December 3rd notes

Prepare your presentation for next week. Ask me any questions.

Write a blog post about WALL*E (150 words). If you want to read the script, it is available at
http://disneystudiosawards.movies.go.com/wall-e_script.pdf
It is 94 pages long.

Write a blog post about chat-bots.

Priority Seats

I got pregnant when I was busy job hunting. When I found it out, I had to think lots of things because I wasn’t ready for a baby yet as I was still young. It’s really early to have a baby and I was worried if I could be a good mother. You have to take responsibilities, and you can’t abandon even if you get tired of child care. When I was 8 weeks pregnant, I found out that I was having twins. It surprised me and actually I am shocked, but finally I’ve decided to get marry and keep the twins.

Pregnancy life had begun since then. I had to go to school 4 days a week until July to get the rest of my credits to graduate. I chose afternoon classes so that I didn’t have to get on rush hour trains. Luckily I didn’t have heavy morning sickness but throughout the pregnancy term, I always felt tired and lazy, and my stomach got bigger fast as twins grow, so I began to use priority seats on trains.

I hardly used priority seats until I get pregnant, but I noticed some things. What I’ve found there, was I couldn’t sit on priority seats when I wanted to use it. Many non-disabled people were using priority seats as if these were not priority seats, and even if they noticed that I was pregnant, they just ignored. People just sleep or pretend not to notice that I’m pregnant. Of course many people gave me seats, but when I looked around, I found that many old people couldn’t sit on the seats either. It was sad that the priority seats were actually not existing to whom really want to use.

I didn’t know how it is tough to keep a baby in your stomach. Pregnant women look healthy but it is our misunderstood. I shall be kind to them, and when you find a pregnant woman, I hope you will give your seat for her.

Misunderstanding

Sometimes we have wrong images and ideas of people, because of stereotypes or prejudice from mass media. Most of us have some kind of it. For example, everybody thinks American people are big and fat. They always eat junk food and snacks. However those are not true. There are American people who are not big, not fat. We don't know who they are, until we really see them.
Nowadays a lot of black people are active in entrainment, business, and sports, for example baseball players, basketball players, singers and actors. Some of them are very popular and famous. They are also making money. For that reasons, outwardly it feels like white people treat them as normal and accept them. However this is not true. A few years ago in a Soccer game, several members of the audience sang a very discriminative chant for black people. Some of players couldn't keep playing. Even if known hooligans are prohibited entering the stadium, this kind of thing is happening sometimes. From my experience, I have traveled in 5 or 6 countries, and seen a lot of people who are from Europe and the US, but I have never seen black people at all. I think this means that there is still discrimination and they cannot get a good job like whites do.

Most people watch TV everyday. After September 11, lots of TV shows and movies were made which were against terrorism. I saw some of them and felt all Muslim people are like that. They go to mosque everyday and pray. They might attack even if they lose their lives. When I went to Malaysia, I saw a lot of women who wore turbans. This was not the first time to see people like that, but I felt something. Also at that time, Muslim people were in Ramadan, they don't eat anything until sunset. I heard about Ramadan before I went to Malaysia, but my image of Muslim people was made up by TV or magazines, so unconsciously I was afraid and avoiding them. It's hard to accept, because most Japanese are not religious. However when I saw them, my image was totally changed. They are just like us, except they are religious.

We should know that mass media might be able to control information, news and stories. Also we should be aware that they are not always right, and they are not always telling us the truth. We too easily believe everything the way it is shown on TV, even if it is not true. This might give us wrong images and ideas of people. We have see carefully what is going on in the world, what is happening, and what the truth is.

Essay Collection 2008

Here are links to some of our essays:

Is "Navi-time" really convenient?
http://www.wendyseminar.blogspot.com/
http://wendyseminar.blogspot.com/2008/10/200810-essaynavi-time-is-really.html

Photography
http://b-seminar-blog.blogspot.com/

Bridge of Word
http://tickey-land.blogspot.com/
http://tickey-land.blogspot.com/2008/11/bridge-of-word-my-essay.html

Nothing is so good as daily life
http://no-ko-no-ko.blogspot.com/2008/10/nothing-is-so-good-as-daily-life.html

Hip-Hop History
http://brookazuto.blogspot.com/
http://brookazuto.blogspot.com/2008/11/hip-hop-history.html

Plus two others I will post.

General links for students of English

These are very popular links for students learning English as a foreign or second language. Have you ever visited these sites before? If not, please check them out!

http://www.eslcafe.com/

http://www2.gsu.edu/~esljmm/methods/JMlinks.htm
http://www2.gsu.edu/~esljmm/methods/teaching.htm

http://iteslj.org/links/

The following list of links were all listed at Ohio University. It's a good list!
http://www.ohiou.edu/linguistics/esl/activities/index.html

http://english-zone.com/index.php
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/quiz_list.htm
http://a4esl.org/
http://www.englishforum.com/00/interactive/
http://www.better-english.com/exerciselist.html
http://wwwedu.ge.ch/cptic/prospective/projets/anglais/exercises/welcome.html
http://www.smic.be/smic5022/Onlineexercises.htm
http://www.englishlearner.com/tests/test.html
http://www.eslpartyland.com/quiz%20center/quiz.htm
http://www.lapasserelle.com/lm/pagespeciales/half.baked/halfbakedtests.index.html
http://www.edict.com.hk/sitemap/index.htm
http://www.eslus.com/eslcenter.htm
http://www.manythings.org/
http://www.englishlearner.com/tests/index.shtml

Travel on the internet

Wikitravel
sample page: Panmunjeom
Also available in Nihongo.

World 66
sample page for Los Angeles

lonely planet
sample page for Los Angeles
click the words on the left for more pages
Lonely Planet Thorntree (traveller's forum)

realtravel

travelpod
one sample page by a user


travelblog
sample blog Mark-Kate
sample entry

MyTripJournal
sample journal bear-out-there
sample page

travelfish
sample page for Chiang Saen

Tales of Asia

world wikia travel

virtual tourist
sample member's page
sample member's map

trip advisor

Global Wanderings

Essay Contest 2008

Here is the schedule for the essay contest:
September 24: Back to school! How was your summer? What did you do? Turn in the Rough draft of your essay!
October 1: Teacher returns the first draft or student turns in first draft late.
October 8: Second draft of essay due.
October 15: Return second draft to students.
October 22: Final Draft from everybody due today.
October 29: Distribute copies to everybody or post all essays online.
November 5: Finish reading all essays, last day to vote, choose class representative essay(s), watch US election results!?

Project to explore photo hosting and sharing sites

We are BACK!…… at a new time and day.

At the end of the last academic year, in December and January, we had a project to make a small Flickr site as a project and use it to give a short Show-and-Tell style presentation. (A picture is worth a thousand words.)

I wasn't very happy with the results for a few reasons:
Two people never showed up, didn't give a presentation.
Some people had very few pictures.
Some people had few or no tags.
Most people did not create any sets (albums).
Often there was no organization or ordering of the photos.
Many pictures have no English titles, captions, or descriptions.
No profile picture. (Put something there.)
No profile. (Write a little something.)
No comments. (Link to other students and make a few comments on their photos.)
Sites were not public. (Too much privacy! I don't think it is so dangerous. But you could make your site only for contacts or friends, and then invite us to be your contacts or friends.)
No badges. (Try making one and put it on your blog or somewhere else to direct people to your photos.
No favorites. (You may find some photos taken by other people which you love. Mark them as Favorites and they will appear on your page of Favorite photos.)

We are going to do this project over! Our goal is to demonstrate that we understand, and can use the various features and even teach others how to use them. In fact, if you finish, please help teach another student how to use these features!

In addition, this time we will compare 2 different photo hosting services. In order to do this, you will have to make a second photo site at any othe rphoto hosting site. It doesn't have to be an English site; it is OK if the site is available in Japanese. We can still use it and compare it with Flickr, using English. Here are some suggestions:

Picasa
It is owned by Google, and if you have a Blogger account, you can use you Google ID to log in to Picasa as well as Blogger, Gmail, and other Google services. Today, I showed you my Picasa web albums. Picasa gives you one gigabyte of free photo storage. Privacy controls are not very sophisticated, however. Photos are kept at the original size.

Facebook
It is social networking plus photos. The photos are downsized to about 600 by 450 pixels. You can upload 60 pictures in each album. You can have unlimited albums. Free. I showed you my Facebook pictures today.

Others
There are many others. Explore and find a good photo hosting and sharing site! Try to read about it first.
Photobucket
Smugmug
Fotki
Zooomr
Photoshop Express (only available in the US?)

Here is a useful link which reviews 7 alternatives to Flickr: (late 2007)
http://www.photographybay.com/2007/12/03/flickr-alternatives/

More alternatives:
www.photographybay.com/2008/02/11/45-photo-sharing-sites/

Q. What is the minimum number of photos you would need to upload to evaluate a site?
A. You would need to have enough photos to make a few sets or albums. Probably 9 or 10 is enough.

You can use the same photos for the two sites if you want, and see which site makes the photos look better.

If you don't have any pictures to use, take a walk around the campus, go to Tsutsuji Matsuri, or visit the pond on the Tokyo University campus, about 10 minutes walk from us.

Another consideration is the uploading process. Some photo sites let you upload by e-mail or directly from your cell-phone! If you can find a site which lets you do that, it might be easier.

Essays from our Seminar

These are the essays written by students in our seminar for the essay contest. I have removed the names to protect their privacy. You can also find some of these essays on their blogs. The writing is the property of the original writer!

A Tendency of Japanese People

by SS

Once I faced culture shock, when I was in Australia. I woke up and was about to go for a walk, and I saw the newspaper was on the ground in front of the house. Even though it was covered in plastic, I could not believe that it had just been thrown. I think it has never happened in Japan. However, the reason why it happens in Australia is that they do not care basically. They might think that it is just a newspaper. They are easy-going. On the other hand Japanese people tend not to think as easily as Australian people do even about one newspaper.

Japanese people love something which is very sophisticated, or they tend to expect everything to be comfortable for them. If it is not, they complain about it without hesitation. I personally think that it is one of the reasons why Japan became such a developed country and a lot of Japanese companies are now famous all over the world. In other words, if people complain about something, the companies or shops or restaurant will try their best to make them satisfied.

Sometimes Japanese people want to feel like they are rich. That is why some people love to go to department stores even though there are a lot of expensive goods there. Again, they expect everything to be perfect, because they spend a lot of money. Besides that, they like something that looks pretty or gorgeous. At department stores, we see people holding paper bags which are colorful or on which some top- brand name is written. A paper bag could be a plain paper bag, however they want to show off what they bought. To my surprise, buying expensive goods are not just common among rich people. Young people also tend to buy big name brand items. People coming from abroad to Japan are surprised to see young people with brand goods. It must be a big culture shock for foreigners. I do not think these goods are as popular in other countries. In Europe, if a young lady carries a big-brand bag, it means she comes from a rich family, but no one thinks they want to imitate the person. However young Japanese people think they can, even though they can not afford to buy such a expensive stuff.

When I was in Australia, I thought everyone was relaxed and calm. But I had not thought that shops and department stores would be just like that, so I was really surprised when I realized the fact that shops in Australia, especially Perth are usually closed by around 5 p.m. If they did that in Japan, it would not work. It is, of course, because so many people want the shops to be open until late, especially in capital cities in Japan. Almost no shop would ever close at five o'clock, because people expect every single shop to be open whenever they want to go.

I learned about "Cool-Japan" in a class, and according to the class, Japanese people tend to take care how they appear. What I would like to say is that people in Japan want to look good and to show off and also love things around them. Besides that, they think the things should be for them, and sometimes they expect too much and put too much effort on improving or fixing. Although this perfectionist tendency helped Japan develop, Japanese people should be easier.


Right Judgment

by NK

Seven years ago, an 18-year-old man killed a 23-year-old woman and her 11-month-old baby in Yamaguchi prefecture. he basically admitted the charge on trial and death penalty for him was almost decided. But five years passed from the case, suddenly his lawyer replaced. the lawyer maintains the death penalty should be abolished. And the criminal changed his witness completely. And then he appealed mitigating circumstances. That is why the trial still continues. I think that many people know this case.

Why does this case attract attention in Japan? First it is a point whether there is still room for his rehabilitation. Second, the husband, Hiroshi Motomura, who often appeared in the media, and Mr.Motomura’s earnest figure got the heart of the nation. Finally, this is most important point, the assailant was 18 years old and 30days at the time of the criminal. The death penalty isn't allowed people who are under 18 years old by the current Japanese law. The yes and no for fine death penalty on him divided.

I think I would like to think about third point, death penalty. He was a minor at the time of the crime, and he was the age that death penalty was not fine. However I think that the age has nothing to do with the importance of the crime. Crime, whether by a child or an adult, is a crime. I think that criminal should be punished without fail. He shows no sign of remorse and there is little possibility that he will be rehabilitated. Anyone who looked at his attitude will think so. I can't understand why the court of law can’t do such a natural judgement.

I don't think the death penalty is always the best punishment for a murder case. Because there is no meaning if the criminal does not feel fear about death. There is no atonement if the criminal died easily. But I think that the death penalty is appropriate in this case. Because one of the reason a trial is dragging, criminal wants to get off the death penalty by any kind of way. For the pain of the victims, I hope the judge passes judgment that the criminal is most afraid of.

Life imprisonment is not allowed now by Japanese law. When a judge does not pass the death penalty for him, pass imprisonment for an indefinite period for him. But, actually, it is not indefinite. He can interim parole ten years later. In other words, after a lapse of several years he may get out into the world again. I think it is dangerous for a killer to get out of prison because he is capable of a second offense. I suppose the judge decide death penalty for him in order to prevent second offense.


Communicating In Japan

by MK

Many foreign customers come to my work place, and I have a question about the languages they speak.

I work at a Japanese pub in Akasaka-mitsuke. That area is an office place, so I rarely see young people. Many foreigners work in Akasaka- mitsuke. Also foreign customers often come to drink at my pub. Mostly they come with Japanese co-workers, or friends.

Now, what language do you think they are talking in: English, or Japanese? I think most people would answer that they are talking in English, because if I am asked this question, of course I would say "English". The answer is English. Approximately ninety percent of foreign customers talk in English, and also Japanese customers speak English with them. When I found out, I wondered why they spoke English. Maybe at their work they usually talk in English, or sightseeing people may not understand Japanese, so Japanese need to use English. However, I think at least people who are working in Japan should understand Japanese, because they live in Japan, and to live here they need to understand this language. However, most people talk to me in English. When they come to the pub entrance, they say to me, "I have a reservation", or "Are there any seats spare?" Of course they don't even know if I speak English, but they don't speak Japanese. As for me, I usually don't talk to foreign customers in English, because I don't think I need to use English. Only when they don’t understand Japanese, I speak English. Sadly most foreign customers don’t understand Japanese, and some people use Japanese, but it’s rare.

However, there may have some reasons why they don’t speak Japanese though they live in Japan. People who work here may have some help from their companies so that they don’t need to use Japanese. They may have lots of friends who speak English helping with them their private lives, or even if they want to speak Japanese, they may not have an opportunity to study Japanese.

Don’t you think they need to understand Japanese? Do you think we should speak English? In my opinion, as a Japanese, I want to speak Japanese, because it is not an English-speaking country. English is a world language, and we need to use English when we talk to people from all over the world, but in this situation, I don’t think I need to use English. That’s why I want them to understand at least a little bit of Japanese as long as they live in Japan, and I want to communicate with them in Japanese.


How to Eat Food

by KS

In Japan, most people can get enough to eat. Japan has many foods and shops. For example, there are fast food shops and convenience stores. Japanese people can eat anytime. They have foods, but they throw a lot away. They just waste it.

I think convenience stores are the worst shops in Japan because they throw a lot of foods away, for example, a packed lunch which is expiring. It is only over by two hours, but they throw a lot away. I think it is too fast. When I heard this thing, I was so surprised! I could not believe it. We have to stop this thing. For example, the food companies should reconsider about how much they are making.

Now dieting is very popular in Japan. Many young women go on diets. I can not believe why they diet. I think dieting is the most wasteful thing in Japan. I think they go on a diet for two reasons. First, they have overeaten food. Then, they think “I overate. I have to diet!” Finally, they start dieting. It is a very bad habit. I think they should check the food quantity before eating something.Next, many people go on a diet because they overeat. Overeating is a very bad habit. Going on a diet is a bad influence on each other and on the world. For example, when people go on a diet, people do not have enough nutrition because they do not eat many kinds of food. On the other hand, a lot of food is left over and they waste it. It is a big world environment problem. For example, we waste food then, it is burned away. This is bad for the air pollution.

Second, fashion models are popular in Japan. They can have a major impact on young women's lifestyles. Fashion models have a bad influence on young women. Many young women think “I will get a slim body, too.”

We have to control our minds. Save food. Do not waste food. Every person has to think about world food problem. I can eat food but, many other people can not eat food yet. I will change my mind and I will save some food. For example, I will not waste food and think Food is very important in my life. It is only a little thing, but if every person thinks about it and does it, it will be a big thing.

Japan has many foods but hungry people do not have enough food, so we should give many foods to hunger people. I think it is a little thing for Japanese people, but this is big thing for hungry people. It is better than wasting food.

Food quantity is very different between advanced countries and developing countries. We have to change the food balance. For example, advance countries must cut down spending food. Then give more food for developing countries.

Finally, today the food problem is very serious. We must rethink about how to use and eat food. I think Japanese people do not truly know how to use and eat food. Neither do America, China, Russia, France and Germany. Advanced countries have a lot of food. The food problem is not a personal problem. This is one of the most serious problems in the world. Every person has to think about it.


Poorness

by TT

Do you think we are rich or poor? Have you ever felt poor? I think most of us never felt poor. In Japan everything is so convenient. If you are not working you can live. Parents take care of you. Everybody knows there are poor people in the world. But most people have only seen them on TV or magazines. In this summer I saw so many poor people in Cambodia. I think we should see them, and know what is going on in the world.

In Cambodia, babies don’t wear clothes, children have to work, the road is not paved, they don’t have cars, and the houses are really in bad condition. It is like the lodge which is made of wood. Above all they can’t eat enough food. Can you imagine that? This is not a worst place in the world, in Africa there are much worse places. How about us? Have you ever worried about food? We can eat what we want all the time. Also we have so many kinds of places where to eat.

Near Angkor Wat, children sell us souvenirs. Actually they are so pushy. It is really annoying. If you go to there you could get so many children around you who try selling. But I talked to them and played soccer with them. Then I realized that it is a part of life for them, and they are just innocent, pure and funny. After soccer, one of boy asked me, “You buy water from me?” They never forget their job. When we talked about their life, some children told me “I want to go to school.” and “I want to be a soccer player. They don’t have choices of what they will do in the future. Besides, if they sold lots of things, they can’t get all the money. Probably they have to give most of the money to organizers or their boss.

On the other hand, some people, who are like, politicians can get a lot of money, because they have power and business concession. When you go to Angkor Wat, you have to pay $20-60. It depends on how many days. In a year, about four hundred thousand people go to Angkor Wat. How much money do they earn? Do they use the money for the people? The answer is no. In Cambodia, you can see some schools, but those were built by other countries. In addition, as I said the road is not paved, because if they do it, nobody is going to use the airplanes. The bus is much cheaper than the airplane. That is why they don’t fix the road, although there are lots of tourists who want to use bus.

Towns which I saw were not extremely bad. Because we can visit there on a trip which means we will spend money even it is just a little bit. Then they could earn some money. In other places, like Africa, children have to work without payment. And the government or politicians are ignoring this.

I realized how Japan is convenient and how we are wasting many things. We can eat any food anytime we want. Then, most of us don’t need to worry about clothes and houses. If you want to really know how it feels, you have to go there and feel it. You will see what I said. Also we should know that we are rich, if you compare us to them. This problem is one of the important things in the world and worth seeing.

One Coin is Important

by YM

Have you ever thought about the importance of a hundred yen? I think many Japanese waste too much money. Not all countries in the world are rich countries. If each of us saves only a hundred yen, we can help many kids in poor countries. A month ago, I saw a program about it on television. I was really moved to tears by this TV program, and I felt their problems immediately. A hundred coin has a great weight and power. So, if you would think about it, these children must be really happy and appreciate you.

In fact, there are volunteers, fund-raising and other campaigns in the world. Do you know of any? For example, Volvic (mineral water) had a campaign. It was called “1 liter for 10 liters”. African children were given 10 liters of mineral water for each 1 liter of sales by Volvic. In addition, you can aid education in many foreign countries. For example, in Bangladesh, they can buy fourteen pencils or a child can study in after-school classes for twelve days if they have one hundred yen. And in Thailand, they can stock twelve ball- point pens, ten notebooks, two dozen of color pencils and pencils each. But we can give money not only to education, but also for medical services. For example, an undernourished child can go into hospital for a day in Burkina-Faso. And in Nepal, they can supply fourteen vaccines and four safety delivery kits. Thus, we can support them in various ways. A hundred yen may be tiny for us, but it is very valuable in the world. “Just a coin, but a coin”.

When I watched the special program on television, I gasped with surprise. One girl didn’t know water is clear because she always drunk only muddy, unsanitary water with rainwater, bugs and elephant dung in it. It’s too terrible!!! At that time, some Japanese decided to make a well and would like to let her drink clear water. However, in order to make it, they need a lot of money because making of a well is expensive. How did they solve the problem? It’s very simple. There are many volunteers in Japan. Some elementary school students contributed a coin each for making a well in Africa. If a hundred people each gave a hundred yen, they can gather a ten thousand yen. It’s amazing!! Please remember that when people work together to solve problems, any can be solved.

Japan is one of the safer and more convenient countries. Therefore, we sometimes forget the value of a hundred yen. When I was a pupil, I thought hard about how to buy as many cheap sweets as possible with a hundred yen. Perhaps you also experienced something like this. I suppose that we never forget the importance of a coin. Many of us adults may need a more supple mind. If you save a hundred yen everyday for a month, you can accumulate money which is about three thousand yen. As the saying goes, “Little and often fills the purse”. In the future, I hope it’s normal for everybody to save money and contribute to helping others. The education and environment of poor countries must be changed. We must not forget the importance of a coin to form a peaceful world. After all “a coin is important!!!” Don’t forget, your coin can save poor children from suffering.

My Experience in Australia

by EW

I went to Australia to study English for 5 weeks last summer. I stayed with a family there and went to English language school. I was nervous before going there because I left Japan for the first time in my life. I worried about my English, Australian daily life and communicating with my host family.

My host family was only a mother and one Korean girl, Jiyeon, stayed at her home. I tried to speak English as much as I could. Every morning I went to school with the Korean girl. Every night I talked and watched TV with them. Especially, I talked with Jiyeon about school, Australian life and each other’s countries. We always helped each other to do our homework together and hear each other’s troubles. I was surprised that I was able to communicate with her a lot. It was as if we were from the same country. She is my best friend now.

My English school was from 8:30 to 12:45 from Monday to Friday. I had general English class on Monday, Tuesday and Friday and speaking class on Wednesday and Thursday. I read, wrote, spoke and listened to learn grammar and pronunciation by using the text book in general English class. On the other hand, in speaking class I often did games for speaking English without the text book. For example, quizzes, making a story, doing a play and cooking at my teacher house and so on. There were many international students in my class: Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Thai, Indonesian, Turkish and Saudi Arabian. I could know various cultures and religions. I had a fixed idea of foreign people before. I think that their ideas are based on their cultures and religions. However when I talked with them, I thought that every one is different, respectively, just as each Japanese is different. My idea changed in Australia. I also have a new view. Other country’s students mostly aim to enter a university in Australia, so they study English hard and often ask their teacher their questions in class. My purpose differed widely from theirs. I have to model my attitude on theirs. I try to move actively and have an open mind.

English is a tool for communicating. I could find that communication success depends on our feelings even if English skills are very poor. This experience was incredibly precious in my life.

The Internet and Our Daily Lives

by Kby

Today almost all of us use the internet everyday. The Internet is so convenient for us. We can use the internet to get almost all the things that we want. Today Internet shopping is very common in our daily life. We use the internet to buy books, CDs, clothes, foods, household goods and everything. In many cases, shopping from the internet is cheaper than to going to the department store. For example, I like to buy books and CDs at Amazon, it’s not only cheaper but also I can only stay at home to wait for the books to be delivered , In addition, many times I can get some sold -out books at Amazon very simply.

Most all of us have experiences to get or exchange information with friends though The Internet. We use homepage to get information, for amusement; and we use E-mail to contact friends, Recently many people use the internet to send a Christmas card (or New Year’s Card ) so the post-office can avoid a busy time at the end of the year. And, before, I heard a news which surprised me so much, that last year some people used the internet to perform their New Year’s visit to a shrine while staying at home. It’s such an amazing thing. If we can stay at home to finish the ceremonial visit to a shrine on New Year’s day, we don’t have to meet the crowd at the first day of the New Year, and maybe accidents can be avoided.

Although the internet is so convenient, recently the internet criminal is also remarkable. Economic crimes happened on the Internet. Offenders used the internet to get the information of others and take money from the victim’s credit card. Children and old people are deceived more easily. Children haven’t experience of society. Offenders sell some things children don’t really need and then send an expensive bill to their parents.

Some malicious accidents were also caused by the information from the internet. Last month, according the TV news, a wife killed her husband for insurance. This wife didn’t kill her husband by herself, she used the internet to recruit a jobless person, and this man became the killer of that poor husband. We can buy goods though the internet, we can also buy a killer though the internet. This is such a horrible reality!

The Internet gives us a convenient daily lives, but sometimes it also brings many problems to us. I think when we use the internet to contact with anyone we don’t know well, we must be more cautiousness. And the website company must to make some rules to decrease the Internet crimes. For example, Website companies can refuse to accept orders of shopping from children, who are under 18 years old and without parent’s accompanied. Completely to avoid crimes from the internet is a very difficult thing, but if we work together I think some days in the future, the internet will be a really convenient paradise to us.

Essay Contest

You can post your essay on your blog. If you do that, your classmates can read it and make comments. It is also possible to open the Post again and edit it when you find mistakes in it.

You don't have to put your name. You probably should NOT put your name if you want your blog to remain largely anonymous.

You should give me a hard copy (paper) of your essay by November 2. Please send an electronic copy by e-mail by that time, too.

Our class is small, so we have enough time to read each other's essays. We will read them and choose the best or favorite ones on November 9.

Comparing Blogging Services: Have You Tried…

You can find a comparison of the features of some blogging services at this site.

According to Top10Reviews, the best blogging services are:

	WordPress.com
	TypePad
	Blogger
#4	Yahoo 360
#5	AOL Journals
#6	Windows Live Spaces
#7	Xanga
#8	LiveJournal
#9	Vox
#10	MySpace

Click the links above to read the review.
If you want to try out a different blogging service, go directly there.
http://wordpress.com/
http://360.yahoo.com/login.html
http://www.xanga.com/
http://www.livejournal.com/
http://www.vox.com/
http://www.myspace.com/
http://spaces.live.com/
http://peopleconnection.aol.com/blogs

Which blog best supports what you want to do? (What DO you want to do?)

What about bilingual blogs?

Have you seen these?

http://www.oyako.org/enter.html
http://blog.jeremysimonson.com/wordpress/
http://www.zanthan.com/japan/nihongo/
http://joi.ito.com/
http://www.piqniq.jp/blog/10
http://bamboolife.blogspot.com/

History of the Internet

These are some questions related to the history of the internet.

There is a list of internet pages telling the history of the internet at this site:
http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/
Some of the best of these are
Webopedia: http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/timeline.asp
PBS Nerds: http://www.pbs.org/opb/nerds2.0.1/timeline/
http://www.w3.org/History.html
Hobbes Internet Timeline: http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/
There is a Japanese version of the Hobbes Internet Timeline.
Another source is the Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

1. What was Sputnik, and how is it related to the internet?
2. What was ARPA (and DARPA)?
3. What is Packet Switching? (watch this, too) http://www.pbs.org/opb/nerds2.0.1/geek_glossary/packet_switching_flash.html
4. Who developed Packet-Switching?
5. Why was it developed? Why was it needed? What advantages did "packet-switching" have?
6. When was the first e-mail sent?
7. What were the first four nodes on the internet?
8. When was the word "Internet" first used, and by who?
9. What is Ethernet? When did it develop? Who developed it? Why was it important?
10. When and where was the Domain Name System developed?
11. What is Tim Berners-Lee famous for?
12. How did HTTP change the internet?
13. What was WWW? What made it possible?
14. When did the use of "www" pass the use of the "ftp" protocol?
15. What was "Mosaic"?
16. Who invented the phrase "surfing the internet"?
17. What were the "browser wars"? Who was fighting? Who won?
18. When were there 10,000,000 sites on the internet? When were there 20,000,000? When were there only 10,000?
19. What year were Netscape and Amazon started?
20. When did YouTube get started?

WWW Growth: (as measured by the number of Web sites or Servers)

12/90 1
12/91 10
12/92 50
12/93 623
12/94 10,022
01/96 100,000
12/96 603,367
12/97 1,681,868
12/98 3,689,227
12/99 9,560,866
12/00 25,675,581
12/01 36,276,252
12/03 45,980,112
12/04 56,923,737
12/05 74,353,258
11/06 101,435,253

Sites = # of web servers (one host may have multiple sites by using different domains or port numbers)

Ten trends in blogs

This article is about blogging, by the same author mentioned below. She observes several types of blogs that perform different functions. What kind of blog do you want to make? Can you think of any other types? Who is blogging? Why? What kind of media content? What kind of topics are they touching on? Who are they writing for?

The ten types that she observes are:

Informative (teach or inform)
Cultural (a kind of informative?)
Travel (similar to cultural)
Corporate Humanization (PR, customer service, an extension of a business)
Creative Ranting (stress relief)
Creative Writing (blogs a new home for literature?)
Reporting on Events with Personal Accounts (new kind of news report)
Pioneering Ideas (intellectual work of books, letters, societies)
Niche Topics (could be anything)
Family Blogs (a kind of family reunion?)

http://blog-services-review.toptenreviews.com/10-interesting-blog-trends.html

10 things to never put in your blog?

According to Pamela S. Stevens, you should never put your name, the names of family members, where you live and work, telephone numbers, personal e-mail address, plans for when and where you will be, travel itineraries, or pictures that include identifiable information about your home, work, or car! Do you agree with these? Are they good suggestions? Why or why not?

If your blog or journal is posted for “Everyone,” meaning that anyone can look at it, you should hold back identifiable information.

Here are 10 things to never put in your personal blog:
1. Your full name.
2. Your kids, friends or family member’s full names.
3. Where you work.
4. Where you live.
5. Telephone or cell number.
6. Personal email address.
7. Where you will be and when you will be there.
8. Pictures of where you live or work that include identifiable information.
9. Pictures of your car that show the license plate number.
10. Travel Itinerary.

If you hold back identifiable information you can be assured that most of your thoughts are safe to share. If you are not concerned with generating traffic to your blog, just write and don’t worry about whether it is going to be read, linked to or even liked. However, even if your blog is set to “Protected,” meaning only certain people can read it, you still need to be careful about writing content that may come back to haunt you later. If you really just want to write and not worry about sharing, set your blog to private, and keep your posts to yourself. Either way, public or private, blogging can be fun, cathartic and informative.

Visit the site to read it there.

A Review of Internet and Music Trends

Today we listened to this VOA (Voice Of America) podcast.

2006: Expanding Ways to Communicate and Have Fun on the Net
http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/archive/2006-12/2006-12-29-voa1.cfm
I had a worksheet with a lot of questions about the 15-minute podcast you heard. We focused on listening and only read the transcript afterwards. You were able to get many of the main ideas but not the details.

An outline of this program:

Trends in 2006

…Internet
…… Blogs
…… MySpace
…… YouTube
…… Second Life
…… Fantasy Sports Leagues

…Music
…… Socially active old acts

……… Madonna
……… The Dixie Chicks
……… Bruce Springsteen (Song: How can a poor man stand such times and live)

…… Indie artists

……… Death Cab for Cutie
……… Yeah Yeah Yeahs
……… My Morning Jacket (song: It Beats 4 U)

…… Newly created bands

……… Raconteurs (Jack White also of the White Stripes)
……… Gnarls Barkley (DangerMouse and Cee-Lo Green) (Song: Crazy)

…… Newly dead artists: James Brown (song: I got you/I feel good)

VOA Special English Home

Discovery Engines

Today we discussed and experimented on the internet with what are sometimes called "Discovery Engines".

Liveplasma creates a visual diagram of music or movies that you might like based on their relationship to a musician, movie, or director that you already like. Liveplasma is based in France and uses data from Amazon.

AllMusicGuide makes recommendations and also, more importantly, gives you biographical information about the musicians in their database. It shows similar artists, influences, followers, and so on.

AllMovieGuide is part of AllMediaGuide and is related to AllMusicGuide, but is for movies.

Amazon will tell you what the people who bought the product you are looking at also bought. When you view the product that you like (book, CD or DVD, for example), you can see what the buyers of that product like. This gives you clues about other books, music, and films that you may enjoy but do not yet know. I recommended experimenting with amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, or other Amazon sites in English. Amazon may allow you to listen to part of a song, download some sample mp3s, or view a music video and so on.

Last.fm allows you to create your own radio station. You can listen to music that is similar to the music that you already know that you like. Last.fm analyzes what you listen do and makes suggestions. It also has a strong social networking function. You can see your friends and what they are listening to, and who is listening to the same music as you. last.fm is in the UK, but wwas bought by the US company CBS. Read about last.fm in the Wikipedia.

The Internet Movie DataBase (IMDB) has a huge quantity of movie information. It will also suggest movies that you may enjoy, that are related to the one you are viewing. It has a good search page, too!

We had a worksheet with some questions about people's recent musical listening and movie viewing. We were able to check out the favorites of people in the class and find other recommendations based on those. These sites can be useful for ourselves, for discovering new books, movies, and music, for finding new friends (last.fm) for selecting gifts for friends, and mostly for the information which is on the sites, especially IMDB and AllMusic.

Searching

The internet makes information available to us easily. It is certainly faster and more efficient than using the telephone, writing letters, or traveling to a library. There is so much information on the internet that finding information becomes a problem. One of our goals in this class is to develop the ability to find exactly what information we want, quickly and efficiently.

We talked about the differences between a search engine and a directory. Read the Wikipedia pages to get a better understanding of the two. Here is the Wikipedia definition of a (web) directory:

A web directory is a directory on the World Wide Web. It specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links.

A web directory is not a search engine, and does not display lists of web pages based on keywords, instead it lists web sites by category and subcategory. The categorization is usually based on the whole web site, rather than one page or a set of keywords, and sites are often limited to inclusion in only one or two categories. Web directories often allow site owners to directly submit their site for inclusion, and have editors review submissions for fitness.

Here is the definition of a search engine:

A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system, such as on the World Wide Web, inside a corporate or proprietary network, or in a personal computer. The search engine allows one to ask for content meeting specific criteria (typically those containing a given word or phrase) and retrieves a list of items that match those criteria. This list is often sorted with respect to some measure of relevance of the results. Search engines use regularly updated indexes to operate quickly and efficiently.

Directories were made long before search engines, in the mid-1990s. Directories are like lists, and are organized and edited by humans! Yahoo is an example of a directory. The history of Yahoo!:

The two founders of Yahoo!, David Filo and Jerry Yang, Ph.D. candidates in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, started their guide in a campus trailer in February 1994 as a way to keep track of their personal interests on the Internet. Before long they were spending more time on their home-brewed lists of favourite links than on their doctoral dissertations. Eventually, Jerry and David's lists became too long and unwieldy, and they broke them out into categories. When the categories became too full, they developed subcategories ... and the core concept behind Yahoo! was born.

Search engines use spiders, bots, or webcrawlers to visit web sites and record information about what was there in an index. Some famous search engines are Google, Altavista, Ask.com, and others.

Google is relatively new. Although it is a search engine with a very effective indexing technique, Google also has a directory. We visited How Stuff Works to briefly see a description there.

Google is a search engine made by 2 other students at Stanford University who developed a technique called PageRank:

PageRank was developed at Stanford University by Larry Page (hence the name Page-Rank^[1]) and later Sergey Brin as part of a research project about a new kind of search engine. The project started in 1995 and led to a functional prototype, named Google, in 1998. Shortly after, Page and Brin founded Google Inc., the company behind the Google search engine. While just one of many factors which determine the ranking of Google search results, PageRank continues to provide the basis for all of Google's web search tools.^[2]

Dogpile , Surfwax, and Metacrawler are meta-search engines, which search other directories and search engines.

You can find a good explanation of when to use a search engine, and when to use a directory, at this tutorial or this FAQ. This is good advice on searching from Rice University.

We talked about how to use a directory to find reference material, for example, newspapers from various countries, movie screenplays, and song lyrics. We talked about using the Yahoo! directory to find dictionaries, such as OneLook, encyclopedias such as the Wikipedia, and so on.

For searching news, a search engine is probably better, since you can search for keywords and search only news sources at Google News.

Tasks at Blogger

Here are some things you can do at Blogger. Show me what you can do.

• Make a blog (or make two blogs for two languages, or make three blogs for 3 languages).
• Notify me of your blog (by e-mail or by posting here).
• Make a profile (but don't give away too much personal information).
• Make a post. (Write several posts. Keep posting.)
  
• Say hi.
• Tell your goals and plans for the future.

• Write about your studies, thoughts, or your daily life experiences.
• Upload a picture (to your profile, or your header, or inside a post, or to your sidebar…)
• Add links
• (add hyperlinks to your posts and/or sidebar)
• (link to other students and teacher's blog)
• (link to sites that you like and use)
• Use some styles (colors, bold, italic, font, size, bulleted lists, etc., etc.)
• Manipulate or change your template (add elements)
• Adjust your settings to your liking (privacy, etc.)
• Help your fellow students by showing them how to do things.
• Make another blog at Wordpress or another blogging platform to compare features.
• Add comments to other student's blogs.

These are some basic blogging skills that you should master!

Words of the Day

Here are some vocabulary words we studied today:

.com
.edu
.gov
.mil
.org
a browser
a click
a copyright
a design
a format
a layout
content
DNS
Email
GIF
Home Page
HTML
HTTP
Hyperlink
infringement
Internet (Net)
JPEG
MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)
MPEG
Search Engine
TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/
TIFF
to click
to copyright
to design
to format
to lay out
URL
Web Browser
Web Crawler
Web Server
World Wide Web (Web)

These words also came up in our discussion of daily life:

Lolita Complex (He has a Lolita Complex.)
transvestite (I saw a transvestite at Nezu station.)
cross-dresser, cross-dressing, cross-dress (Does she like to cross-dress?)
anniversary (They celebrated their Silver Wedding Anniversary.)
Hungry Jack (Do you want to stop at Hungry Jack's?)
whopper (I'll have the Whopper, please.)
onion rings (Watch out! Those onion rings are hot!)

Why are we doing this?

A student asks:

How do we use our blogs?
Could you tell me about it concretely?

First of all, I wanted you to experience making a blog. Some people have never done it before, so they will see how easy it is to do it. Perhaps they can even teach others. You can make a "test blog" to try out the platform, and if you do not like it, move to another platform. It is a learning experience just to make it.

Secondly, I hope you will use it for writing English posts. Blogger automatically adjusts and changes the main page to your language, which was Japanese. However, you can re-set the language to English. I didn't tell you to do that because it could cause you to make a mistake, like accidentally deleting your blog! However, if you are comfortable, you can change the blog-management language to English. And, of course, I imagined that you would write your blog entirely in English. You can write about your everyday activities and thoughts, if you like, but especially about the experience of learning English. I hope your blog is entirely in English. It is OK to make a bilingual blog that has the same content in both languages. Or, you can make an English blog for your English writing, a Japanese blog for your Japanese writing, and another blog to write in a third language. A blog is just like a notebook, I think, but it is virtual.

One post that I asked you to write was about your goals and dreams. Please write about your short-term goals for this class and this year, your medium-term plans for the next 3-5 years, and your long-term goals and dreams of what you want to do in your life.

Another task that you can do is to write a profile. Do not write too much if you are concerned about your privacy.

Creating the blog, you will find that it has the potential to communicate with a worldwide audience (if you want it to). This will change your writing because the audience is not just the teacher. This is called a "community of practice", a group of people who are really using the English language as a community. However, if you want to write a more private journal, you can set your blog to only Blogger members, to the members of our class, to only yourself, or to only the members that you choose. Let me know if you want to do that.

Look at the settings of the blog and be sure that it is set up the way you want it to be. Practice inserting links, quotes, uploading pictures, and various possibilities.

Hello

Students:

This is a page where we can post information about our seminar class.

When you have created your blog, please send me the URL so I can link to it from here.