Week 10 - Conclusions

Thanks to our amazing teacher Donna Shaw and all e-colleagues who intensely participated in this course, I was able to learn beyond my expectations.

In these ten weeks we were exposed to a successful model for ground-breaking teaching.

Little by little I was able to integrate technology to my class:  creating a blog,  a wiki, a website, using new searching engines, setting up behavioral objectives, using skill-building websites available,  teaching through PBL and WebQuests, adjusting rubrics and assessment tools, working with large classes and one-computer classroom,   and finally writing a project to be developed in my own classroom.

The readings and discussions about learning styles, multiple intelligences and learner autonomy were paramount to the critique of my own conduct as a teacher.

I’d like to reaffirm my belief that we’re all better teachers thanks to Donna’s persistent work and better people after a journey of so much sharing and enthusiasm we all kept high throughout the course. Let us all celebrate what we have achieved so far because it is a good thing.

I wish you all the very best!

Week 9 - Multiple intelligences and learning styles

It has been a very interesting week. First we finished our projects after our partner’s critique. That was an accomplishment. I think the way the course was structured helped us compose the project easily. That fact we had to write about one specific aspect of the project every week made it seem almost done by the time we actually had to assemble the parts.

I’d like to thank Donna and Makiko for their support.

The topic for discussion wasn’t new to me. I’ve been thinking about how I can plan classes for multiple intelligences and different learning styles for quite a long time. Years ago all we had in the classroom was a TV, a VCR and a CD player. Now that we have IT technology we can do so much more.

It’s important to help students identify their strengths by providing a varied choice of activities under different approaches. If we consider the need to develop students’ autonomy, we have to stimulate students to find out how they learn, make them evaluate the appropriateness of their own learning method in terms of performance and pleasure.

We teachers need to be careful not to impose our own learning style and intelligence in the classroom. 


By the way, I found the learning style assessment chart very handy and I plan to use it with my students soon.

Week 8 - Online Tools for Enhancing Learning

Well, this week’s assignments have kept us all quite busy. We started with our project first draft and peer review. Later on we went through an amazing tool to enhance learning autonomy: ANVILL. At first I felt weighed down by the sophistication of this speech-based toolbox. However, as the week progressed Jeff Magoto’s participation in the discussion thread made ANVILL mechanics easier to understand. It is indeed a great all-inclusive tool: Voiceboard and TCast will certainly upgrade all activities in my classes.

Although ANVILL was the highlight of the week, I felt really thrilled with the possibility of putting up a coursesite, which I considered impossible to do a few weeks ago. I didn’t manage to plan the reading course at ANVILL, so I chose nicenet and blogger, which I’m more familiar with.

This has been a wonderful course. I’m sure it will take me more a semester to make use of all the tools and resources we were introduced to.   

Week 7 - One-computer class and learners' autonomy

Having a class of around twenty students and just one computer is not ideal to teach when we consider building learners’ autonomy.  Although we must admit there are several ways in which the one-computer class can enhance students’ learning, it is clear there’s a restriction to building their autonomy. That happens because in the end it is the teacher who assumes the role as the model user, the class deliverer.

It’s quite relevant that the computer is used along with a multimedia projector because then learners can be engaged with visual, graphic and sound files, among others. It also has a positive repercussion for highlighting specific web sites related to areas of study. Groups of students can use the computer in turns, to run their projects, send e-mails and prepare PowerPoint presentations.

When teaching with just one computer it is important to consider how we teach and organize lessons and activities for group work.

Being successful at making use of the single computer in the classroom has a lot to do with instructional planning.  A single classroom computer can be used efficiently as a presentation tool, a tool for generation or production of student outcome, a collaborative learning tool, and an information resource.  The single computer can be used for audio and visual information and for technology integration. It can increase students’ motivation, improve interaction with content and develop collaborative learning skills.

Week 6 - from action to interaction

How to create a student-centered environment for small or large classes? Collaboration seems to be the answer. Have students engage in group work to develop projects, do WebQuests, go through PowerPoint presentations, produce their own IT resources can make our classes more effective and fun. 

Students will certainly profit from well planned lessons which take into account the student's needs, abilities, interests, and learning styles. This lesson planning requires accurate tools.  

In student-centered environment, our role as teachers is to coach students through their learning  journey and give them good questions rather than answers. Enhancing autonomy is a must.

        

Last week I felt so proud because I was able to produce my first WebQuest. Well, this week has given me another reason to be proud: I created my first interactive Powerpoint. I never considered the power of PowerPoint in responding to different learning styles. Making the PowerPoint a student-centered tool will enhance students’ commitment to learning. 

I’ll soon be trying techniques such as blank slides, hyperlinks and others.  

Week 5 - reflections

After reading the texts suggested and browsing the web for alternative assessment, rubrics, PBL and webquests, thinking they would be just too hard to implement, we had the opportunity to plan both rubrics and a weebquest.

It was indeed hard work but it paid off.

Although PBL was not new to me, I could see different ways to use the web to run them.

I consider webquests the highlight of the week. It’s amazing how we can bring together so many web resources and tools to produce a webquest and have students focus on the five abilities: reading and writing, listening, speaking and socially interacting, building knowledge together.

I’m looking forward to reviewing my webquest. It needs improvement. I want to become more efficient in working with them by the time classes start. I1ll try to replace one of the traditional activities by a webquest, probably related to the extensive reading assessment.

One very important issue this week was studying rubrics. I never even considered writing my own rubrics or writing them with the students. Rubistar will certainly be a fundamental tool from now on.  I expect to discuss rubrics with students before and after the projects, so that they’ll become aware of the quality standard expected from their work. This way, they’ll be able to learn from their own limits and possibilities. 

This scenario clearly shows how important the teacher is to facilitate learning by helping students recognize how they learn.

Week 5 - PBL, rubrics and webquests

Let us now reflect upon what we did, what we learned and how it is going to change our perspective and actions in our work.

Instead of asking ourselves what we know about teaching, we should ask what we know about learning. First I’d like to report this wonderful video which shows our search for a pedagogy that makes a difference.

Week 4 - Reading and Writing

This week I learned about developing reading and writing skills. I consider the synergic relationship between reading and writing the most important aspect of this reflexion.  One doesn’t exist without the other.

While Liang’s paper has no significant impact in my experience, Krajka points out a very important issue related to writing through the web: one must not lose sight of learning objectives and the effectiveness of technological tools to enhance them.

Reading and writing emails, web pages and class blogs can motivate students and give them a sense of accomplishment because of its authentic and updated content.

Maybe the greatest gift I was given this week was the never-ending list of blogs to feed my Delicious page.

Among them I found:

http://www.21stcenturyschoolteacher.com/cool-websites.html

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/category/lesson-plans/

http://www.thinkfinity.org/

http://www.booksshouldbefree.com

Last but not least, the lesson plan was so demanding. Besides the planning ability I do have to get hold of, I was once again asked to think of students learning style which I consider one of the most important aspects of lesson planning. That’s what really makes us focus our teaching on the students and their needs. Therefore the choice of resources will be objectively driven.

We’re heading to the middle of the course already!  This has been a long and winding road, hasn’t it?  I thank Donna and all of you for the rich sharing and support.

Week 3 - CALL

CALL - Computer Assisted language learning programs are very collaborative and motivational. 

One good thing about using CALL is that students can learn at their own pace using the learning strategies they find more suitable. Also, using CALL might grant the students with the ability to develop autonomous learning skills.  

On the other hand, it is sometimes impossible for the teacher to adapt the content of the softwares to the students' needs.  

It is common sense that computers bring innovation to ESL classes. There are excellent teaching tools to develop the four communicative skills and enhance language acquisition. However, it is still upon the teacher the role of providing innovative and resourceful opportunities enhance students' learning. 

Week 3 - delicious

Wow, I can't believe I had so much trouble with bookmarking!

Believe it or not, I used to keep an email with ELT and ESL websites so that I could access them from any computer.

This week all my problems were solved. I found 'delicious' a great way to store and organize important websites. 

For a very long list and weak memory, it's good that descriptions may be added to the bookmarks. 

Week 2 - Course Project

Start planning the course project helped keep me in fresh mood because now we can start applying what we learn here to how we teach.

The first step into planning this project was a meticulous description of the class. I consider the students motivated and willing to learn. I really hope they'll share my enthusiasm to learn the different ways in which they can learn, so that they eventually become more independent.

Week 2 Searching

In addition to planning our objectives, we were given a gift: NoodleTools. I became acquainted with so many search engines I had never heard of.

 Of course there was no time to check all of them in depth. I chose a few and tried to look for the same kind of information. Although I found iSEEK Education and TWURDY quite consistent, I still think we need to check how dependable the information on the site is or what the credentials of the writer are. Authorship is a major issue in the internet.

Week 2 Planning

This has been a very busy and productive week. Before reading the texts about planning, I would easily say I didn’t feel the need to plan, first because I was never asked to and also because I believed you only needed to plan if you didn’t know what to do.

Well, I couldn’t be farther from the truth. The ABCD objective planning helped me consider one of my major difficulties in teaching which is assessment. I think I’ll be more comfortable choosing how to evaluate students’ learning if I plan in advance what they are expected to produce and at what level of accuracy given a certain condition. It is a must that students know what they’re about learn and produce.

I planned a special lesson using short dialogues from a film to review reported speech. 
It was a change of pace!

Week 1

Our first task was not so hard to accomplish. I was already familiar with creating a blog, although my experience was directed to office work.

I believe the challenge still rests on how to make the blog attractive in design and interesting in content.

There's a strong sense of reponsibility in creating a blog. If originality is not a must, maybe because they carry our signature, blogs are a space for authorship. 

As I reflect on the potential a blog can bring to my teaching practice I envison my students responding or adding to its content. Even creating their own blogs. I think they will be quite concerned about what and how they write because in a certain way the language we use is how we become known.  

Ready for take off

Although winter has just started, taking this course makes me feel fresh about teaching.

I expect my learning here will have a great impact in the way I teach. I'm very excited to start using emails, blogs, podcasts, wikis and other web tools to make students feel motivated to acquire new academic skills.