My Online Classroom

Stop using Wikipedia for school work or at least consider the alternatives!

2011-04-13T19:51:00.001+03:00

"Although Wikipedia is a great place to find information, it's subject to incomplete citations, biased views, and inaccuracies. And when you absolutely have to have undisputable facts, that's just not good enough. Fortunately, there are plenty of alternatives out there that can deliver with high quality accuracy, and we've listed 25 of the best here." (www.collegedegree.com)

2011- the 400th Anniversary of the Book That Changed the World: King James Bible

2011-04-06T19:31:00.003+03:00

King James Bible is the Book that changed the world and the way we speak English today. There are several common expressions derived from the King James or other versions of the Bible, such as: sour grapes, turn the other cheek, nothing new under the sun, apple of one's eye, scapegoat, etc.

Online Courses: The Best Websites!

2011-03-25T17:12:00.001+02:00

My pick:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Free lecture notes and presentations

2011-03-25T16:45:00.002+02:00

Free lectures, presentations and stuff. One of the best cyber study group! Still in the beta, though.

Google Translate Accuracy

2011-03-25T15:46:00.003+02:00

Recommended reading: an article from Translation Journal (click on the title of this post or on the following link).

An Analysis of Google Translate Accuracy

by Milam Aiken and Shilpa Balan

"Although Google Translate provides translations among a large number of languages, the accuracies vary greatly. This study gives for the first time an estimate of how good a potential translation might be using the software. Our analysis shows that translations between European languages are usually good, while those involving Asian languages are often relatively poor. Further, the vast majority of language combinations probably provide sufficient accuracy for reading comprehension in college" (Aiken and Balan 2011).

Understanding Computers and the Internet, Prof. David J. Malan, Harvard

2011-03-23T08:58:00.002+02:00

"This course is all about understanding: understanding what's going on inside your computer when you flip on the switch, why tech support has you constantly rebooting your computer, how everything you do on the Internet can be watched by others, and how your computer can become infected with a worm just by turning it on. In this course we demystify computers and the Internet, along with their jargon, so that students understand not only what they can do with each but also how it all works and why. Students leave this course armed with a new vocabulary and equipped for further exploration of computers and the Internet. Topics include hardware, software, the Internet, multimedia, security, website development, programming, and dotcoms. This course is designed both for those with little, if any, computer experience and for those who use a computer every day." (www.academicearth.org)

Online Course: Literary Theory, Prof. Paul H Fry, Yale

2011-03-17T16:16:00.001+02:00

This is a survey of the main trends in twentieth-century literary theory. Lectures will provide background for the readings and explicate them where appropriate, while attempting to develop a coherent overall context that incorporates philosophical and social perspectives on the recurrent questions: what is literature, how is it produced, how can it be understood, and what is its purpose?

Free Ebook: "CONSTANTIN NOICA - SPRE UN MODEL NEOCLASIC DE GÂNDIRE" by Constantin Aslam (Romanian)

2011-03-01T14:43:00.004+02:00

Click on the title above to download the ebook "CONSTANTIN NOICA - SPRE UN MODEL NEOCLASIC DE GÂNDIRE" by Constantin Aslam, for FREE!

The Reading Club!

2011-02-21T11:55:00.003+02:00

(click on the title above to visit our Facebook page and give us a huge "Like")

WHO WE ARE
We are a book club made up of English-speaking students, alumni and teachers at Lucian Blaga University who love to read. Our club is organized by the Department of British and American Studies. Participation in our weekly meetings is not restricted to club members, but extends to English-speaking guests from outside the University. There is no membership fee and no attendance obligation. We promote an informal, relaxed atmosphere in our meetings.

WHAT WE DO
Our meetings cover a wide area of interests that range from Shakespeare’s sonnets and plays to contemporary Anglo-American literature and cinema, from Christmas carols to politically correct versions of fairy tales, and from the work of the great classics to the creative writing and critical productions of club members. We also organize and participate in events such as book bazaars, theatre evenings and nights out, creative writing workshops conducted by reputed British writers, colloquia and symposia during the Anglo-American week scheduled by our Department in mid-May, Shakespeare celebration evenings in April, Christmas carol concerts, etc. We publish a journal titled "Cultures in Transit" that includes a selection of the papers presented at the student symposium, as well as creative writing productions. Our upcoming webpage contains the most valuable productions of our members – creative writing as well as literary criticism – and we invite constructive comments and reactions in the Forum section.

WHEN & WHERE
We meet weekly, throughout the academic term, on Thursdays between 7 and 9 p.m., either in Room 54 or 62 of the Faculty of Letters and Arts or in a Café on creative writing evenings. Topics of discussion are announced by means of paper and virtual posters, e-mail newsletters and word of mouth and are decided on by the members present at the preceding meeting.

COME ONE, COME ALL!

Trip to Vienna, Graz, Ljubljana, Venice

2011-02-21T10:55:00.004+02:00

April 14 - April 19, 2011: 155EUR
Registration deadline: February 28, 2011
Contact me! (ovidiu.matiu@gmail.com)

"Petre Țuțea: Between Sacrifice and Suicide" by A D Popescu

2010-10-06T07:23:00.004+03:00

I strongly recommend a great book written by Alexandru Daniel Popescu, Petre Țuțea: Between Sacrifice and Suicide; it is available as a limited preview in Google Books. Popescu's book is "a tract for our times, that should be pertinent to the whole of the 'new world order' that we inhabit but are only just beginning to understand." (The Most Revd Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury)

Tips for Newcomers

2010-10-04T22:46:00.001+03:00

I know, I know! It's only the 4th of October but I can't help posting this list of TIPS FOR NEWCOMERS as every year! The beginning of a new academic year is always busy but also exciting for both faculty and students. People are making plans for their academic and social life, hoping that this year is going to be the best of all. This may be true for some of you, but I am sure that it is going to be the best academic year for newcomers! A warm welcome to those of you who fall into this category... I mean newcomers.

Newcomers are usually great guys, but sometimes they look really lost. That is why I want to share some TIPS for those of you who are about to start your first semester at our university.

1. Get organized.

The first thing you need to get is an ORGANIZER (those thick hardcover notebooks) and then get ORGANIZED (use a calendar, take down your schedule, contact information, telephone numbers, assignment titles and all the rest);
Check your schedule every day to make sure you are always in the right place (read: "room") at the right time (i.e. five minutes before classes start)!

2. Study on a regular basis.

This sounds really scary but if you want to get high scores, you should do your reading and writing for each class (remember to review all lessons before the Progress Test; this one is somewhere between 20 and 40% of the final score).

3. Make sure you get all the material I provide you with during classes.

i.e., reading lists, grammar and vocabulary exercises, word lists, journal articles, etc. (both soft and hard copies!!!)

4. Attend ALL classes.

A good reason: Class participation is 10% of your final score.

5. Manage your time effectively.

time management is important both during classes and exam periods.

6. Meet deadlines.

failure to do this might be similar to failing the whole course.

7. Take notes while in class.

you are going to need your own notes during the exam period and before that: Qui scribit, bis legit! (Lat. He who writes reads twice)
if you're a computer geek you can bring your device to classes and use note-taking software such as, say Evernote (it's freeware!).

8. Use all the help you can get for your assignments.

use the best information sources you can get, i.e. the library (it's near the Morgue, but it's a nice place after all), the Internet and... your teacher(s).

9. Work all the time you... work.

use all your resources to get the job done; it's better if you focus on one task and make sure you complete it before starting a new one.

10. Enjoy your student life!

this is probably the best time of your life; make sure you get the most out of it!

HAVE A GREAT ACADEMIC YEAR!

THE EAST / WEST CULTURAL PASSAGE STUDENT SYMPOSIUM: CULTURES IN TRANSIT

2010-02-09T21:23:00.003+02:00

THE DEPARTMENT OF BRITISH AND AMERICAN STUDIES
and
C. PETER MAGRATH RESEARCH CENTRE FOR CROSS-CULTURAL STUDIES
Are proud to announce a new edition of
THE EAST / WEST CULTURAL PASSAGE STUDENT SYMPOSIUM:
CULTURES IN TRANSIT
Sibiu, 21-22 April 2010

Papers are invited in the following fields:

Literary Studies
Language and Translation Studies
Cultural Studies
Suggested topics include:
Literature and national identity
Literatures in translation
Literary translation and its vagaries
Translating cultural background
Film dubbing and subtitles
From the margins to the centre: The literature of ethnic and cultural minorities in university curricula
Romanian culture and literature abroad
The critical reception of Anglo-American literature in Romania
Hollywood: The global ‘think tank’

Students are encouraged to choose case studies in these fields and contact professors who might serve as supervisors of their research in view of preparing 15-minute presentations to be delivered at the symposium. All presentations will be given in English and a selection will be published in the proceedings volume.

Additionally, students may sign up for a Creative Writing workshop conducted by Dr Claudia Doroholschi of the University of the West, Timisoara.

Deadline for submission of paper proposals: 15 March 2010.

For further details and questions please use the gadgets on this blog to contact me or leave a comment to this post!

OpenSource Shakespeare - An Experiment in Literary Technology

2009-11-10T19:10:00.001+02:00

OpenSource Shakespeare - An Experiment in Literary Technology is a collection of open source texts providing its users with a clean design and easy access to the 1864 Globe Edition of Shakespeare's complete works. Plays are organized by genre, by number of lines and the site also offers a character list and a character search feature. The Sonnets and Poems section facilitates sonnet-by-sonnet or side-by-side comparison viewing.

All texts have a print/save version, which looks even better than the online counterpart.

Romanian-born novelist, Herta Müller, won the Nobel in literature!

2009-10-09T09:52:00.002+03:00

"Herta Müller, the Romanian-born German novelist and essayist who writes of the oppression of dictatorship in her native country and the unmoored existence of the political exile, won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday." (Read the article in New York Times)

Photo: Herta Müller (Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)

The Most Useful Tools?

2009-09-21T17:33:00.005+03:00

All websites containing such lists claim that their selection is the best of the best. Undoubtedly, most people take the bait and start downloading applications or, in this case, signing up for free web services. This site contains a list of web tools that students could find useful, but also a lot of junk... Feel free to browse through the list of web apps and don't forget to check my blog on a regular basis for more free tools for students. Click HERE or on the TITLE!

The website of the Week!

2009-06-30T17:53:00.002+03:00

I know, I know! Holidays are for having fun, going out etc. but in the mean time, it's alright to get a bit nerdy and check out the most interesting websites ever.

This week I've read a couple of nice things on the site below:
The Shakespeare Resource Center. You'll find here collected links from all over the World Wide Web to help you find information on William Shakespeare.

Enjoy your summer holidays...

2009-06-25T11:20:00.004+03:00

... and if you have any questions related to grades, re-examinations, etc., please visit the Faculty of Letters and Arts Forum, at LBUS, post them there and... wait for my answer!

In the mean time, don't forget to visit my blog from time to time as I'll continue posting useful and sometimes just funny information on the same old set of subjects, such as student life, learning tools and free literature on the Web.

Online Summer School :)

2009-06-15T18:41:00.003+03:00

"An OpenCourseWare is a free and open digital publication of high quality educational materials, organized as courses. The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a collaboration of more than 200 higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model. The mission of the OpenCourseWare Consortium is to advance education and empower people worldwide through opencourseware." (OpenCourseWare website)

In other words: free education for all. Let's not discuss get into ethical issues here; just run a search and tell me what you think!

Recommended AcademicEarth Course

2009-06-10T19:10:00.002+03:00

"Milton", a lecture by John Rogers. Many thanks to Academic Earth!

The Internet Polyglot

2009-06-10T19:02:00.002+03:00

The Internet Polyglot provides us with a great example of a CALL system. Funny games/tests on many topics: insurance, medical terms, etc. Just 21 for now but it looks promising!

WordNet

2009-06-10T18:55:00.001+03:00

"WordNet® is a large lexical database of English, developed under the direction of George A. Miller. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are grouped into sets of cognitive synonyms (synsets), each expressing a distinct concept. Synsets are interlinked by means of conceptual-semantic and lexical relations. The resulting network of meaningfully related words and concepts can be navigated with the browser. WordNet is also freely and publicly available for download. WordNet's structure makes it a useful tool for computational linguistics and natural language processing."
Click HERE to go to the WordNet® webpage!

Linguee.com/Linguee.de

2009-06-01T12:24:00.002+03:00

... or the web as a dictionary! I haven't tested this yet, but it basically helps you to check terminology, phrases and sentences in a bilingual environment, i.e. English-German, German-English. Read the authors' description of this FREE service, test it and tell us what you think (use the "comment" option as, unfortunately, we won't have the chance to meet again in our translation/interpretation class this year):

"What is Linguee? With Linguee, you can search many millions of bilingual texts in English and German for words and expressions. Every expression is accompanied by useful additional information and suitable example sentences.
What is the benefit?When you translate texts to a foreign language, you usually look for common phrases rather than translations of single words. With its intelligent search and the significantly larger amount of stored text content, Linguee is the right tool for this task. You find:
In what context a translation is used
How frequent a particular translation is
Example sentences: How have other people translated an expression?
By searching not only for a single word, but for a respective word in its context, you can easily find a translation that fits optimal in context. With its large number of entries, Linguee often retrieves translations of rare terms that you don't find anywhere else." (www.linguee.com)

A nice blog for all ANGLOPHILES out there!

2009-05-28T14:43:00.003+03:00

Are you suffering from Anglophilia? Addicted to Britain and British ways? Get your daily dose HERE! It's free!