Rubric!

An open mind: Opinion post.

We all know how useful internet and technology can be when it comes to find resources to learn, teach, and practice. In this sense, iTunes U, Open coursewares and eventually, all the free online resources are really useful to improve learning, but I would leave it as that, a way to improve learning. These resources, formal and professional as they are, are actually an amazing help for all the students and teachers around the globe because they spread knowledge in research and field to everybody -as it says in the article- with an internet connection. But I don't think they can replace the presence of a teacher in a lecture, they cannot be compared with the attendance to a class where opinions and questions are shared by a group of people sharing the same interest in learning about a specific topic. Plus, if there were just online classes, how can we assure that the students are actually putting a real effort in doing independet research, doing the readings and homeworks, and being honest in all the different types of evaluation?

The good thing is that, as it is explained in the article, students stick to the classes and participate actively downloading everything that appears, such as workbooks, articles and lectures, but there are no grades, degrees or certifications.

Lastly, there is a reference to a Peer-to-peer University, in which people share ideas and materials regarding specific contents and elevate them to a College-degree level, but without the degree. The runner of this idea, Neeru Paharia, says that having a degree means that you have just crossed a bar, but the knowledge you can have regarding a certain content can be equal to somebody who has studied the topic indepentenly, without the degree. Their principal objection to the Open Courseware is that this program lacks human resources, so whenever you have a doubt you cannot ask anybody to solve it, contrary to P2PU, where a group of people share what they know and help everybody. I think they are right, but again, there having a degree is the actual proof that you have put effort in what you have done and the time you have invested studying something you will dedicate your life to.

Learning a Language: Grammar Translation & Behaviorism

So, I tried learning Italian and Russian with the websites provided. I chose those two because Italian seems easy due to its similarity with Spanish, and Russian because... I don't know actually, I mean, I know it's difficult, so learning it by using a website seemed a huge challenge.

A behavioristic approach in learning a language can be applied, for example, to learn pronunciation by repeating drills and short sentences. And as many of the websites count with a multimedia section in which you can listen to short recordings or watch videos, they might work really good with this behavioristic issue. So, both webpages worked! They both have the option of listening words (to repeat them, of course), or isolated letters. In this sense, then, they are really useful, although, actually, you cannot tell if your enunciation is good enough or if it sounds as it should. So, isn't this a little tricky?

Moving on, we step into grammar rules. Once again, both websites have grammar rules and a little application. In both webpages you can see the way in which feminine and masculine, or singular and plural are different, and in both you will find examples to get the idea even more clearer. And it is important to know this because a good grammar instruction will give you the proper way to use the language. But! if you learn this by heart, you can be fully prepared to put these rules into practice, however, you will never know if you can think all of them instantly when speaking to a native speaker of the target language, right? It is important to know all the rules of a language to use it properly, but equally important is to actually USE the language, live it and experience it!

Websites used:

http://www.professorgio.com/ (for Italian)

http://www.ilike2learn.com/ilike2learn/russian/ (for Russian)