Reflecting on e-learning (e-tivity 3)

Hello Everybody!

I'd never thought about the idea of having my own blog in English...and now...HERE IT IS!!! Up until recently the "relationship" with my computer was restricted to a couple of basic functions and the most abused buttons I used to press were "ctrl+alt+canc" because I was always in trouble.

Then -during the triennio at the university- I had the opportunity to immerse myself in the world of e-learning, thanks to the use of First Class courseware. I even ended up writing a dissertation on the effects of e-learning on second language acquisition...

I'm not saying that I've now become an expert in ICT (there are still so many things to learn!) but surely I have been learning to appreciate the new perspectives this world is opening up in front of us! To make a long story short, I had long been totally unaware of the potential of new technologies...maybe just because I was too lazy to learn how to exploit these huge materials!

During these first two weeks of blogging, I had the opportunity to become even more familiar with the concept of electronic environment and to realize its positive effects on our learning process. I think that taking part to an online community is a challenging and enriching experience since you have the chance to use the English language to perform real tasks and, potentially, to communicate with people from all other the world.

Moreover, I think that blogging will enable us to come into contacts with the real English spoken by real people. As a matter of fact, university lectures or academic books offer us a rather stiff and standard variety of a language which is actually much more lively! I've been using a blog for only a couple of weeks but I realised that the key words of such online communities are above all collaboration, sharing and real world!