International Invitation

Here comes a message from a friend of mine from Brazil:
She invites us to join her students' Voicethred and to add our voiced or written info about famous people in our country. That would be an international celebrities voicethred.

With warmest regards,
Nina Lyulkun

Hello friends
I am sending you the link to a voicethread my Brazilian students have just started.
They are 15-year-old lower-intermediate students and they are talking about famous people in our country and also about international celebrities who are popular in Brazil. We would love to know who the celebrities in your country are. You can type or record your comments in the link below.
http://voicethread.com/#q+celebrities.b490017.i2610306
Have a great week!
--
Erika Cruvinel

You're invited to comment to this project.

a short video summarizing some of the most important characteristics of students today - how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime. Created by Michael Wesch in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University.

Seth Dickens

Dear All,
I would like to share the fruits of a great project me and my 4th year students have been working on. It’s a video called A Vision of Students in Italy a Today “Our Thoughts.” It's a video my students have made about the use of technology in class and whether they like it or not.

The video was entirely produced by my students (with the exception of the video editing. ) It is going to be posted to You Tube as a reply to Prof. Mike Wesch's video "A Vision Of Students Today." ( http://tinyurl.com/bdbfx6) Prof. Wesch’s video discusses the old-fashioned methods many teachers still use in class. If you haven’t seen it yet, you really should. As fellow Webheads you’re bound to like it.

Everything you see in this video was written, organised, filmed and publicised (at our school) by the students of our class. This includes the writing of questions, posting them to an online survey host and then turning all the data into the script for the second part of our video. The whole school was then invited to reply to our survey, which asked what our schoolmates attitudes are to the Italian education system. Seeing as we’re a social sciences school this is a useful skill for my students to have. Read more

And here comes the response to the origional video above by the Italian Students - their vision:

Maryna Podlyuk: Follow the rules of netiquette

Maryna Podlyuk

What is Netiquette? It's network etiquette -- that is, the etiquette of cyberspace. In other words, netiquette is a set of rules for behaving properly online.

The list of core rules below are offered as a set of general guidelines for cyberspace behavior.

Rule 1: Remember the human

Do unto others as you'd have others do unto you. Stand up for yourself, but try not to hurt people's feelings.

Rule 2: Adhere to the same standards of behavior online that you follow in real life

- Be ethical

- Breaking the law is bad Netiquette

Rule 3: Know where you are in cyberspace

· Netiquette varies from domain to domain

· Lurk before you leap

Rule 4: Respect other people's time and bandwidth

· You are not the center of cyberspace

· Keep the rules for discussion groups

Rule 5: Make yourself look good online

· Take advantage of your anonymity

· Know what you're talking about and make sense

· Don't post flame-bait

Rule 6: Share expert knowledge

Rule 8: Respect other people's privacy

Rule 9: Don't abuse your power

Rule 10: Be forgiving of other people's mistakes

Katia Dumarets'ka: Body language

Katia Dumarets'ka

We must admit that the body language is an important part of communication which can constitute 50% or more of what we are communicating. If you wish to communicate well, then it makes sense to understand how you can (or cannot) use your body to say what you mean. Body language comes in clusters of signals and postures, depending on the internal emotions and mental states.

There are some types of body language, for example aggressive body language or attentive body language, bored body language, closed body language or opened etc. A significant cluster of body movements is used to signal aggression.

Aggressive body language - this is actually quite useful as it is seldom a good idea to get into a fight, even for powerful people. Fighting can hurt you, even though you are pretty certain you will win. In addition, with adults, fighting is often socially unacceptable and aggression through words and body language is all that may ever happen.

Read more.

Test your knowledge of Body Language here.

Maryna Ostapchuk: Netiquette

Maryna Ostapchuk

Netiquette, a portmanteau of "net etiquette", is a set of social conventions that facilitate interaction over networks, ranging from Usenet and mailing lists to blogs and forums. The concept and its application remain in a state of flux, and vary from community to community.

Netiquette originated prior to the emergence of the World Wide Web in 1989. Text-based email, Telnet, Usenet, Gopher, Wais, and FTP dominated internet traffic, which was primarily used by educational and research bodies. At that time, it was considered somewhat indecent to make commercial public postings and the limitations of insecure, text-only communications demanded the community have a common set of rules. The term "netiquette" has been in use since as early as 1988. Read more

Nina Lyulkun: Virtual Busking

Hi participants! I am delighted to invite you to discuss one of the interesting topic I've just bumped into while checking my Twitter.
Feel free to express your ideas. It would be very nice to hear from you. Just look through the video below, then visit the URL and listen to the songs, and then decide what you think and how you can help. ;-)

Amazing, isn't it???

Kozlova Ilona: Essential Elements of Every Email

Kozlova Ilona

Supervisor: Olena Sydorenko

With every email you have the opportunity to communicate with clarity. The onus is on you as the author to ensure that the intent and tone you wish to relay is what comes across to those you email. And, with every email you also run the risk of being misunderstood or giving a less than positive impression by not paying attention to detail. In email you lose the benefit of eye-contact, body language, a firm handshake or a smile. By taking the time to create emails that have 5 Essential Elements firmly in place, you ensure your meaning is not detracted from while minimizing possible negative perceptions and misunderstandings. Read more

Oxana Vezdenetska: Internet memes

Oxana Vezdenetska

The habitants of virtual network invented their own manner of speaking long time ago. This language can’t be founded in none dictionary. It is made of words from many varieties of slang. Almost everyone was welcomed with a word «Превед!» or listened to extraordinary narrations about Ktulkhu… Such means of communication got the name of Internet memes. In Wikipedia they are determined as the «phenomenon of spontaneous distribution of some information or phrase, often empty in sense, which spontaneously purchased popularity in Internet by all possible methods (on an e-mail, in messengers, forums, blogs and others); and also this information or phrase». Read more

Andriy Nikityuk: Art of new generation

Andriy Nikityuk

Art of new generation

Graffiti became a way of life – the adrenaline fear of being caught, standing in dangerous places while you graffiti, stealing the paint and creating something they were proud of. Graffiti style was massively influenced by the hip-hop culture that had started in the Bronx in the sixties. Hip-hop with its rapping, breakdancing, attitude and graffiti became a way to show anger and humor. The area and its inhabitants lives were dominated by crime, drugs, gangs and unemployment. Street gangs began to write the name of their gang on walls in order to mark territorial boundaries. Read more.

Graffiti samples are here

Lyudmyla Bodnarchuk: Manner Matters

Lyudmyla Bodnarchuk

There is an old saying in English,
"When in Rome, do as Romans do"
What do you think this saying means?

For example, in Japan, a simple bow to show your respect when you meet someone can carry a thousand positive messages about your attitude towards their culture. Likewise, in Germanic countries and the United States, you should remember that business people will often be eager to get down to work. They believe that “time is money.” Almost everywhere else in the world, it is considered very important for businessmen to get to know one another better before proceeding with negotiations. Scheduling time for building relationships is as important as making time for whatever is on the business agenda. Speaking English can be your passport to many foreign markets, but do not leave home without that all-important guide to local etiquette. Read more

Dmitriyeva Natalia:The problems of young people

Dmitriyeva Natalia

There are many young people in our country. Each of them has one's own view point on life and future. There are many problems which are common for all young people. For example: how to spend their free time, what to do after school, choosing a profession, how to deal with girl and boy-friends and so on. The problem number one of most of the young people is the problem of fathers and sons. Every generation has its own culture in music, fashion, and hair-do. Older people can't understand it: they think that girl's skirts are too short or too long. They consider our clothes to be too colorful. Read more

Vitaliy Soyko: Electronic Mail at Work

Vitaliy Soyko

The conventions for email at work are a little different than for email among friends. Professional email can still be informal. But a lot of the humor and wit that's appropriate in a discussion group is out of place at work. Everybody emailing at work should take into consideration important facts about using email at work.

Firstly, you should check your email preferably three or four times a day, but at least twice a day. Read more