Archive for December 2004
ESS debate #2
Yet again, I joined an ESS Debate meeting on December 11th and 12th. It was held at two universities in Kobe Prefecture and was also limited to freshmen. The topic was the same as last time: child care leave. It will change at the beginnig of the new year, so this was the last chance to debate about child care leave with other universities' debaters. Until the meeting started, I spent much time on preparing for speech, attacks against the opponents and on supporting evidence.
Kobe is far from Mie, so I left for Kobe at 5:30 am to reach the university at 9:00 am. Twenty-two teams from various universities participated in this meeting. The first day, we did three games. The next day, we did one because only four teams were allowed to advance to the semifinals and the final; my team wasn't among those four teams. However, we did our best and won two games!
I felt many freshmen have studied a lot and improved their debating skills considerably. Through this meeting, I also managed to make friends with many debaters from other universities. They stimulated me to go on learning debate as an ESS member. So I'll go on!
In this meeting, prizes were awarded to some teams. Moreover, there was another prize which was awarded for good speaking. To my surprise, one of the Mie University students got the second prize out of 44 freshmen. His prize made me happy because I've been studying debate with him until today. I want to catch up with him someday.
After finishing the debate game, I went Osaka with the other ESS members. It was very crowded but we enjoyed it.
I had a good weekend!
Building blocks
I'm old-fashioned: I dislike plastic and synthetic substances, and the sheer abundance of of these materials displayed in any given toy store always depresses me. There seems to be hope, however. Akiko-san, one of my students, has just posted a few pictures of wooden building blocks being played with at Kodomo-no-shiro in Matsusaka.
New group weblogs
Here are links to two new sites that use the weblog format.
RealClimate.org discusses recent developments in climate science:
RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary.
Highly instructive reads.
Supervised by Andrew Lih and Dan Gillmor, ChatterGarden.com is a project of University of Hong Kong New Media Workshop, taught during the Fall term of 2004. Unlike many other courses using the technology, this is a genuine online citizen journalism project that isn't tucked away behind a login screen:
It is an online community for news and discussion about Hong Kong regional politics and public affairs. By allowing anyone to participate, it provides an independent and diverse forum for news, information, and exchange about Hong Kong's local issues, future, and relations with China. By using a participatory journalism model, readers and contributors are one in the same.
Good stuff -- worthy of imitation.
Listening Comprehension
Hey, how's it goin'?
Listen to Billy Harvey (requires Flash and a fast connection) and choose from the following statements:
[ ] Billy is tired.
[ ] Billy is a musician.
[ ] Billy hates promoting his music.
[ ] Whatever
[ ] All of the above
Thanks for stopping by.