Presentations with WEBCAST

Hi everybody!

Last week we had a new surprise..we tried a new way of communication: WEBCAST!

But what is exactly a webcast?

Basically,it is an online presentation but the extraordinary fact is that people giving the presentations can share this moment with other people from all over the world!
In our case with an Advanced Level class of Italian Literature at Middlebury College ,in Vermont.
Thanks to webcast, they can hear our voice and see our presentation slides on their computer screen. Moreover, the audience can make their comments or ask questions, using a chat.
So..We had the great opportunity of receiving an immediate feedback from our American listeners!

The themes of our group presentations were general comparisons between Italy and USA about some cultural aspects (eating habits, national celebrations, immigration, university system,Fraternities and Sororities) while they gave their presenations in Italian on how women are presented in Italian literature and different representations of love.
It was a wonderful experience but I have to say that my group was the first to talk and we were very very nervous!
It was also very stimulating the fact that we were in contact with the American students and that they continously ask questions and comment on our work!
I really found great satisfaction in doing it..
I have to say that I also appreciated the presentations of Middlebury College ; some of them were very interesting and ingenious! and, above all, it was nice to hear people from a different country and culture who tried to explain, understand and compare some aspects of your cultural legacy!

University of Padua/Middlebury College webcasts


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Video Exchange!

Hello people!

On Monday 16 we had our last exchange with the students from Tulane and there was a SURPRISE..!
It was not a Skype Exchange but a video Xchange!
So , thanks to a camera we saw our peers in the USA .

At the beginning obviously it was quite embarassing and none of us wanted to start the conversation but little by little...
We introduced ourselves and asked them some questions about the subjects of our final presentations (my topic is national celebrations in the USA and in Italy) . After we also talked about what happened at Virginia Tech Institute the week before...
Finally we just talked about our final impressions related to the Skype experience. Some of our peers were very funny and we had great time listening to them.

As I said before, at the beginning we all were quite "shy" because the VISUAL contact was completely different from the simple aural contact with Skype..in a certain sense you feel more exposed..

As regards the language, I have to say that sometimes I have difficulties to understand completely what our American peers were saying. Some of them talked too fast and low.

Generally speaking ,it was surely a positive experience and I would say the right end of our online exchange with the students on the other side of the ocean.

Sometimes, it's amazing what technology makes possible!

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My third Skype Exchange

Hello people!

Last monday I had my third Skype Xchange!
I spoke with a girl called Lea (without the H this time!!)
First I asked her about the result of their final presentations (Tulane students' last class is on May 1st!).
She told me that the topic of their paper was Recycling in Italy, that was a good experience and she worked as a member of a group.She also said that she was too shy to speak in public so this task was up to her classmates!

Then I asked her some questions about Water Resources in USA, for example:

-Are there any projects (like MOSE) in New Orleans in order to prevent the sinking of the city?
-Is the sinking of the city a real danger?

She answered that the sinking of the city was a real danger for the future and that, unfortunately,there aren't specific projects to prevent this risk
or better, there are some ideas but nothing concrete.

Finally, she told me that next summer she's coming to Italy, in Florence exactly, to study Art History and Italian! She is really excited !





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I have to say that this Exchange was not so easy like the previous one..
The reason was that Lea spoke very fast and pronounced the words not so distinctly!

My second Skype Exchange

At last, last Monday I had my second Skype Exchange.
As the first one it was a very interesting opportunity to practise our English and to learn something new about a foreign culture.
This time I spoke with a girl called Leah.
Generally, we communicated in English but sometimes she tried to speak Italian.

First we talked a little about our different way to celebrate the imminent Easter.
Then Leah told me she was Jewish so...her Easter had a totally different meaning and name: Passover.
She explained me that, during Passover, they don't eat bread or drink beer for eight days. Moreover, they had a special dinner and read their Psalms.

After this, my American peer asked me some questions about the topic of our new wiki page: Water resources in Italy.
In particular, she wanted to know something about the Mose Project in Venice and its consequences for the city.

At the end, the conversation went back to alternative sources of energy.
In fact, Leah asked my opinion about the renewable source of energy for the future of Italy. It wasn't an easy question!

That's all for the moment
Annalisa

Photo sources:

http://www.martineschocolates.com/image/easter_egg_box.jpg

http://interactive.usc.edu/members/msteffen/archives/2006_04.html

Alternative Sources of Energy: a Challenge for our Future

Unfortunately this week I didn't have my Exchange because I was ill at home...I'm waiting for next Monday!

Anyway, this week we had a new topic to discuss.We were supposed to search information and write about ALTERNATIVE SOURCES OF ENERGY in Italy. It was not so difficult but we had to read a lot of stuff!
Moreover, many of the sites we used are written in Italian so we had to translate and summarize things.
Obviously this exercise had also the purpose of gathering knowledge
about this issue for our Exchange program.

I think that this topic it's really interesting and extremely relevant to our present.
Surfing the Net I discovered a lot of new things also because, to say the truth, I didn't know so much about alternative sources of energy except from something concerning solar and wind energy.

During my search, I asked myself questions like :
-What are renewable sources of energy?
-Which ones are most common in Italy?
-Are there legislation or specific campaigns in order to promote their use?
I learnt that, besides solar, wind and water power, there are also Geothermal and Biomass energy.

Traditional sources of energy cause many damages to the environment and a waste of great amount of energy.
Therefore, it would be important that nowadays government fosters the use of renewables and invest more on it.
Unfortunately, there are several difficulties. First, the resistence of multinational industries and the high economic costs: in fact, non-renewable sources are less expensive.
I also discovered that in many Italian regions like Piemonte, Lombardia and Veneto there are some initiatives (they promote, for example, the transformation of wooden biomass into energy) which represent an important contribution in order to arouse people's awareness of the importance of these alternative resources for the future of our planet.

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Cultural Dimensions: the Hofstede Model

Hello people!

Last week we can't speak with our American friends because they were on holiday!
So we continued our discussion about cultural competence and culture in general. In particular, we considered how Italian culture is perceived by the members of other countries.
We visited a very interesting website called Kwintessential Site Map which lists tha main social habits, attitudes and behaviours of Italian people.
We discussed in class about the reliability of these characteristics: we realized that some of them can be true but others are simply silly stereotypes.
This fact was valid not only for Italy but also for the other different cultures we analyzed.

At the end of the class, we had a look to a cultural model called The Hofstede Model. According to the analysis made by Geert Hofstede, national cultures can be described on the basis of 5 cultural dimensions.

1.Power Distance
2.Individualism
3.Masculinity
4.Uncertainty Avoidance
5.Long-Term Orientation

These five dimension should enable us to quickly see how silmilar or different countries are.
I think the Model it's quite interesting..it is exciting to compare the different data and to discover that USA can be seen as individualistic, while Japan has the highest level of masculinity!

As always, we have to approach things with a CRITICAL eye: these data are only a general model applied to general population...obviously, not all individuals or smaller regions have the same characterstics!
We can't label the single member of a community in the same way!
Everyone has his/her own way of thinking and behaving!

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Intercultural Competence

Unfortunately , this week I didn't have my second Skype Exchange because I had a lecture of Medieval English Literature. So I'm going to Skype next week..

Meanwhile, we started considering a new topic: intercultural competence or rather, the ability of successful communication with people of other cultures. We did some reading about this subject in order to understand:
1.What is intercultural competence?
2.Why is it so important?

After reading some typical examples of cultural differences, we had the opportunity to do a questionnaire called YOGA , a sort of self-evaluation guide in order to assess our intercultural communicative competence.(ICC).
I have to admit that it was not so easy to evaluate myself , my awareness of how a specific context affects my interaction with others or how I am perceived by a native of the host culture as communicator, mediator of intercultural situations.

Generally speaking, it is very difficult to reach the three requirements to be an effective, sensitive and self-concious mediator:
1-Knowledge about other cultures, people, nations..
2.Empathy.understanding feelings and needs of other people.
3.Self-confidence: knowing what I want, my strenghts and weaknesses.

I think that nowadays intercultural competence is essential in order to live in a multiracial society like ours and it helps understanding others and achieving goals.
Besides the awareness of the existence of different cultural characteristics, I believe it is important the willingness to understand and interact with members of the host culture. And what it is more important it 's that the host culture but also the guest culture have to

RESPECT each other.

Photo source:http://webd.savonia-amk.fi/tertta/eu_usa/intercultural_competence/p2-pelkka-kuva.jpg