Week 10: Overall Reflection

Hi there!

Its our last week in this course... Although these past ten weeks have been very busy and demanding for me, I think I'm going to miss all of it... the Nicenet dicussions, the course site and wiki, checking my grades in Blackboard, and of course posting on this blog :)

It's been a great time full of meaningful learning and deep reflections. I've learnt so much during this time that I feel I'm better prepared now and I have more tools and resources to plan my classes.

I definitely recommend this course for those teachers willing to update their classes with the new technologies; and I hope I have the chance in the future to do another course as good as this one!

Last but not least, I'd like to thank our instructor, Courtney Cunningham, for her committed support, her good advice and all her comments and dedicated feedback.

Love,
Lore from Argentina

Week 9: Final Project Report

This week's main activity was to send our Final Project Reports. Developing the project and writing the report have been hard word and time cosuming, but the big effort was totally worth it both for my students' benefit and for my own benefit as well.

I've learnt a lot from every single step of this project: thinking about an issue, finding the right technology tool to solve the issue, receiving feedback from the course instructor, implementing the tool, watching the students reactions, observing the results, writing the first draft, doing the peer review activity and finally putting all things together to finish the final report.

It's been a great learning experience!

Lore from Argentina

Week 9: Learning Styles

This week I learned about Richard Felder's "Multiple Intelligences", and how to take advantage of new technologies to satisfy the needs of different learning styles. I knew about the existence of a variety of intelligences, but I had never heard or read about Felder before.

As mentioned in the article "An interview with the father of multiple intelligences", it is true that adapting teaching practices to deal with different cognitive capacities can be really daunting, especially if we have 30-35 students in a classroom. However, since we live in the era of new digital media and the internet, it is much easier to individualize our students' learing styles.

A good way to know about our students' intelligence types is to have them complete a questionnaire at the beginning of the school year. While reading information about this concept, I came across two websites that fulfill this purpose: The VARK Questionnaire and Multiple Intelligences Self Assessment (Edutopia). School year in my country is almost finished now, but I'm definitely going to apply these in the first class next year!

Lore from Argentina

Week 8: Teacher Resources Online

Hi!!

This has been a very productive week with a lot of work which luckily was worth the effort!

First, I completed the first draft of my project. The fact of having to write a report on how I implemented the technology tool and the impact it had on my students, made me see its strong and weak points from a different perspective and better understand the overall results.

The peer review task was very helpful as well. I had the chance to read about a colleague's project, and how students from a different part of the world reacted to it.

This week I had the opportunity to explore some very interesting online resources for teachers. Since there were a lot of resources listed on the course site, I chose to focus on two of them: Hot Potatoes and Padlet. I used the first one to create vocabulary exercises about the family, and the second one to create a collaborative activity with a wall on Padlet. I'm really looking forward to using these tools with my students and see the results!

Greetings,
Lore from Argentina

Week 7: Learner autonomy and the One-computer classroom

Hello!

This week I've learnt about learner autonomy and the one-computer classroom. I had previously heard about these concepts, but I had never interiorized in them.

Learner autonomy doesn't mean that students have to learn in an isolated and detached environment. It means students take cgharge of their own meaning.

Autonomous learning can better prepare students for today's fast-changing world because it promotes students' flexibility to adapt to changes. Besides, it helps students to develop the capacity of critical awareness so they can solve problematic situations in an easier way.

Regards,
Lore from Argentina

Week 6: Project Step 5 "Implementing the change"

Hello again!

This week's project task was to implement the technological changes or ideas we planned last week.

Two of the resources that I chose last week, and which will be part of my project to motivate students and change their attitude towards the learning of English are: 

http://lyricstraining.com/   and   https://www.blogger.com 

What I did this week was to introduce my students to Lyrics in Training. First, I shared the link with them and described the site. Then, I explained to them why it will be useful for our classes and how it works. After that, I listed the different ways in which they can take advantage of the site by doing something they really enjoy; i.e, listen to their favourite music. Finally, I asked them to register at Lyrics in Training so they can keep track of their results and focus on their weak points.

The students' first reaction to the site was one of interest and wonder. Also, they felt very excited about the possibility of working with their favorite bands and singers. They wanted to start playing right away!

I feel really positive about these results. I hope that my students feel the same way!

They didn't have time to create a blog yet. Besides, I wanted them to become familiar with one site at a time. So this will probably be next week's activity.

Greetings,

Lore from Argentina

Week 6: Interactive Powerpoint Presentation

This week, we also had to create an Interactive Powerpoint Presentation. The one I did is about "Rooms of the house and furniture" with vocabulary practice for begginer students.

Students really enjoy watching presentations, especially if they can interact with them. Powerpoint offers many interesting tools and functions which may turn a boring or difficult topic into an attractive show.

Lore from Argentina

Week 6: Technology tools for creating student-centered classes

Hi bloggers!

This week's main topic was the use of  technology tools for creating student-centered classes and engaging students especially in large classrooms.

Among the many tools I found interesting and useful, I'd like to point out the following:

- Todays Meet, a chat platform which facilitates interactive participation among teachers and learners.

- Blogs, which give students the opportunity to read one another's ideas. And responding to one another engages them in the creation of knowledge.

- Voki, which gives teachers and students the possibility of creating customized speaking characters.

Whatever the tool or resource we choose to engage our students, it should be one that encourages them to participate actively in their learning experiences.

All the best,
Lore from Argentina

Week 5: Rubrics and Alternative Assessment

During this week we also worked with rubrics and alternative assessment tools.

According to Heidi Andrade, a rubric is a document that articulates the expectations for an assignment by listing the criteria, or what counts, and describing levels of quality from excellent to poor. Rubrics are often used to grade student work but they can serve another, more important, role as well: Rubrics can teach as well as evaluate. When used as part of a formative, student-centered approach to assessment, rubrics have the potential to help students develop understanding and skill, as well as make dependable judgments about the quality of their own work. 

Here's my first rubric, which I created using Rubistar:

http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=ShowRubric&rubric_id=2487091&

Lore from Argentina

Week 5: PBL and WebQuests

Another week has gone by and the course experience keeps getting better and better.

During this week, we analyzed Project-Based Learning and WebQuests. I had never heard about these approaches before, and I must admit I fell in love with both of them. They're such powerful tools for effective meaningful learning!

A characteristic of these resources that I'd like to point out here is the fact that they emphasize deep thinking on the part of the students, such as analysis, creativity and criticism, rather than just acquiring information.

I can't wait to put into practice both PBL and WebQuests in my classes!

Have a nice week!
Lore from Argentina

Week 4: Websites for Reading/Writing Skills and Technology-enhanced Lesson Plans

Hello!

This week was another week full of great experiences and useful resources.

First, I discovered a lot of websites to build reading and writing skills in students, which I had never heard about or visited before. I was very excited at the variety and amount of resources available on the web. And I feel lucky to have the possibiliy of knowing about them.

Then, I prepared a technology-enhanced lesson plan for a group of my students. This was very helpful for me to "see the whole picture" of lesson planning organization.

Finally, I described the main issues which affect my student's learning of English. I'm really hoping I can help my students to overcome those issues with the use of technology.

All the best,
Lore from Argentina

Week 3: Aural/Oral Skill-Building Websites and Delicious

Hi again!

I'm posting this message a few hours before close of week 3. I decided to leave this activity (the blog) for the end so that I could give a more general appreciation of this week. The course is still less than half way for the final project, however I feel I have learnt so much already!

As for the Aural/Oral Skill-Building Websites, I found out about many great online resources to teach pronunciation and to help students develop their speaking and listening skills. Two of my favorite:

- http://www.pronuncian.com/, which offers hundreds of pronunciation lessons with options of tests, quizzes, audios, videos and progress tracking.

- http://lyricstraining.com/, where students practice their listening skills by watching music videos. They also learn vocabulary and spelling because they have to type the words missing from the lyrics. Educational and fun, all in one!

Then, I created an account at http://delicious.com. I was fascinated by this tool. It's very useful and user friendly. I'm adding new sites every day!

Finally, I read and analized a sample project which was an important step in the way to creating my own. I liked how it was organized and how the situation was presented and approached. This reading gave me a very good overview of how I should do mine when the time comes.

Lore from Argentina

Week 2: web searching and ABCD objectives

Hi everyone,

During this second week of the course, I had the opportunity to discover many interesting and useful search engines in www.noodletools.com. Some of them were completely new for me (e.g.: www.teachertube.com) and others rung the bell but I had never used them before (e.g.: www.quotes.net). It was a great experience to go through all those sites and see that the web has so much more to offer than we can imagine.

Apart from the web searching experience, I read about the ABCD objectives for the first time. It's very important to have our objectives clear before we start a new lesson because both students and teacher benefit from this method.

Lore from Argentina

Week 1: A few words

Well, I'm new at this. Even though I have visited and read tons of blogs, I had never created a blog before (or posted in one). So it's a completely new experience to me. And I love it! It's easy, it's simple and user-friendly, and it can be very useful. I feel very excited about posting in this blog each week. I know already it will enhance my learning experience.

I think blogs are very powerful tools for teaching. They are the perfect environment to make students participate and engage in a topic. Plus, they come handy to assess a student's writing skills as well.

Blogs are an invitation to express opinions and points of view. Furthermore, a blog is capable of triggering new ideas among its particiant bloggers.

I'm really looking forward to applying this online resource to my own classes!