English Communication Skills 2 - about presenting

Hello!

How are you? Here is today's video about presenting. As you will now begin working on your first presentations for this class, here are some things you need to know and some things I will look for in your presenting. 

Good luck! 

English Expression 2 - about the Solar System and new access for Google Form activities

Hello! 

How are you? Here is a short video about our new theme of the Solar System and also about one new change about the Google Form activities starting this week.

Take care!

English Communication Skills 2 - about electric motors

Hello!

How are you? Here is a video mini-lecture about some basics on the history and development of electric motors. 

I hope you find this interesting. Thank you!

English Expression 4 - about population growth

Hello everyone!

How are you? Here is a video mini-lecture about population growth, with a video share from YouTube about population growth in some parts of the world. 

I hope this can give you a little more background and some detail about issues in population growth. Thank you!

English Expression 2 - about the United Nations

Hello everyone! 

How are you? Here is a mini-lecture with a video share from YouTube about the United Nations. This is to give you a little more background as to how the U.N. works. 

Hope you find this interesting. Thank you! 

Short hello & explanation of syllabus and materials

Hello! 

How are you? Here is a video with myself explaining the syllabuses and materials for our classes. I know it's a little long, and a bit rough with the sound. But this way you can put my face and my voice to my name. 

Thank you once again for taking these classes!

English Communication Skills 1: Issues of the internet - Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal・インターネットの問題「フェスブック・ケンブリッジアナリティカスキャンダル」

Hello!

How are you? Today here is another video about an issue that is still timely, and the impact of it is still ongoing - the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal that began in 2014. This has become an issue of the internet that has a social point to it because of the data mining that collects personal information about users, which goes into issues of privacy.  

While data mining is not against the law in any country (including Japan), the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal is an example of data mining gone into questionable and possibly illegal areas. 

Activity

Watch the video below. Watch it as many time as you need. (If you have any trouble watching it directly here, go to the link here, or look for "Facebook's Cambridge Analytica data scandal, explained" on YouTube at https://youtu.be/VDR8qGmyEQg)

What do you think of this issue? When you visit some websites, especially those that use cookies, do you sometimes feel that you cannot trust it? Do you feel that some websites are gathering data about you in ways you cannot control and that you do not want them to? 

I hope this will add more understanding about this issue. 

Keep safe!

Image: By David Whelan - https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidpwhelan/26614834084/, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58020376

Video uploaded from YouTube. I do not own the rights to the content. All rights reserved to the copyright holder(s). uploaded for classroom purposes only. 

English Communication Skills I: Dilemmas of AI (from 2001: A Space Odyssey)・AIのジレンマ「2001年宇宙の旅から」

Hello!

How are you? Here is a post to begin our new theme of current social and technological issues about an example of AI gone wrong - in this case, as imagined in a movie.

In 1968, the film 2001: A Space Odyssey was released. In Japan, it was known as 2001年宇宙の旅. Even now, it is one of the greatest science-fiction films ever made. In it, one of the main characters is a supercomputer called the HAL 9000. The camera of the HAL 9000 is the picture at the top.

In the story, the HAL 9000 is the greatest supercomputer ever built. It can speak with humans with a human voice; play - and beat - humans at chess; find and understand human emotions, and manage the air supply and other functions of the space station the human astronaut characters in the story work and do their research on.

But there are issues that the astronauts find with "Hal," as they call the computer...

Homework

Watch these short film clips from the movie. 

1. Here is the first one - in it, the two main astronauts, named Dave and Frank, are talking about what to do with the problems that Hal is showing. They go to a safe place where they don't think Hal can hear them.

How does Hal know what they're talking about? 

If for any reason you have trouble seeing the clip above, go to this link here. It will take you directly to YouTube.

2. Here is the next clip. For this one, you might want to turn the sound down. 

Frank goes out of a spacecraft released from the space station. Hal is in control of the spacecraft functions. What does Hal do with Frank? 

If you have any trouble seeing the clip above, go to this link to see it on YouTube. (It's a better clip than the one here - for some reason, I could not upload the better clip directly to the post - that is why you should turn the sound down!)

3. Here is the clip after that. Dave wants to know what is happening. What is Hal's response? 

If you have any trouble seeing it here, click this link to go to YouTube.

4. Here is the last clip. What does Dave do with Hal? 

If you have any trouble seeing this clip, go to YouTube from this link. 

I hope you find this interesting. If you like science-fiction films, I highly recommend this one - even though it's very long!

Stay safe!

Image: By Grafiker61 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46424786

Video clips uploaded from YouTube. I do not own the rights to the clips or the excerpts from the film they are derived. All rights reserved to the copyright holder(s). Uploaded for classroom use only. 

English Communication Skills 1: Scientific discoveries, principles, processes, and inventions

Hello!

How are you? Today, let's look at some important scientific discoveries, principles, processes, and inventions of the last 200 years. There are so many, so we'll look at some key ones! 

Activity
Look at the terms below. Can you match them to the right pictures on your Manaba page? Let's make the image at the top our first picture!

The first one has been done for you. 

tectonic plates     DNA   

general anesthesia     

Dolly     penicillin     

radioactivity     web server     the atom


a.  the atom   

Now do the rest of these - b through h - on Manaba! Are you ready? Let's go!

       

b.

c. 

d. 

e. 

f. 

g. 

h. 

I hope you find these interesting. Take care!

Images: Top - by JabberWok at the English language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2639910/Dolly - by Toni Barros from São Paulo, Brasil - Hello, Dolly!, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5816342/Penicillin model - by Vaccinationist - Own work, based on PubChem, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=55202505/CERN computer - by Coolcaesar at the English language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=395096/DNA model - By Zephyris at the English language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6285050/Tectonic plates - By USGS - http://pubs.usgs.gov/publications/text/slabs.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=535201/Radioactivity model - by Inductiveload - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2858666/General anesthesia equipment - by no machine-readable author provided. Paunami assumed (based on copyright claims). - No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=600832