Elections '08

photo by smallcaps

photo by LEOtm

Even this week my post deals with one important current news: the elections in the USA and in Italy. I watched some videos and I read some articles in the websites that I had already visited in the past weeks and found particularly reliable: the online newspapers The New York Times, BBC News and La Repubblica, and the official websites of the candidates of the left wing: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Walter Veltroni.

As far as the Italian situation is concerned, I noticed that in these days both La Repubblica and the official website of the PD dealt with the problem of Southern Italy. In all Veltroni’s public speeches of the last few days in the southern regions of Italy, he repeated that one of the main points of his political program is to solve the major problem of Southern Italy, that is, poverty, the inadequacy of infrastructures and the Mafia. He asserted that if he win, he will purpose a draft bill to the Council of Ministers containing some measures such as: the development of transport (especially the railway); the improvement of the communication network that will allow the use of broadband to the whole Southern Italy; the increase and refinement of educational and professional offerings for young people; incentives and special measures for the development of small enterprises; the fight against the Mafia. According to Veltroni, solving these problems means creating the necessary conditions for the South to develop and contribute to the national growth.
Another article of La Repubblica that caught my attention concerns a study research of the “Osservatorio Universitario Mediamonitor”, which showed a certain trend among Italians voters. The research displays that there is a great number of people that don’t know who they will vote and IF they will vote. A high percentage of Italian voters isn’t interested in politics and doesn’t actively participate to political manifestations. Many voters are confused and don’t feel represented by the candidates; they are disillusioned about the political situation in Italy and don’t trust in a positive change after the elections. The alarming fact is that this percentage is increased compared to the last political elections.

As far as the American elections are concerned, I noticed that news mainly deals with the race between the two Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and concerns several aspects of their campaign. The newspapers agree that this race is becoming more closer and bitter than expected.
The New York Times and the BBC News reported the fact that Clinton acknowledged her mistake when she affirmed that she came under sniper fire on a trip to Bosnia 1996; she attempted to justify herself saying that every human being makes mistakes and apologized for her behaviour. She then tried to change the subject and criticised Obama since in last weeks he didn’t leave his Church and disown his former pastor Rev. J. Wright, after his inflammatory sermon.
The newspapers then focussed on the fact that Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont and other Obama’s supporters suggested Clinton to quit the race, because by continuing her campaign she would help the Republican party. They said that Obama leaded in delegates and total votes and the uphill race between the two candidates would hurt the Democratic party’s chances to win the elections in November. Mrs. Clinton, however, firmly refused to quit the race, unless she loses the race in Pennsylvania on April 22; even Obama supported her choice and declared that she should continue her campaign as long as she is willing or able.
Another matter of discussion is the ‘transparency’ of the candidates. Obama recently released copies of his tax returns covering the last seven years and his aides invited Clinton to do the same before the elections in Pennsylvania. Clinton replied that she would provide as soon as possible. The aides of one candidate constantly tried to disrepute the clearness of the other candidate’s personal finances in order to get votes and public approval.
Another clear signal of fierce competition between the two candidates is how they try to gain public approval. In their official websites, for example, each candidate tries to underline that important public figures support them and their ideas. In Clinton’s website there is a link to a video showing Rep. John Murtha praising her qualities and ideas, while in Obama’s website there is an article dealing with the fact that Bob Casey, Senator of Pennsylvania, endorsed him to be the next president.

Veronica

Comparing the news regarding the elections

photo by Mezzoblue

This week we were asked to analyze three online sources from three different countries for few days and see how the news dealing with the political elections in Italy and in the United States was presented. I chose to read three online newspapers that I considered important and trustworthy: the American New York Times, the British BBC News and the Italian La Repubblica. Perhaps the last one is a bit partial and ‘left oriented’; however, I chose it since I sometimes read it (together with other Italian newspapers) when I surf the Net and because I decided to analyze the news regarding the candidates of the left wing: the American Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and the Italian leader of the PD Walter Veltroni.

As far as The New York Times is concerned, I noticed that every day in the home page there was an article with a big attention-getting title dealing with political elections. Other pertinent links were situated at the bottom of the page mainly under the topic ‘Politics’. I read through some articles regarding the two Democratic candidates and I noticed that they were all very long and detailed. There were plenty of quotations from the candidates’ speeches and from other important public figures in America. Throughout each article there were several links to other Web sites or to the personal descriptions of the candidates; other links to correlated articles were also present on the margins of the page. There were always one or two photos of the people who were the subjects of the articles and under each image there was a clear caption. Ot the left side of the page there was also a link that allowed you to join a blog and express your opinion about elections.
Journalists spoke a lot about the political race between the two candidates of the left wing and several specific events or quotations that can affect their public image. An article, for example, dealt with the case of the inflammatory statements of Rev. Wright, who has been the Pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Obama was asked to express his opinion about what Rev. Wright said, since he had been his Pastor; Obama strongly criticized him and clarified that those ideas had nothing in common with his ideals and his campaign. In other articles, Obama was described as a leader that uplift national unity, whose personality is more proper to the office of president. Clinton was described as more competent, but she was criticized because she often questions Obama’s experience and thinks that he can only be a vice president.
In The New York Times it was very difficult to find news dealing with Italian political elections. They weren’t present in the home page or under the section ‘World’. If you typed the name of Italian candidates in the search bar you find few old articles, which dealt with the main political events of the past months; you could find also some short quotations or agency news, but there were no photos.

As far as the BBC News is concerned, I noticed that the US elections news was presented in the front page even if only as a small link under the topic ‘World’, ‘Other Top Stories’ or ‘America’, with no photos to catch the attention. If you clicked on the link, however, there were long and detailed articles, complete with some photos of the candidates and several related links on the right side of the Web page. As The New York Times, the British online newspaper dealt with Obama’s contempt for Rev. Wright remarks; however, the style was different. The BBC News articles were shorter than the American ones and gave a more general overview of the situation in the USA; sometimes they focussed on the racial issue, that is, the percentage of African-American or of ‘white’ that voted Obama and Clinton. I noticed other differences between the American articles and the British ones: the latter always began with a short period in bold that summed up the content of the news and than the articles were subdivided in various parts with different subtitles. As The New York Times, there were many quotations, but they weren’t always followed by comments. For all these reasons, I found the BBC News articles more easy and pleasant to read than those of The New York Times.
As far as the Italian situation is concerned, I noticed that even in the BBC News was difficult to find updated news about this topic. The only difference was that in the few articles that I found in the British newspaper there were some photos of the Italian candidates and some links to the Italian Government Website and to the Italian Parliament Website.

As far as La Repubblica is concerned, I noticed that the topic of the elections in Italy had always a space in the front page. Under the section ‘Politics’ there were a number of links to articles dealing with the political situation ordered from the more recent to the older ones. On both sides of the page there were always other hourly updated links to related articles. If you clicked on the link “Tracce dei Candidati” from the main page, you entered in a Web site entirely dedicated to the elections; here you could find a geographical map of Italy and see when and where the next public speech of the different candidates will take place. For each candidate there was also a short personal description and a list of links of articles dealing with him/her. You could find the list of candidates for the parliament and the Senate from each Region and several graphics, polls, and also a ‘popularity chart’ daily updated.
I read through some articles dealing with Veltroni and I saw that there were always a subtitle that summed the main points of the content and then the text was often subdivided in sections according to the different aspects of the news. Photos were not always present; however, they represented either Veltroni and his main opponent, Berlusconi. A detail caught my attention and made me think that this newspaper is a bit partial: in some articles, on the left side of the page, there was a big blinking image that suggested you to vote the left wing.
Generally speaking, the news dealt with the main problems of the country: the national security, the relationships with other countries, the way our troops in Afghanistan and Lebanon should be employed, the issue of the short-term jobs, the proposal of a minimum salary and of a reduction of taxes.
Unlike The New York Times and the BBC News, in which the news dealing with the Italian political situations were hard to find, in La Repubblica there was link in the front page dealing with the elections in the US. If you clicked on the link you entered a Web page which was entirely dedicated to the American elections. There was a big photo of Obama, perhaps because the political program of the Italian left wing (Veltroni) is similar to that of the Democrat Obama. On the left side there were the photos of the American candidates, their personal description, the good and weak points of their campaign. At the bottom of the page there were also the main themes of the American campaign (health care, abortion, immigration, climatic changes, Iraq, Iran) and you could read what the various candidates think about them. On the left side there were other links that allowed you to deepen your knowledge about the political situation in the US. Some articles dealing with the American elections were present also in the section ‘Esteri’.

Veronica

Political elections in the United States and in Italy

Photo by MotherPie

Photo by MaDDaLoSka

This week we were asked to visit some Web sites that Sarah chose for us and saved in Del.icio.us. These resources concerned the elections, both in the U.S.A. and Italy, and contained text files and videos. We were asked to visit these sites and analyze the language used by the candidates on the left or on the right. I chose to work on the left wing; for this reason, I visited some Web sites related to the American Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and the Italian candidate for the PD (Partito Democratico), Walter Veltroni.

I enjoyed paying attention to how they addressed to their audience: of course, a political candidate always tries to come across as efficient and self-confident; however, I noticed some differences.
Hillary Clinton is almost always smiling and very enthusiastic; nonetheless, she seems very determined and fighting. I think she wants to convey a positive and strong image of herself: a woman who experienced difficult and challenging moments in her life and was able to overcome them; a woman that is "ready, able and willing" to fight and solve the main political, social and economic problems of the USA. In one of her speeches she said that her personal problems were nothing compared to those of many other American citizens and she wanted to support poor and weak people. She often remarks her experience in the political field, as she had been the First lady for several years and sometimes she attacks Obama's approach to the country's problems. She stresses the importance of avoiding discrimination of gender, race, religion and in her campaign she relies on the fact that she is a woman. Among the several issues she cares, she aims to some improvements in the field of health care, new measures for the integration of immigrants and the end of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As far as Barack Obama is concerned, I noticed that he is more serious. As Hillary, he is very resolute and you can see his determination in his voice and in his eyes. He is a very charismatic leader and relies on the fact that he is African-American and has multicultural background. His economic approach is more aggressive than that of Senator Clinton and aims to an economic growth. Among the other issues, he wants to make improvements in the fields of infrastructures and instruction. Like Clinton, he aims to new measures regarding immigration, health care and the end of the war. He aims to a ‘change’ and for this reason he often repeat the adjective ‘new’: for example, he spoke of a new chapter in the USA story and of a new leadership. He stresses the importance of believing in the ability to bring real change in America and, in fact, the slogan of his campaign is ‘Yes, we can’.

Like Obama, Walter Veltroni appears to be very serious and determined in all the interactions with his audience. In my opinion, his public speeches are very long and sometimes it is difficult to follow the thread. He often uses high-sounding words and obvious remarks to catch his audience’s attention and approval. I noticed that Veltroni’s political program is partly similar to that of Obama. First of all, the slogan of his campaign ‘Si può fare’ can be considered a perfect translation of the American ‘Yes, we can’. Moreover, Veltroni aims to a significant change of the situation and to an economic growth. Like Obama, he repeats the term ‘new’: he wishes a ‘new’ force, a ‘new’ language in politics. Among the other goals, he attaches importance to social justice, the equality of rights, freedom, a stronger cooperation between northern and southern Italy and the protection of the environment. During one of his speeches he said that he aims to gain the 'trust' of Italian citizens and wants to simplify the situation in Italy.

I noticed that there are similarities in the programs of the left wing, perhaps because both American Democrats and the Italian PD feel the need for a change in order to improve the present state of things and they share some similar ideals.

Veronica

My personal learning environment

This week we were asked to develop a mindmap of our Personal Learning Environment (PLE). Sarah quoted different definitions of it and explained us that there is no general agreement on a standard definition.
Generally speaking, a PLE indicates the way we learn, how and where we collect information and organize it.

It took me a lot to think about my PLE and how to arrange it. I decided to outline it using Word and then to scan it. I changed the layout and the type size in order to make it more readable once posted on this blog. I used also different colours for the lines of each branch to make my PLE clearer.

My Personal Leaning Environment has four branches, and the main categories are then sub-divided in several parts. First of all, I pointed out where I learn; I can find information and elaborate it on the Web or in the real world (that is, on paper, but also in everyday interactions with people).

Another branch is about how I gather information; this happens when I read, listen to or watch something. These activities can take place in a formal or an informal context of learning. The former is strictly connected with my university experience and refers to the tools that I consider expressly devoted to the language learning: textbooks, essays, dictionaries, grammars, courses at university, conferences and seminars. The second context refers to the tools that I use in my everyday life that contribute to my language learning, even if I don’t conceive them as official and conventional; they consist in songs, books that I read in my free time, TV programs, videos, newspaper articles and magazines, websites, podcasts, forums, blogs, chat rooms, e-mails, conversations with foreigners that can take place also when travelling abroad.

Another important branch of my PLE consists in the activity of storing and organizing information that I gathered. First of all, I try to keep in mind new words and grammatical rules; since it’s inevitable that I forget some pieces of information, I often make outlines, which I consider very helpful in order to improve my visual memory. When I attend lessons at university or when I read something interesting, I usually take notes to fix pieces of information and making them available when I need to read them again. For the same reason, I sometimes record TV programmes, songs, videos and podcasts, or I copy or photocopy some parts of texts. Thanks to Sarah, I recently learned how to store URLs on the Web using Bloglines and Del.icio.us. I think that feed aggregators and the activity of social bookmarking are really useful for my language learning, and in general to retrieve and save information.

The last branch of my PLE deals with the activity of formulating and expressing information, which is strictly tied up with the previous ones. It’s the last step of my learning process, and I consider it very useful since I’m forced to think about what I’ve previously learnt and then arrange and connect information. When I want to express some concept or my ideas, I deeply think about them and I communicate them by speaking or writing (using a computer or on paper).

I hope you enjoyed reading through my PLE. What about you?

Veronica

Judging online sources

photo by Swiv

There is a huge number of sources you can use choose from when you have to write a text. You can decide to use paper sources (such as: books, reviews, journals, essays, reports, articles, pamphlets, etc.), or online ones (websites). Judging sources can be very difficult and time-demanding, but it’s indispensable if you want your text to be reliable.

When I started searching materials for my thesis I preferred using paper sources since I thought that they were more reliable than the online ones. Anyone can publish anything he/she wants to on the web and there is often no way of checking or verifying what has been divulged. However, I soon changed my mind since not all online material is bad; there are a lot of interesting and reliable sites on the web and I used them as sources of my paper.

I never stop to be amazed by the huge amount of websites and information available on the Web; you just have to write a word in the apposite bar and the search engine will find all the websites that contain that word. However, search engines like Google show both relevant and irrelevant sites. In order to narrow down you researches you can be more specific when writing the key words, or you can do advanced searches (in this way, you can find for examples many academic files by eminent professors). You can also use other useful online tools, such as Del.icio.us; after having registered to this website, you can look for sites and read how people commented them. As you can read in the tips from the University of Essex, you can use also meta-search engines (like Mamma) and specialized search engines (such as Google Scholbar), which can help you to quickly find what you are looking for.

Reading through the Pardue Online Writing Lab (OWL) and the San Diego State University websites, I noticed that there are several criteria to use in order to judge the sources of information, both online or not. I must admit that I’ve used them almost always, since my supervisor clearly explained them to me when I was writing my thesis.

First of all, I always need to have clear in mind what is the subject of my paper and what I need to search for; then I have to decide where I could find what I need. This criteria are clearly stated in the Pardue (Owl): “You will need to make decisions about what to search for, where to look, and once you've found material on your topic, whether to use it in your paper."

Then I pay attention to the author of the text; if I don’t know him/her, I try to find out what he/she wrote, his/her profession and career. Sometimes it may be a bit difficult and time-demanding to find the author of an online text. It is often very important to look at the publisher or the producer of the text.

Then I read the preface and the table of content, in order to find out why the author decided to write his/her work and to what audience he/she aimed to refer. The table of content gives also a quick overview of the main points discussed in the text.

When you are searching for a website the URL can be very important since the domain can inform you about the organization that hosts the website. If the URL ends in .org the organization is no-profit; if it ends in .com the site belongs to a commercial organization, while if it ends in .edu or .ac it concerns an educational authority.

I always check the publication date, especially when I search for online sources. I try to notice when the website was created and its last update, since it’s very important to use current information.

Finally, I read through the bibliography in order to see if the material the author used is valuable or not. In the bibliography I can find further sources that I can use to broaden my research.

I found particularly useful and interesting the following five questions published by the Monash University's online library tutorial:

-Who is responsible for the site - is there a name and contact address?

-What is its rationale - is it endorsing a particular viewpoint to the exclusion of other views?

-Is there a reference list or bibliography of corroborative evidence?

-Is there a date when the site was last updated - how long ago did this happen?

-Does the site seem to be permanent or part of a permanent organisation?

Veronica

Uno, dos, tres...

Hi!

Would you like to know something more about me? Well... I decided to post a video that shows one of my passions: latin dance! I'm attending a course on Friday evenings and I think latin dance is simply fantastic! I chose this video since it shows a pair of dancers that dance cuban salsa and then give some pieces of advice as how to improve your style when dancing. Cool!

Besos

Veronica

Do you know YouTube?

photo by manu contreras

According to Wikipedia, YouTube was created in 2005 and is “a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips”. YouTube is free and very easy to use. You can search for every sort of videos just by tapping tags in the ‘search’ bar; most of the videos are available also for unregistered users. You can also see is the file you want to watch is worth attention by looking at its rating and reading though the several comments people wrote.

I think that YouTube is a fantastic tool since you can find videos dealing with every topic and for every purpose you want. I knew YouTube even before Sarah introduced it to us; I used it mainly to find funny videos, but I never thought about it as a learning tool! Thanks to Sarah, I discovered that in YouTube you can find interesting videos that can teach you how to do several things. I think that the next time I want to learn something more about how using computers I will look for a good YouTube video! LOL! Since many files are in English, you can also improve your English listening skill, your vocabulary, and your pronunciation. Great!

YouTube can be useful for teachers too; they can find interesting videos that can be used in order to teach in a different and more involving way some subjects that students often consider boring. In TeacherTube I found some good video files that deal with several topics, such as physics, mathematics, informatics, and that can be an effective support when teaching.

In YouTube you can find also funny videos; Sarah suggested us two files which I find brilliant! When I saw the one about the translator I couldn’t stop laughing! The second one was a satiric video that parodied Bush’s foreign policy and the sad situation in Iraq. I particularly appreciated the puns such as I-rack/Iraq and I-ran/Iran, or the double meaning of some words, such as ‘rack’.

YouTube, however, has also negative aspects. Since everyone can add his/her own video, you may find some files that aren’t good; information conveyed could be inexact, language can be used improperly, and both comment and videos can be full of grammatical mistakes or vulgar.

In conclusion, I think that YouTube is an excellent tool in order to find audio and video files dealing with several topics, but people should be aware that they can find both good and bad stuff. As a matter of fact, teachers should control the videos they want to employ as teaching material before using it.

What do you think?

Veronica