Skyping 2

Skyping2

      The essay we discussed is The Internet as a global discourse environment: A commentary on Lam and Bloch. The essay mainly discusses about whether Internet would help students learning Second Language. It mentioned special ideas about contact zone and safe house. In fact, there are many websites provide a space for people around the world to exchanges ideas, and sometimes that is regarded as a chance for practicing language. Take Omegle for example. I had used it for a short time when I was in senior high school. I made foreign friends, and it further triggered my interest in English.

      However, most of time I had bad conversation. Just like Bonnie said, the place must be filled with dirty information. That’s true. I had met a lot of horny people there. But there is no denying that I have learned a lot from the experience. Just like the safe house, it made me have courage to say something, to practice more. But I think one think needed is media literacy. We cannot count on source on internet without any doubt, and that we cannot exposed ourselves in dangerous environment without any consciousness of protection.

A beautiful place

Blogging 3

      After several visiting SL, I am getting familiar with the game. This time I visited many interesting place. I saw the place which last students built, and the special effect of the lightening and skull was so amazing!

      Suddenly, one of my group members, Joanne, said that she watched a beautiful mermaid on her place, and I immediately asked her to offer me a teleport. It was a very beautiful beach. When I landed there, the first view came to my eyes was a landmark of LOVE, it means couples could sit there and to show their love. Joanne and I tried many times and we failed to. Very soon, our another group member, Bonnie, came to join us. While waiting for her, I saw there was a function to swim, and I started my first time to swim. To my surprise, what below the beach were many sea animals, including the mermaid. 

Jumping out the sea, we tried to surf, and that was so exciting. Of course we took a lot pictures, and that we had a good time! 

Skyping 1

Skype 1

      We chose the essay: Playing the videotext: A media literacy perspective on video-mediated L2 listening. This essay discusses whether videotext could help students learn the second language. In the skyping, we are discussing the two points. First, is to have background knowledge when using the videotext. Bonnie provides a very good example about her experience. She came from People’s Republic of China, and when she watches Taiwan TV shows, she can’t understand why people feel funny. This example proves the viewpoint in the essay. Students need the pre-teaching, so that they can understand what the video is going to show before then, or they could fail to understand and feel frustrated.

     The second point we are discussing is about the subtitle of Youtube. As before said, background knowledge is important, because it could help us to identify whether the information is right or not. Take the subtitle of Youtube for example. The google translator provides the subtitle depending on the voice it detects, but most of time, the subtitle is wrong. If people are good at listening, the mistake could not make problem. However, the automatic knowledge could also lead us to misunderstand the text. So without media literacy, it is still having problem with using videotext to learn second language.    

Visit places

       Today, all of us had chance to see the shopping mall, to have an experience of buying on SL. What’s more, most of things in this mall are for free! There were 15 floors for different theme dressing. It shocked me. Not only clothes, but eyes, faces, wings, even gestures are sold there. I bought an outfit of cow-girl with a gun, and it looked very sexy and hot.

      After an hour or more, the teacher took us to the places which her students had ever made. The first place, is an amazing garden with lightening. Many of us had a good time and took many pictures there. And the second place was the scene in the famous movie, Café- waiting Love. I was so excited that I took a picture with the shop. The final place was near the sea, and we were allowed to put on our new clothes in this place. There were a lot of elements which I have seen in the video of their final project. It was so funny, and I think we could build a place which is intriguing too. 

The first time on SL

It was my first time to play this game, Second Life. I was not familiar with it, but it was so intriguing. After creating an avatar, I was on a small land which was for beginners. It was a very simple land surrendered by the sea, and there was a broken boat near the beach. I tried to fly on the land, and fly to the boat, everything was so exciting.

  Before long, I noticed the function of “Destination”, there were many amazing places recommended. I selected a beautiful place, soon I tried to learn how to change my outfit. To my disappoint, it was not that easy for me to fit on clothes as I think. What’s more, I even had a chair on my body! So ridiculous! Suddenly, I received a message from a girl beside me, “ amme1205, do you have trouble?” I was embarrassed and told her I was learning. So kind she was, she said she was willing to help me, and that we all had been beginners. It was a pity that we did not have much time to talk a lot, but it made me feel good about my first time on SL.