Flolab è un progetto curricolare di Lingua Inglese per il Liceo Scientifico e il Liceo delle Scienze Umane realizzato in collaborazione con FLOLAB, un’associazione culturale che propone lezioni in lingua inglese su temi di attualità e di approfondimento con docenti madrelingua della Syracuse University e altre Università Americane di Firenze.
Per le seconde classi del Liceo il tema scelto era la “Creazione dell’identità digitale nell’era informatico-digitale”. Il ciclo di lezioni è stato tenuto dalla Dott.ssa Sasha Perugini, docente presso la Syracuse
University. Di seguito, i commenti (in lingua inglese) di alcuni studenti del secondo anno di Liceo riguardo il progetto.
Before Flolab
Before starting, though, our teacher helped us understand what it was about by introducing us to
Cross-Cultural Communication: firstly she explained that communication is an exchange of
informations by speaking, writing and that theres types of communications like verbal, where you
use your voice to express yourself, and non verbal, where you use facial expressions, gestures
and more. Then she introduced the cross-cultural communication, which is basically how different countries communicate with eachother; it’s used in business relationships, and sometimes the business fails because the countries can’t communicate properly since their culture is different. We also learned
about AI thanks to our mothertongue teacher: she explained that Artifical Intelligence is a machine
that can think like the human brain, it’s called a “smart machine”. She talked about how AI will
change the future because it will be used everywhere, in schools, in hospitals and many other
fields…but we need to be careful: just because it’s useful doesn’t mean that it’s safe, and also lots
of people will lose their jobs and be replaced with a computer, that’s why we need rules for AI.
Alice Assirelli, 2A Liceo delle Scienze Umane
During Flolab
The Flolab experience was pretty cool and I felt really integrated in the lesson because the teacher
kept asking us questions. She explained us why advertisements keep on showing in our
smartphones and that apps can hear and see us.
Sindi Tola, 2A Liceo delle Scienze Umane
I was very interested for many reasons.. For examples it was the first time that I heard a university teacher speaking. Also, she talked about important topics. One of these was the notification on our smartphones to distract us and stay concentrateon the apps. One of these notifications is the “X is tiping” in the apps like WhatsApp. Another important thing about the Flolab lesson was how the algorithm works. In fact I didn’t know much about all of this algorithm which can “understand” what we
like or not and let us watch only one or a few things to stay focused on what we are interesting in. Alessio Biribò, 2A Liceo Scientifico
After Flolab: students’ impressions
This Flolab experience has taught me a lot about what the future world will become where we will
live, a world where artificial intelligence will save lives, a world where various cultures come
together and understand each other in harmony. I learned all this thanks to Flolab.
Edoardo Bambi, 2A Liceo delle Scienze Umane
FloLab really surprised and interested me, offering this lesson to explore and learn about
AI and cross-cultural communication that I didn’t really know about. I personally hope to
have another similar experience in the future because it really opened my mind to this new
world.
Cosimo Rafanelli, 2A Liceo Scientifico
I’m really grateful to have watched and followed the lesson because now I’m more careful
when I speak in my room. I have found an option on Alexa to make her answer just when I
touch It so She can’t hear what I’m talking about.
In conclusion I’m happy about the Flolab and I Think that it could be useful for people in
other schools or classes.
Edoardo Da Prato, 2A Liceo Scientifico
