domenica 28 ottobre 2007

Me and the Blogosphere:"May the Patience be with you!"

a map of the Blogosphere by Matthew Hurst

In these last weeks I entered in a completely new world: the Blogosphere. Before the beginning of this English year, I'd never looked for blogs and I had just an approximate idea of what they are. Now, after 2 weeks exploring this unknown zone of the Net, I'm beginning to have a bit more precise idea.
I discovered that there are many kinds of blogs which can be also very different from each other: some are just personal spaces where people express themselves and their opinions in general; others are dedicated to specific topics which the
blog's "owner" is expert at, or simply keen on; some other are related to more famous people or organization ( for example those of Beppe Grillo and Greenpeace). In sum, the blogosphere is an extremely wide and variegated universe in which, true, there are many interesting and important information, but there are also many useless or just curious things, and searching on it can be very exhausting. In effect, to find what you're looking for, you need a lot of Patience!

4 commenti:

ElenaCosta ha detto...

Hi Sara, how are you?
Reading your post, it seemed to me that we share the same ideas and impressions about the blogosphere: it is a very vast universe in which getting lost is really easy. I've often experienced this sensation while surfing the Web: it offers you the chance to satisfy all your curiosities but you have to practise using this tool in a smart way, otherwise you run the risk of wasting your time visiting useless websites, as you pointed out (don't ask me which the right way is because I'm still looking for it!). The main problem for me is that in each website I find very interesting links that divert my attention from my original search: there are too many paths to follow, too many suggestions I would like to check, and as a result the more the time passes, the more I feel bewildered in this labyrinth! I hope this course will help me to improve my search skills! What do you think? What are your expectations for the year that has just started?
Before going, I found just a couple of things in your post that I'm not sure about:
1- "I'm beginning to have a bit more precise idea": this expression doesn't seem completely correct to me, maybe you could use "a clearer idea";
2- "English year" sounds an adaptation from Italian, maybe "English course" could be better;
3- I'm not sure "searching on it" is correct, maybe you could use "to surf the blogosphere".
I hope you could find my comments useful, see you tomorrow in class!
Elena

Marta ha detto...

Hi Sara!! First of all, let me say one thing: your blog is sooo cute!!! I think you have great taste, I like the colours you have chosen and the idea of posting a photo of yours (I'm trying to do the same, so that you'll see me on my blog, too!)
As for your first impressions about the Blogosphere, I do agree with you and Elena: there is such a huge amount of information that you can easily feel overwhelmed by it! What's more, as we both said, the main difficulty while surfing the Net is to discern what's good and interesting from what's useless or just rubbish..which seems pretty hard work to me, at least at the very beginning of our experience!
Well, let me hust add a couple of things about your post, as Elena did (by the way, I totally agree with her suggestions!):
1. I think you perfectly described the puzzlement you felt when you started to explore the strange world of blogs, and your later satisfaction when your idea of it was getting a bit clearer. However, you did not really explain in what way surfing the Net can improve your English.. As Elena pointed out, what are your expectations for this course?
2. I think you should use the verb "to enter" without the preposition "in". So, I your very first sentence you can simply say: "I entered a completely new world".

Well, Sara, I have to hurry up for my next lesson..see you in class!

Marta

tortina84 ha detto...

Hi, Sara!
I read your blog and… you chose the layout I like the most! When I had to decide the layout of my blog I was extremely uncertain: there were so many nice choices that I couldn’t manage to choose one for my blog. The one you chose is the one I liked very much, because I love pink with all its shades. So, good choice, Sara! Another thing I like in your blog is the fact that you put the photos. There are some in my blog too… It’s a way to make the blog more coloured and attractive, isn’t it?
I read your post about this two first weeks of blogging…Well, it seems that we have had exactly the same impression! The picture you chose for describing the Blogosphere is without doubts a noteworthy image. Blogosphere is synonymous with infinite and the key-word in this case is patience, as you said. I spend hours and hours sitting in front of my computer, searching for blogs or useful websites; but this happens above all because I can’t surf the net properly and in this way I just wander the net without a precise idea of what I’m searching for. We need to learn the tricks of the trade! I hope that this course will be useful not only for our language learning but also for learning how to face the technology. Do you agree?

See you soon!
Bye!

Martina

Giovanna ha detto...

Hi Sara! I can see we both like pink!
I think that your first impressions about the blogosphere are shared by many of us! Like you, I had never experienced what a blog is and I feel excited by it but also overwhelmed at the same time. There is so much information out there that sometimes I don't even know where to start from.
I also agree with you when you say that some of the things in the blogosphere are just rubbish but this is blogs' policy, I think: anyone can write anything. Fortunately there are also a lot of things we can use to increase our knowledge and our English, too.
As regards language I think that in the sentence "There are many interesting and important information" the verb is incorrect because "information" is an uncount noun.
Another thing I'm not sure about is the preposition "on" after the verb "searching". I would put "searching through".
Hope to be of some help!
See you!
Giovanna