This week all of you will be starting Soliya and you will have your first chat session. A lot of the time will be spent resolving technical issues and understanding how the software works, but don't worry, it gets better!
After your session remember to select, copy and paste the text chat into a word document and then save it.
Also you have to write your diary and send it as a comment to this post in the blog. If you DO NOT want your diary to be public, write it in a word document and send it to me by mail.
Why write diaries?
It is not sufficient simply to have an experience in order to learn. Without reflecting upon this experience it may quickly be forgotten, or its learning potential lost. It is from the feelings and thoughts emerging from this reflection that generalisations or concepts can be generated. And it is generalisations that allow new situations to be tackled effectively. (Gibbs, 1988, p. 9)
Reflective writing gives you the chance think about what you are doing more deeply and to learn from your experience. Writing your thoughts down makes it easier for you to think about them and make connections between what you are thinking, what you are being taught and what you are doing. Your written reflection will also serve as a source of reference and evidence for your final paper. It will help you understand the journey you have gone through and see the progress you have made.
In your reflection, you could write about:
• what you did,
• what was good and bad about it,
• why you found it good or bad,
• what you found easy or difficult,
• why you found it easy or difficult,
• what you liked about what you did,
• why you felt like that,
• how you might want to follow it up,
• what other people did and why they did it,
• what other information do you need,
• what you are going to do differently in this type of situation next time,
• what steps you are going to take on the basis of what you have learned,
Your facilitator may also give you prompts to help you reflect on your weekly sessions.
I'm looking forward to reading about your experiences!
Francesca
The second week of Soliya program started and it was more interesting than the first one. I arrived earlier so I had some time to talk with the facilitators. One of them was from Taiwan and talk about Taipei and their culture a lot because I have the lived with a Taiwanese girls before and it was really interesting. At the beginning we presented our families and it was fascinating to see with how much love a girl from Marocco talked about her family. After that we talked about families linked with the community and I noticed how different the concept of community is in the USA compare to Europe. I think in Europe we talk about a state more than a community. An interesting game that we did was to write down seven things that help define identity and then to remove four of them. The last part was very hard to remove. I noticed that everyone in the beginning wrote their origin and their sex. The first part that was removed were political beliefs. I think we all started to know each other better.
RispondiEliminaI took part at the first Soliya session on 22nd of October. I was excite to take part at this program. At the beginning I found many difficulties to understand all other guys in the group and I was worry about my English. I thought I could never finish the session! After the first 15 minutes we started to know us in a better way, I started to feel more relaxed and to have a better comprehension.
RispondiEliminaThe facilitators asked us in which way we thought to choose the topic about our final project and we talked about “respect”. Each of us expressed it’ s own opinion. The most important thing was the fact that all of us wanted to discuss and find a solution, never give up possible problems.
At the end of the session I felt so good. I was very happy about my choice: to take part at this program!
With Soliya I can meet nice person come from other part of the world and this is a great opportunity for all university students, above all for students of international relation. In this way I can challenge myself, improve my English and especially have a discussion with people who do not live in the European Union, with a different culture, different religion, different points of view in relation to the same issue.
Nicolle