Week Five

Project-based learning & WebGuest
My week, as usually, started from reading a lot of material and exploring new webpages. It's a moment of my professional development, as I read the experience of other teachers, who achieved success in teaching area, thus opened the gates for us, devoted teacher, who are on the way to become better and better. I can't forget to mention the article by Susan Gaer "Less Teaching and More Learning", it really made me think about my lessons and project-based learning, in general. And I have set my mind on writing a class newspaper.

I have also tried my first project using WebQuest. I heard other teachers mentioning it in Nicenet discussion and I even read about it at that moment. Nonetheless, it was Greek to me. Having read the articles of this week and WebQuest examples, I've got the clear picture of it. The creation of my own WebQuest was a crucial point, as I eventually understood its power. I was also surprised, that the project can be one day long. I cannot wait to try it with my students!
  
Rubrics & alternative assessment
At the beginning of our project "Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web", we were offered  to get acquainted with rubrics. I took that idea into account, but it turned out, that we were to create the rubrics for our students ourselves. I love rubrics, and http://rubistar.4teachers.org/. I have also included one into my WebQuest (but I didn't know how to extend the categories of evaluation).

Description of a technology tool solution was time consuming, as I the whole academic year I was thinking about my students, and only now I found the solution to one of the problems my students had. I guess, the lack of time of acquiring English will never be a problem for me and my students.

I want to mention my first discussion on Nicenet about the impact of rubrics, assessment and project-based learning on learners autonomy. Reading the opinions of people of the same professional background and on the same issue, makes a great contribution to my development, as a teacher. I like our discussions and I want to thank those who read my posts and give feedback. A special thanks to dear Donna, who really supported us on the way to become better.

I wait edgily for the next week.

Week 4

Do not be a faint heart, have a go and you will be surprised at your own ability.

I have started exploring this week material from the article of Jarek Krajka "Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instruction”. This work answered to some of the questions that bothered me, since I became a teacher:

2) The issue why we should introduce technologies into the lessons (recency, authenticity, variety, choice and the absence of psychological barriers are brief answers to this question).

1) The role of the teacher in a wired classroom. (the teacher’s role is immense even though the technology plays a very important role, as the learner can “feel lost or overwhelmed by technology”).

I also enjoyed reading the ideas for teaching writing genres, it turned out that e-mail could be used not only for sending and receiving messages, but also for practicing writing skills. The suggested idea of writing formal letter was immediately taken into my teaching baggage.

“The Extensive Reading Activities for ESL/EFL Student Uding E-books” by Mei-Ya Liang was interesting to read and compare to my method of reading outside the classroom. I also suggest 5 books to my students, divide the class into five groups and each group choose one book to prepare the synopsis (a brief summary of the book or film). The following lesson we listen to each group’s presentation of the book and vote for one, which seemed interesting. The chosen book should be read during the semester. But I had a problem before, the problem of choosing those 5 books to read, so the websites containing literature from “Using Internet-Based Children's Literature to Teach EFL” by Larry J. Mikulecky were saved in My Delicious page without hesitation: http://www.magickeys.com/books, http://www.bygosh.com/index.html but the best site seemed http://www.tumblebooks.com/.

I also discovered www.elllo.org, which seemed the best, until I tried www.BreakingEnglishNews.com suggested by Nahla and http://www.english-to-go.com/tolesson.htm described by Kunie. I suppose sites I used before paled into insignificance.

The creation of a technology-enhanced lesson plan took a lot of time, but I enjoyed the process and even redesigned some moments, which didn’t work with my previous class, adding a website for recording the voice https://voicethread.com. 

But I absolutely loved reading the lesson plans of my colleagues. It was valuable exchange.

The last task was to describe the class, which can experience a problem the technology might help with. It was not as difficult as I suggested, since we had described the same class before, but the task made me think about the problem on a large scale. Moreover, I am not unaware of how to incorporate Internet technologies into my classes now.

Each week I learn something new, add a lot of interesting websites, and share my experience of teaching, I can tell with confidence that one can “explore the whole world just by clicking the mouse” by Jarek Krajka.

Week 3

I can't believe my eyes, week 3 is almost over!

Readings & Resources

It took me two days to look through all the resources in Our Wiki. I've done it! I have found interesting websites with lesson plans, with some interesting ideas. For example, each year I rack my brain over something original to initiate discussion my first day with a new group of students (http://www.onestopenglish.com/skills/speaking/teaching-ideas/first-day/550635.article). If you are game-lovers, you can always find something on the following website: http://www.esl-galaxy.com/speaking.html. I am curious about this material and will start using them since September. 

Aural/oral skill-building

This week I had to share a website and a specific activity that I used. It was a very interesting task, that requires a lot of time and concentration. I tried to plan my lessons applying those resources I found. I absolutely enjoyed reading my course mates posts, as the way they organized their lessons, using webpages and recommendations, made me take the ideas for my students, though before I ignored those sites. I can't wait to make use of http://www.voki.com/, http://www.uiowa.edu/%7Eacadtech/phonetics/#, http://www.esl-lab.com/, http://www.voxopop.com/.

Creation of a Delicious page

I am overwhelmed with gratitude for Delicious page. It's so useful and easy to access.  You can smoothly save, open your favorite websites, see what your friends use and share with them your links as well. I can instantly forget about my old-fashioned manner of saving URLs

I hope, nobody is laughing at me;)))

Reading and discussion of a past sample project reports

Having read the Week 3 sample project reports of previous participants, I understood what Donna meant by saying that we are completing our first steps towards our project. The one, which I described on Nicenet is well-organised and analyzed. I also liked how teacher inspired students to use English, as I do the same: I correspond with my students in English, I answer to my students' questions using English during the break or even if I see them outside the university. Students like it so much.   

My students and me)

But I am all agog to know what WebQuest is and how it works. I guess, it's time to start exploring it.

I enjoy learning each week something new, only this way the teacher can achieve success, become a better teacher and make a great contribution into education prosperity.

Who dares to teach must never cease to learn. ~John Cotton Dana

   

My Second Week)

The second week is particularly over, and looking back, I understand it’s significance.

My first step towards professional development was the investigation of different search engines. My first thought was why I should look for different searchers as there was one, which was sufficient enough (I mean Yandex, still wonder why nobody mentioned it in Nicenet). But after thorough examination of www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/information/5locate/adviceengine.html page, I understood the purpose of this task. Then I read the posts of other teachers and it became evident to me that there is no the best search as “What search engine is best depends on how you plan to use it.” (http://mashable.com/2012/06/26/google-bing-search/). So, thanks to Visnja, I have become a regular visitor of the Quotation Page (http://www.quotationspage.com/search.php3), Jay’s suggestion of using http://www.rong-chang.com/ turned out to be very useful, it seems like you will definitely find what you are looking for there. The site, which Botir mentioned in his post www.infuselearning.com, is really beneficial even for self-development. A special thanks to Nahla, who successfully started our Websearching Discussion and shared her presentation with us. I would like to mention all the searches which I bookmarked, but suppose that my colleagues will be bored reading my blog.

Now, I am thinking over how not to forget automatically to use these new search engines preparing for my classes.

I also have created my own search engine:

Enjoy using, I mean looking)))

My second post was about ABCD Behavioral Learning Objectives. I’d like to confess, when I got instructional letter from Donna, I was not sure if I would be able to write Behavioral Learning Objectives. But my doubts cleared away as soon as I read the article written by Timothy R. Graeff. the presentation by Ashley Tan (http://www.slideshare.net/ashleytan/writing-specific-instructionallearning-objectives-presentation) also helped me to create gradually my objective and Bloom’s Taxonomy (especially Cognitive domain) helped me to understand the learning process better as before, I suppose, I followed particularly the same order of Thinking Skills intuitively  . (http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/file/view/bloom%27s%20Digital%20taxonomy%20v3.01.pdf/65720266/bloom%27s%20Digital%20taxonomy%20v3.01.pdf). Even after completion of this task, I was uncertain about it, but the comment of Donna encouraged me.

Finally, I have described my class, which will benefit a lot from technology-inspired change. To be honest, I was in a quandary about what class to choose. Then, I realized that I can apply my webskills to other classes, with some changes, as the course and level of students change as well. I put life into my narration. I pictured my class, which I miss a lot, as I cannot see them now due to summer holidays. But to read the description of my dear coursemates was much enjoyable. These are Really Good Teachers!

I am growing up day by day, with interest and joy, in warm and friendly environment, learning a lot from the course participants (wonderful teachers). Such a great opportunity!