What a del.icio.us thing!

Hi girls!
Once again, I discovered new things! Well, I find bookmarking wonderful. You can bookmark everything you want so that you can store your favourite web sites and don’t loose them in the “virtual chaos” of the web. However, the most amazing thing is the social part of bookmarking and the fact you store all the materials online so that you can access them from anywhere. Bookmarking allows you to share the sites you found with a group of people (the network). I like this mutual exchange very much: other people can benefit from your work and you can discover some new relevant resources from the others.
As to the technical part of the task I watched the videos and the tutorial and I read all the instructions carefully. Finally I had no problems in using del.icio.us. The mechanism is more or less always the same: all you have to do is to register with a username and password, then log in and start clicking around to see how the whole stuff works!
Well, let’s talk about a sore point! In my opinion, the most demanding part of the task was to find out some relevant web sites to bookmark. I had to browse the net a lot in order to choose some good material; I don’t like spending so much time online (neither my parents who pay the telephone bill). I know there are the labs but I’m not always in Padua and I find working at home easier.
Among the 20 web sites bookmarked by my friends I focus my attention on:
- the NPR web site bookmarked by Giovanna
- “how to do a thesis” bookmarked by Alessia
- the dictionary of English slang bookmarked by Roby
- the site on vocabulary bookmarked by Caterina
I find Giovanna’s site really interesting because you can practice your listening and improve your pronunciation through authentic documents. In the websites I found, most of the documents were exercises expressly created for educational purposes. Moreover, I saw there are many things you can listen to (in some cases there are even the transcriptions): programs, songs, stories… Nice site!
The site bookmarked by Alessia is very useful. It gives good pieces of advice in order to prepare properly a thesis and to learn how to dissert it. The site is really well organized and clear: there are some “instructions” that help the student from the beginning to the end step by step. Finally there are some links to other useful websites devoted to this subject. I only visited the site about how to write a thesis statement but I’m going to visit the others too.
As to the dictionary of English slang and colloquialisms, I find it very handy because you can check the expressions and see the context in which they’re used. Since my problem is to write in a too formal way, I think I’m going to look the new words up in this dictionary!
Last but not least, I really enjoyed doing the activities in the Learning Vocabulary site bookmarked by Caterina. There are lots of things you can do: crosswords, quizzes and so on. Some of them are too simple maybe because there are some sections devoted to children.
I’m looking forward to know the choices of the remaining members of the group! If you want to reply to my message, just write, I’ll be glad to answer!
Stefania