Being transparent
14 years ago
Hi everyone !
- Second, Anglais Facile. I know, it's in French, but this way everyone is sure to understand the grammar explanations, ect... The website is quite ugly and too old, but the contents are great, very complete. For example, you can find many grammar sheets. I also use the Spanish version.
- And last but not least, Apprendre l'Anglais, it's a blog about the difficulty to learn english, helping french people to perfect their skills. What I like about it is that it's not a teacher who is talking to you, but somene like you, trying to find origial ways to learn the language, like for example watchinf movies and seeries in English.
It's not because I write in English that my English is perfect, not at all. But this is something I really want to improve. So this week, we are going back to the basis.
I took an English test Online. This one was veryyyy easy ! All my answers were correct. But that was just a warm up.
So I found my own English language online learning resource. Well, in fact, ressources. Just like Belbin says "Nobody's perfect, but a team can be". So I made my own team to improve my English. Here are my team-mates :
- First, English learner. This website has very nice tests ! I like it because there are many tests so you can challenge yourself quite often, and also because there are different levels. Plus, the quizzes are really simple to do:
And my result was... 96% ! Not that bad !
- Second, Anglais Facile. I know, it's in French, but this way everyone is sure to understand the grammar explanations, ect... The website is quite ugly and too old, but the contents are great, very complete. For example, you can find many grammar sheets. I also use the Spanish version.
- And last but not least, Apprendre l'Anglais, it's a blog about the difficulty to learn english, helping french people to perfect their skills. What I like about it is that it's not a teacher who is talking to you, but somene like you, trying to find origial ways to learn the language, like for example watchinf movies and seeries in English.
Enough chatting, it's now time to get to work, English Oral exams are on Friday ! Wish me good luck !
This week it's going to be all about contributing to the Internet. But not only contributing, also sharing my point of view on my experience of e-contribution. So this week I'm making an intelligent contribution, meaning no videos of my cat or of myself looking for myself all around Paris. I'm done with Youtube, this week I'm contributing to...
So this week I wrote an article on the Encycopedia about Pink the series, which is a webseries. There was no article about it online so I took the opportunity to create one. Truth is, I started a war with Wikipedia !
First, I met my adversary. I created an account and the website. So far, things were going OK, the target seemed to welcome me on the battle field.
But then, finally arriving there, I realized that Wikipedia is far from being simple ! The enemy, I've gotta tell you, is very complex ! Writing an article took me hours !
I arrived on the home page, and couldn't find anything there about starting to write an article. So I spread my net over, check every corner of the battle field, without success. I finally decide to be strategic. I enter the name of the article I want to write about in the search field and the enemy finally asks me, as there is no article existing, if I want to write one. So I thought great, let's start contributing to this great community of democratisation of knowledge, but then no...
The enemy is acting strange. He is not telling me the rules I should follow, neither is he clear about how we should fight. I really don't know how to use this page. The enemy attracts me to "the Wikipedia:Your first article" page.
Oh my god ! It was a trap ! I am now in the quagmire, sinking in the stream of informations ! See how long their explication pages are ! Same for the footnotes explanation page ! It's gonna take me hours to escape from this situation !
But I'm not the type of person who gives up like that. My troops are counting on me ! I have to fight to release the information I have ! So I hang on, and finally get some reinforcement. I found a secret passage, a pre-written page with codes so I just have to fill the blanks.
With some intuition and after quite a lot of time, I finally fulfil the mission !
Here is the proof I infiltrated the enemy field and conquered it !
Dear survivors, welcome to the Internet land. I am going to teach you 10 rules to survive on the I-Land.
1 - Get lost. The I-land is full of incredible resources. You need to explore it to find its wonderful treasures.
2 - However, the jungle is dense and vast. You have to get marks to be able to find what you need everyday to survive. You should use the tab "My favorites" for example.
3 - Before you venture in the I-land, you have to be well equiped. Download a good antivirus software to insure against the fierce creatures of the I-land.
4 - Speaking of creatures, be careful with who or what you can meet in the jungle. Nice-looking creatures might turn out to be dangerous. Only trust yourself and your instinct.
5 - Be careful with the ressources the I-land produces. You can reach incredible fruits but don't eat anything you find. You may actually not be allowed to eat those, they may be someone else's property.
6 - Socialize. The I-land inhabitants can be really helpful and nice. No one can survive all alone, you need connexions. You will be more than welcome to the Facebook or Twitter tribes.
7 - Watch the fire ! If it goes out, you will loose your stock. (Meaning watch the battery)
8 - Put your things in a safe place, to never loose it. (Save, order, save)
9 - Be up to date on what's hapenning on the I-land. It keeps changing all the times, so you need to be aware to survive.
10 - Don't forget to take some rest. Life on the I-land is fascinating but physically and mentally exhausting. Take a nap, disconnect.
As far as I remember, I’ve ever loved books. I even have some kind of a fascination for them. As a kid, I wanted to become a librarian. I spent a lot of time in libraries libraries when I was in “classes préparatoires”, especially in Beaubourg and the BNF (Bibliothèque Nationale Française François Mitterrand). I also love to go to second had books stores like Gibert Jeune and come back home with plenty of old classic books – treasures that had only cost me few euros. To me, books have an aura, they force your respect ! In a library, you feel so good and so impressed by all these knowledge receptacles.
Here is the dream I’ve ever had :
So you would have understood, books have all my respect and even more. But at the same I try to move with the times. Guess what I’ve been willing to have for few weeks ? An eBook ! They are so useful and handy ! Everywhere you go you have your journal and your favorite books, all in one thin screen. Plus, carrying books in my bag really spoil them.
I would never stop buying and reading books though. To me, it’s a question of time and place. Nothing can replace a nice afternoon reading in the shadow of a tree in a garden or a park. But in the subway for example, or at work, I would totally go for an eBook. I just hope this media won’t “eat” the books and be convergent. I must admit I’m a romantic !
However I think that unfortunately people have lost interest for reading, being all the time in front of a screen, so this is a good way to bring back culture under our square eyes.
If I had money of if Santa Clauss spoiled me, I would get an eBook soon !
When it comes to the one I would choose, if you had asked me last week, I would have told you I want an Amazon Kindle. But this week I want the brand new eBook by Barnes and Nobles ! This one is the most developed. It has an LCD touch-sensitive screen, and it has a double screen, of which on is in color ! The Nook is a little bit bigger than the Kindle, measuring 7.7 x 4.9 x 0.5 inches and weighs 11.2 ounces. WiFi (802.11b/g) and AT&T 3G is included, not to mention 2GB of internal storage, a microSD expansion slot, MP3 player, built-in mono speaker, 3.5 millimeter headphone jack, a micro USB port and support for EPUB, PDF and MP3. The nook also supports bookmarking, making notes, and highlighting passages, and the 'LendMe' feature allows users to lend books for up to a fortnight at a time to other e-readers, cellphones or computers. To know more about it, go here.
And you, would you buy a Kindle or a Nook ?
Here is the dream I’ve ever had :
So you would have understood, books have all my respect and even more. But at the same I try to move with the times. Guess what I’ve been willing to have for few weeks ? An eBook ! They are so useful and handy ! Everywhere you go you have your journal and your favorite books, all in one thin screen. Plus, carrying books in my bag really spoil them.
I would never stop buying and reading books though. To me, it’s a question of time and place. Nothing can replace a nice afternoon reading in the shadow of a tree in a garden or a park. But in the subway for example, or at work, I would totally go for an eBook. I just hope this media won’t “eat” the books and be convergent. I must admit I’m a romantic !
However I think that unfortunately people have lost interest for reading, being all the time in front of a screen, so this is a good way to bring back culture under our square eyes.
If I had money of if Santa Clauss spoiled me, I would get an eBook soon !
When it comes to the one I would choose, if you had asked me last week, I would have told you I want an Amazon Kindle. But this week I want the brand new eBook by Barnes and Nobles ! This one is the most developed. It has an LCD touch-sensitive screen, and it has a double screen, of which on is in color ! The Nook is a little bit bigger than the Kindle, measuring 7.7 x 4.9 x 0.5 inches and weighs 11.2 ounces. WiFi (802.11b/g) and AT&T 3G is included, not to mention 2GB of internal storage, a microSD expansion slot, MP3 player, built-in mono speaker, 3.5 millimeter headphone jack, a micro USB port and support for EPUB, PDF and MP3. The nook also supports bookmarking, making notes, and highlighting passages, and the 'LendMe' feature allows users to lend books for up to a fortnight at a time to other e-readers, cellphones or computers. To know more about it, go here.
And you, would you buy a Kindle or a Nook ?
Here is my video resume !
This is the special edition of television news. We're in 2011 and Laetitia is missing. Elisabeth and Mary -in reality those are my second names - two journalists, are trying to find her.
You can also watch my classmates' video resume. I really think they're great !
This is the special edition of television news. We're in 2011 and Laetitia is missing. Elisabeth and Mary -in reality those are my second names - two journalists, are trying to find her.
You can also watch my classmates' video resume. I really think they're great !
Learning about...
On Tuesday this week, a teacher told us about social bookmarking. He referred to a website I was really curious about, and had trouble to find the name : Diigo. After a little research, I discovered that it means “Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff”.
What is social bookmarking by the way? All I knew was that I wanted to learn about it and do it. So let’s !
Social bookmarking is a tool for Internet users to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources. People can comment on websites, tag, or evaluate websites, which create a folksonomy.
But Diigo seems to be way more than that, at least that’s what they say on the website.
With Diigo, you have several potential uses to organize the contents, like listing or tagging.
The basis is that you can highlight text entirely or partly in multiple colors and put “sticky” notes on web pages. When you come back to the page, they remain. You can archive the pages, annotate them and organize them. Once you’ve done that you can access from anywhere – the iPhone application is coming soon ! Now what about the “social” aspect? Well you can create a group, for company, class or teams. Then, you can share your pages and annotations with others, and even interact with people on the web page or in the group. No more copy/paste, only few clicks and you’re done.
Ok I’m convinced, I’m joining Diigo. I create my account and activate it, nothing special. Except I could have wait forever - the mail arrived directly in my junk email box !
I now have a library.
I have to download the Diigo Toolbar. It’s a plug-in compatible with Firefox or Internet explorer. Really simple and quick !
Let’s see now ! I’m going to my favourite news website, Washingtonpost.com, then to an article.
I just highlighted a paragraph ! It’s really easy to do and to remove, plus I can choose 4 colours or highlighting.
On Tuesday this week, a teacher told us about social bookmarking. He referred to a website I was really curious about, and had trouble to find the name : Diigo. After a little research, I discovered that it means “Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff”.What is social bookmarking by the way? All I knew was that I wanted to learn about it and do it. So let’s !
Social bookmarking is a tool for Internet users to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources. People can comment on websites, tag, or evaluate websites, which create a folksonomy.
But Diigo seems to be way more than that, at least that’s what they say on the website.
With Diigo, you have several potential uses to organize the contents, like listing or tagging.
The basis is that you can highlight text entirely or partly in multiple colors and put “sticky” notes on web pages. When you come back to the page, they remain. You can archive the pages, annotate them and organize them. Once you’ve done that you can access from anywhere – the iPhone application is coming soon ! Now what about the “social” aspect? Well you can create a group, for company, class or teams. Then, you can share your pages and annotations with others, and even interact with people on the web page or in the group. No more copy/paste, only few clicks and you’re done.
Ok I’m convinced, I’m joining Diigo. I create my account and activate it, nothing special. Except I could have wait forever - the mail arrived directly in my junk email box !
I now have a library.
I have to download the Diigo Toolbar. It’s a plug-in compatible with Firefox or Internet explorer. Really simple and quick !
Let’s see now ! I’m going to my favourite news website, Washingtonpost.com, then to an article.
I just highlighted a paragraph ! It’s really easy to do and to remove, plus I can choose 4 colours or highlighting.
And see I can “Bookmark” the page and edit bookmark on Diigo, which I did.
I just have to open the Diigo Sidebar to access to this article again. I can also go to my library on Diigo website.
Ouch ! Problem here !
See, the highlights can be public, then people can highlight anything and moreover they write stupid things on the sticky notes. Now everytime I open a web page some parts are underlined and commented, it really disturb my visit.
See, the highlights can be public, then people can highlight anything and moreover they write stupid things on the sticky notes. Now everytime I open a web page some parts are underlined and commented, it really disturb my visit.
Conclusion : Diigo is a great collective work tool but I definitely will use the website for the research I do for my memoir. The only cons I see for the moment is that first I have another toolbar. I don’t like how websites or antivirus software try to appear in our toolbar. At the end the toolbar is so big you don’t even see the website ! Secondly, all these highlights and comments are driving me crazy, I have to find a way to make them disappear.
