parents) pay
taxes for recycling or is it free? Do you pay taxes for the garbage you don’t or can’t recycle? (Americans are unfamiliar with the word ‘rubbish’)?
- Who carries out the recycling, a public or a private company?
- Are recycled materials re-used? In what way?
- Are recycled materials used as alternative sources of energy?
Basically, find as much information as you can on recycling.
Add the information you find to the Recycling in Italy page in this wiki in ENGLISH. DO NOT worry about FORM. What’s important at this point is to gather information. As you will be researching information in Italian, the challenge will be writing down your ideas and information in English. There may be some words that cannot be translated into English; in that case, leave them in Italian. Before you search, check out the wiki page and read what your peers have already written. The idea is that you should not all be looking for the same information, but that by sharing information you can significantly increase the amount of knowledge you have to offer your peers in the States.
Respond: This part of the e-tivity is slightly different from what you are used to. In preparation for the Skype interviews I would like you to start considering questions you want to ask your peers in the United States. Go to our forum (you’ll have to sign up, but by now you guys are experts at this!) and click on the Recycling Questions forum. Contribute to the forum with at least two posts. Contributing means not only writing, but, as always, reading what your peers have written first.
Timeline: Friday, March 2 (task), Monday, March 5 (respond)
Week 2: First Skype exchange - Recycling
- **05/03/07 ****16.00-18.00 Maldura Lab B**
- In class: First Skype exchange and debriefing.
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e-tivity 2
Developing your wiki pages
How was your exchange on Skype? Did you learn anything? What? Did you learn anything from what your Italian peers wrote on the Italian wiki page? This week’s e-tivity is going to be about collecting our ideas in order to see what we need to discuss for next week’s Skype exchange.
Sarah
Purpose: To collect the knowledge you gained from your American peers and start giving structure to the Recycling in
Tasks: You have two tasks to do this week.
1 – Add whatever you learned from the exchange to
2 – Structure the Recycling in Italy page. This means two things: (1) - following the basic structure outlined in the All about wiki page and (2) – cleaning up the language in the page so that it is coherent and correct. Please do a little bit of both. It might also mean adding information if, for example, your American peer asked you a question you could not answer or if you think some information is lacking. Respond: Go to the Recycling in the Timeline: Friday, March 9 (task), Monday, March 12 (respond) N.B. Remember to start your Reflective Blogging. Reflecting on Intercultural Competence In the forum and in your refective blogging posts I noticed that almost all of you appreciated not only the opportunity to speak in English (and understand American English!) but the opportunity to get to know more about American culture. Language and culture are tightly interconnected, but language courses often don't focus enough on the cultural aspect or do so in a very objective way whereas culture is quite a subjective issue! One first step in developing intercultural awareness is becoming familiar with what intercultural competence means and how interculturally competent we think we are. Hopefully by the end of the course you will be more competent than you are now, but it will be nice to have a measure for comparison at the end of the course. Sarah Purpose: To do some background reading on intercultural competence and reflect on your own intercultural competence. Tasks: You have two tasks to do this week, one is reading and reflection, the other language. 1 – Read the following resources and reflect on the concept of Intercultural Competence. At the end of the third resource you will find a questionnaire for self-evaluation of intercultural competence. Please complete it and take notes. Feel free to check out the Culture page students compiled last semester and add/change as you see fit. 2 – Edit Recycling in Italy page and the
Maria Chiara Alice Albini Susanne March Lucrezia Bissaro Alice Lonardi Isabella Perini Francesca DB Svjetlana Marco Giorgia Lara Barbara Francesca L. Annalisa Respond: Go to the Padova wiki-forum and join the forum discussion on intercultural competence that we began last semester. Add your reply at the end of the discussion and feel free to read what your colleagues last semester wrote. Remember: contributing means not only writing, but, as always, reading what your peers have written first. If you have any doubts while you're editing write a comment to the page you're editing or to the Help discussion in the forum. Timeline: Friday, March 16 (task), Monday, March 19 (respond) N.B. Remember to do your Reflective Blogging. e-tivity 4: After two Skype exchanges and two large wiki pages, and after having read your reflective blogging, I think it’s safe to say that not only are you looking forward to the third exchange, but you know how to prepare for it as well. The topic this week is alternative sources of energy. Finding out about and reflecting on this issue in I can’t wait to see what I learn from you. Sarah Purpose: To gather knowledge for your third Skype exchanges and to share this knowledge with your peers on a new wiki page called Alternative Energy Sources in Italy. Task: Based on your personal knowledge and searches on the Internet, start adding information on alternative sources of energy in - What are traditional sources of energy? - What are alternative sources of energy? - Which ones are most common in - Is there any promotion of their use (e.g. legislation, campaigns, etc.)? - What is renewable energy? - Is there a connection between recycling and alternative sources of energy? Basically, find as much information as you can on the issue. Add the information you find to the Recycling in Please take a look at the page we created in class called The Writing Process. Respond: As we’ve done before, in preparation for the Skype interviews I would like you to start considering questions you want to ask your peers in the Timeline: Friday, March 23 (task), Monday, March 26 (respond) N.B. Keep up with the reflective blogging but remember that it’s your own personal reflections that are not necessarily read by your peers. Developing the energy wiki pages How was your exchange on Skype? Did you learn anything? What? Did you learn anything from what your Italian peers wrote on the Italian wiki page? Like e-tivity 2, we’re going to share what we learned from our peers by developing a wiki page for alternative energy in the Sarah Purpose: To collect the knowledge you gained from your American peers by developing an Alternative Energy in the Tasks: You have two tasks to do this week. 1 – Add whatever you learned from the exchange to the Alternative Energy Sources in the USA page. Feel free to do some research on the Internet to find additional information if you feel so inclined, e.g. if something your partner said sparked your curiosity. Remember: read what others have written before you write in order to avoid repetition. Please start giving it structure from the start just as you did with the Alternative Energy Sources in Italy page. 2 – Keep working on the Alternative Energy Sources in Italy page. This means two things: (1) - following the basic structure outlined in the All about wiki page and (2) – cleaning up the language in the page so that it is coherent and correct. Please do a little bit of both. It might also mean adding information if, for example, your American peer asked you a question you could not answer or if you think some information is lacking. I will be adding linguistic feedback throughout the week, but see how many mistakes you can catch before I get there! In order to make editing more easy, based on the structure we decided on in class, I would like to ask you all to choose one of the six sections to work on and write your names in the table below. By copying and pasting information into the new pages (they are like sandboxes) you should be able to edit your section and then copy and paste it back into the original page. Please remember to use the discussion function to make sure you agree on changes!
Atic Svjetlana Isabella Perini Isabella Perini Lucrezia Bissaro Alice Albini Susanne March Atic Svjetlana Marco Dalla Libera M. Chiara Depellegrin Giorgia Nardin Francesca Dal Ben Annalisa Giorgio Barbara Cavazzina Francesca Leorato Alice Lonardi Lara Sbampato
Week 3: Second Skype exchange
Center of Intercultural Competence
Intercultural Competence according to wikipedia
Developing Intercultural Competence
Recycling in Italy
Recycling in the USA
Week 4: Some considerations on culture
Week 5: Third Skype exchange
Energy
Traditional Energy
Alternative Energy
Energy in Italy
Regional Policies
Promoting Alternative Energy
Respond: Go to the Alternative Energy Sources in the USA page and see what your peers have written. Go to the Energy Forum and, like last week, consider what information you are still lacking and, therefore what you could ask your peers in the second exchange. You’re also welcome to share your impressions of your experience with your peers. What was it like? What were the challenges? etc. Remember: contributing means not only writing, but, as always, reading what your peers have written first.
Secondly, many of you have expressed your impressions of wiki-ing in your reflective blogs. If you go to the forum; there is a discussion on Using Wikis and there you may find the ‘Impressions of collaborative writing’ and ‘Plagiarism’ threads interesting. Read what your peers wrote last semester and start adding your own thoughts.
Timeline: Friday, March 30 (task), Monday, April 2 (respond)
N.B. Reflective Blogging (It’s great for me as a teacher to be able to read your thoughts!)
Week 6: Fourth Skype exchange
- 02/0/07 16.00-18.00 Maldura Lab B
- Fourth Skype exchange
- e-tivity 6
Vajont, Mose and …
Here we are on are third and last topic. I saw a significant improvement from the first two pages to the second two, so I imagine these last two will be nearly perfect right off ;-) The main topic is water resources. Latifah, the teacher at Tulane, finds the Mose project for Venice to be of particular interest since there are many similarities with problems in New Orleans (it is basically sinking like Venice), especially seeing that nothing is being done even in the aftermath of Katrina. We’ve set the topic, but as always it’s up to you to choose specifically what you would like to research and write about. If you’re worried about someone else ‘stealing’ your topic, it might be a good idea, as Barbara has done, to write a comment on the part you would like to focus on. You’ve got two weeks to do this so don’t work too hard ;-)
Sarah
Purpose: To gather knowledge for your fifth Skype exchanges and to share this knowledge with your peers on a new wiki page called Water Resources Sources in Italy.
Task: You’ve got four tasks, one large, three small so don’t worry!
1. Based on your personal knowledge and searches on the Internet, start adding information to Water Resources Sources in Italy
- What led up to the Vajont tragey, i.e. why was the dam built and what went wrong?
- What is the reasoning behind the Mose project? Why is it not being carried out?
- What is the state of water resources in
- What is being done to make sure Italians will continue to have access to clean water?
- Is water used for energy in
- What about bottled water? Why is it such a large industry? Why do Italians not drink tap water? Is this an intelligent way to use water?
These are just some ideas, but as always I’m sure you’ll come up with more. The usual recommendations: focus on structure right from the start, avoid repetition of ideas, try to write correctly and accurately, and cite your sources.
2. Copy and paste the work you did in e-tivity 5 on Energy in
3. Based on the structure we decided on in class on Monday, choose one of the sections in Alternative Energy Sources in the USA to work on. As we discussed in class, it’s easier to edit something you have not personally written so that you can see where meaning is unclear. Therefore, please choose a section where you have not written the contents, or at least not most of them.
| Sources and Usage of Alternative Energy | Introduction and Organizations | Projects promoting the use of alternative energy |
|
Lara Sbampato Francesca Leorato Alice Lonardi Svjetlana Atic |
Lucrezia Bissaro Francesca Dal Ben Annalisa Giorgio M. Chiara Depellegrin Alice Albini |
Giorgia Nardin Isabella Perini Barbara Cavazzina Marco Susanne March |
Respond: As we’ve done before, in preparation for the Skype interviews I would like you to start considering questions you want to ask your peers in the
Timeline: Wednesday, April 11 (task), Monday, April 16 (respond)
N.B. Keep up with the reflective blogging.
Week 7: Fifth Skype exchange
- 16/04/07 16.00-18.00 Maldura Lab B
- Fifth Skype exchange
- e-tivity 7
A whole bunch of things :-)
As you all know, next week will be our last exchange with the students from Tulane - their last class is on May 1st! We're also nearing the end of our semester too. So this week we've got several different activities to take care of before next Monday.
Sarah
Purposes: 1 - to start developing the Water Resources in the USA page.
2 - to write a rough draft of your presentation.
3 - to start considering the question(s) you want to ask 'the whole group' during our video conference next Monday.
Tasks: You have two tasks to do this week.
1 – Add whatever you learned from the exchange to the Water Resources in the USA page page. Feel free to do some research on the Internet to find additional information if you feel so inclined, e.g. if something your partner said sparked your curiosity. Remember: read what others have written before you write in order to avoid repetition. Please start giving it structure from the start; if somebody has already written on the topic you wanted to write on, or one that's similar, rather than starting a new section, try and integrate what you've got to say in what's already been written! We'll put off editing the Water Resources in Italy page until next week.
2 – Start writing a rough draft of your presentation. 1st - open a wiki page where you can start collaboratively preparing your presentation. 2nd - write the link to your page and the names of those involved here, in the table below. 3rd - create a structure and basic contents to show to your peers next Monday for feedback. You can use the forum, comment function in the wiki, or yackpack to collaborate. While each of you will give 5 minutes of the presentation (i.e. 2 students = 10 min presentation, 3 students = 15 min presentation), I expect the whole presentation to be a collaborative effort and, in fact, you will be receiving a collective grade. I will put rubrics up for the presentation grading by next Monday.
Authors
Presentation wiki page name
Barbara, Giorgia
University System: Italy and USA
Francesca DB, Annalisa, Lucrezia
National Celebrations(Independence day, Thanksgiving day,Labor day)
Alice A., Susanne, Maria Chiara
Fraternities and Sororities
Lara, Francesca, Alice L.
Eating habits
Svjetlana, Isabella, Marco
Immigration: Italy vs U.S.A.
Timeline: Monday, April 23 (task & respond)
N.B. Reflective Blogging
- As I explained in class today, I am going to ‘use’ you again, as I often have this year J to try out a new technology: webcasts. Basically a webcast is an online presentation where the voice of those giving the presentation can be heard and their presentation slides seen on the screen, and where the audience, potentially global, can intervene in a q and a session using text chat. For an example of a webcast, see this site. The online journal Innovate uses webcasts to give the authors of the articles published in the journal and readers the chance to further discuss issues that come up in the articles. The service is hosted by the company Uliveandlearn. Unfortunately, it was impossible to organize this exchange with our partners from Tulane but we thought it would be worth trying with another class. The idea is to give you a more ‘real’ audience during your presentations, i.e. not just me and your classmates. The class we will be webcasting with is an Advanced Level class in Italian Literature at Middlebury. They will be giving presentations in Italian on how women are presented in Italian literature and/or representations of love. Though this is not what you study, I’m sure you’ll find it interesting. You will be expected to listen and give constructive feedback in terms of language and content and, of course, ask any questions that come to mind. You, obviously, will be presenting a comparison of some cultural aspect, in English, and they will be expected to give you feedback. As the time problem is always an issue, it will not be possible for everyone to participate in the webcasts. Those who don’t do the webcasts will give their presentations in class. I would like to know who would be available to give their presentations on Wednesday, May 9, from 16 to
Week 8: Final Skype exchange with video!
- 23/04/07 16.00-18.00 Maldura Lab B
- Sixth Skype exchange
- e-tivity 8
Getting your presentations ready
As you all know, rather than writing a final paper you will be doing final presentations. Four groups will do them on Monday, May 7 and Wednesday May 9 while one group will do theirs on May 14. Over the next two weeks you’ve got to get them ready and I would like to give you the possibility to get feedback both from your peers and then from me before having to present. Therefore, our task will be to get out a first draft for feedback and then produce the final draft based on feedback.
Sarah
Purpose: Write a first draft of your final presentation for feedback and then prepare a final draft based on feedback.
Tasks: You have two weeks to do this task, which give us enough time, but only if you all carefully respect the deadlines. Prepare a first draft of your final presentation in powerpoint. You can prepare the basic text contents on the wiki page and then each individual can create his/her slides or one person in the group can do it – just make sure you’re using the same background, font, layout, etc. Upload the powerpoint to your group’s wiki page.
Once you have received feedback from your peers, I will also provide feedback. Then, based on the feedback, make your final draft.
Respond: Based on the chart below, go to the page of the group you’ve been assigned to give feedback to. Download their ppt file. It is very important that you give useful feedback. The purpose of feedback is to help your peer improve his/her presentation. People are more likely to take feedback seriously and act upon it if it is balanced feedback, i.e. a mix of positive, reinforcing feedback and constructive criticism. You also need to be clear, honest, specific and encouraging. In our case, you must consider issues such as language, contents, structure, organization, staying within time limits, amount of information, layout on each slide, etc.
Write your feedback in the comments function of the groups' project page in the wiki. That way, if there's something they don't understand or need to discuss, you can do it there. Once I see each page has received peer feedback, I will give my feedback.
Authors
Presentation wiki page name
Barbara, Giorgia: Feedback from Francesca DB, Annalisa, Lucrezia
University System: Italy and USA
Francesca DB, Annalisa, Lucrezia: Feedback from Alice A., Susanne, Maria Chiara
National Celebrations(Independence day, Thanksgiving day,....)
Alice A., Susanne, Maria Chiara: Feedback from Lara, Francesca L., Alice L.
Fraternities and Sororities
Lara, Francesca, Alice L.: Feedback from Svjetlana, Isabella, Marco
Eating habits
Svjetlana, Isabella, Marco: Feedback from Barbara, Giorgia
Immigration: Italy vs U.S.A.
Timeline: Sunday, April 29 (task) Tuesday, May 1 (respond) – the deadlines are very important to respect so that I can have time to give feedback and allow you to prepare your final presentations by May 7th!
N.B. Reflective Blogging - please keep it up, especially this week following the video Skype ;-)
BTW, has anyone tried using YackPack from home?
Week 9: Presentation webcast
- 07/05/07 15.00-17.00**
- Final presentation webcast exchange with students from
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Week 10: Final presentations
- 14/05/07
- Teacher and peers review language and contents of each group's final presentation
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