Final week's reflection

Hello and Good bye!

Reflecting on the past ten weeks and on what we have been actively involved, seems like writing about one long day filled with activities. It does not seem at all that we have been spending ten weeks learning and discussing about such an important topic as it is our teaching methodology.

Under the guidance of Courtney and with the insights of my course mates, I explored deep down my approach to identify my failures and successes of my teaching so far. Problems and issues that I often thought belonged to students, in fact originated within me. Changing a learning context from its roots, perhaps it is a very difficult task but transforming your approach, it is a task that can be accomplished with some persistence.

The content of this course was like a spark to change my attitude towards technology integration into my teaching. There are so many things that you can do with technology even if there is not enough technology. There is always some space where you can integrate technology, if there is a will.

The reason why I took this course in the first place was actually related to the change it provoked within me. I often felt that I did not know enough on the new use of technology into teaching. There was a subject that I was teaching and I needed some new orientation to improve myself and motivate my students better. The result is clear. I had a great instructor, who was actually answering and clarifying all my doubts. It seemed as if she was reading my mind and every week gave me a new tool to analyze and accommodate within my context.

The discussion with the other course mates were always helpful and made me feel that I was not alone in this journey of self-exploration and learning. We all shared one thing in common: we were all eager to learn and benefit from this experience. They shared their knowledge to change the course into a platform of learning and teaching, as we often do in our daily profession.

With the hope that this will not remain the first and the last experience, I am writing this last reflections, feeling grateful to the people who enabled it.

Good bye to all and we will keep in touch!
Daniela

Multiple Intelligence and technology integrated teaching

Hello again,

This week has been the most challenging of all the previous weeks of our course. Keeping up with the schedule of this week's assignment with all the extras of this week's personal involvement has not been easy at all. Anyway, we are talking about the different intelligences we possess and how we can use them to make the most of any situation. This is what I did this week!

When we talk about multiple intelligences and our students different learning styles, the issue plays a fundamental role in our teaching approaches. Our methodology and our instructional materials should be designed to fit the different intelligences that our students have. Technology comes with the most appropriate solution to this. The advantages that technology provides us and the variety of media and modes that we can include with its help will accommodate the different learning styles of our students.

At first sight, it might seem impossible how can one teacher in the class accommodate all the different learning styles of the students? In fact, he cannot do it all the times but at least, a teacher can change parts of their lesson or lecture, such as asking an open-ended question for the reflective learners or allowing some group work for the active and collaborative learners. 

PBL is perhaps the best strategy that provides space for all the different types of learners. The different roles and tasks that our students have to perform while preparing a project will strengthen their weak points and develop further their strengths. A teacher should identify his students’ strengths and provide them with an opportunity to work with these strengths. 

We completed our project plans this week after the reviewing process of last week. With the suggestions and comments that my friend Anila gave me, I could deliver a complete report. I have never written a report on how a change could affect my teaching or my students.

Finally, I could say that in every step that I have made during this course, I have walked on fresh ground. The good thing about it was that I learned everything by actually trying them out. Once you know what new experiences feel like then you can really comment on them. 

Cheers,

Daniela

Teachers and Learners Tools

Hello,

I would like to start with the proverb that we have all been repeating throughout our course:

Tell me and I will listen,

Show me and I will remember,

Involve me and I will learn!

The proverb illustrates best what Courtney has done during these weeks. I have been involved and I have learned so many things.

The week has been overwhelming for most of us. We had to finish our drafts, to keep up with our weekly assignments and to learn more about ANVILL with our special guest, who was the creator of a wonderful tool.

I would like to start with my draft project, first. I managed to finish it on time but I had to work really hard. These two weeks will be hectic for me and I won't be able to follow our class discussion as closely as I used to do. Anyway, writing the draft required to think and anticipate all the details related to my course. Since it is during the second term, which means it does not start until March 2014, it was a little bit more difficult for me to plan the course so much ahead of its time. However, my analysis and my ideas were mainly based on the past experience.

Regarding our week's assignments, I really liked the sited on designing our exercises and making our tests. I got so much carried over them that I prepared four exercises, two crosswords and two exercises on Hot Potato. I installed the program on my computer as I am definitely going to use it more often during this year. It was easy to use and you could do a variety of exercises, you could even add images, links with the exercises, designing your exercises quite different from the traditional way that our students are used to. When our students will see that we make efforts into our teaching, that we are more committed and by bringing a variety of materials in class, they will feel more appreciated and will become motivated. They will perceive our genuine engagement in their learning process, which will make them to be involved and to participate in class activities.

Last but not least, ANVILL and our unique opportunity to speak with Jeff Maggot, its creator. What I found really fascinating about the tool were the various activities that students and teachers could do with the tool. It is an authentic tool that improves students' pronunciation, their listening skills and speaking skills. The four language skills were smoothly combined with any activity. If students are reluctant to write, they could record themselves. It was truly an international tool as you could use it for different languages. I really liked the multimedia options that you could use with any lesson that a teacher could design.

Well, there were so many new things that we did not only learn about during these weeks, but we were invited to be actually "full hands on them"!

Regards,
Daniela

Promoting our students autonomy

Well, here we are again at the end of another productive week. The course is almost reaching to its end and I am already starting to miss this wonderful experience. It has been a very busy summer but enjoyable and quite rewarding.

Hi, 

This week I learned about Padlet or the Wallwisher, which is a new sharing tool where teachers and students contribute to the building of the wall together. Interaction and autonomy are both promoted and motivation is also increased with the activities that they both prepare. Regardless of the various activities that can used with the Padlet (interactive in nature, web-sharing, vocabulary or grammar), students and teacher can both collaborate effectively.

As teachers, we want our students to feel responsible for their own learning, set their goals and assess their needs. When students are involved in the learning process, when we start to relinquish some of our authority then we promote students to a different level. Introducing students with Penzu, they can start an online diary where they can reflect and write about their own progress. With the means of technology, we can emerge our students in an authentic context, where students start to make use of the appropriate target language.

Even with one computer in class, a teacher can use it to keep his students focus on one station only. The necessary activities are prepared and published through the computer. However, it cannot be a tool that a teacher may use. On the contrary, with an appropriate planning and organization any of the students can make use of that station in class. 

With a perfect combination of the Padlet and one computer in the class, the teacher cannot only develop a variety of activities but most importantly students’ autonomy will be promoted. If my class wants to develop a project, either in groups or as a class, I could use the Padlet to publish on the wall all their ideas and materials, which will then be finalized with a project.

As with the project we will have to draft, Anila and I are going to be peer-review partners. It will be a little bit difficult for me to keep up with all the work and class discussions in the two weeks to come; however, I will try to do my best. Hopefully, Anila and I will come up with useful suggestions to include in our final report so that we could have more useful ideas to apply in our real classes when the new academic year starts.

Looking forward to our peer-reviewing experience!

Regards,

Daniela

Large classes and Interactive PPT (week 6's reflection)

Hi,

The readings of this week were quite extensive and rich in volume and information as well. We all discussed an issue that some of us are directly affected and others only partially affected. However, engaging students' attention, it is a topic that involves us all, regardless of the fact that we teach small or large classes.

I learned a lot of new techniques that a teacher can use to motivate students and engage them in discussions in class. 

However, the real challenge was the task of creating an interactive power point. We usually use power points only during lectures and this is related to two reasons (technical in nature): there is only one LCD projector in our department of 50 teachers and the teacher has to bring his/her own computer in class and additional equipment, if necessary. This situation really discourages us from using PPT more often. 

Lecture were previously taught in class where the teacher talked all the time and students "listened", or the teacher spoke slowly and students wrote. It demotivated students so much to the point that they did not attend lectures any more. As a student of this old tradition and my other younger colleagues introduced PPT during our lectures. Still, our presentations are linear and were not at all interactive. 

I even enhanced one of my existing lectures to an interactive PPT and I could realize immediately the benefits that it will have in my students. Firstly, it is more interesting and eye-catchy. Secondly, it allows students talk, discuss and share what they know. Thirdly, it even helps the teacher to activate discussion in class.

I would also like to say something regarding JiTT, briefing students before they come to class. I personally had an erroneous view in the past. I thought if students were previously informed on the content of the lecture, they will lose interest and will not be active. Whenever I raised a point to discuss, I never got back what I had actually thought. It was my mistake and not theirs.

I am definitely going to use JiTT this year and I will see if there is a difference. We are here to learn not only from our mistakes but from the new information that we are getting. 

Regards,

Daniela

Project Task: Details of implementing a technology related change

Hi,

Following each step of the project has given me the opportunity to reflect more on every detail that I would like to mention and change in my class.
The technology tool that I decided to introduce in my class is related to one of the main problems that my students have: improving their web search skills. Thus, I am choosing to introduce Noodletools to them as a way of helping them research, organizing the content and consult reliable sources.

This new technology tool will help them to accomplish the course assignment, mainly, a project that they have to prepare in pairs related to teaching English as a foreign language.

The way I plan to introduce this technology related tool to this problem is as follows:

1. Students will be firstly asked to open a blog. That will be our way of communicating and sharing with each other whatever we come across during class.
2. There will be a tutorial class on how to use blogs, if there are students in the class that are not familiar with blogs or are experiencing difficulties how to open and publish in the blog.
3. I will do a survey as well, in order to get to know my students better in terms of their intelligences, in order to have mixed intelligences and abilities working pairs, as well as assign the proper roles to each of the student.
4. Students will be also introduced to the concept of Cooperative Learning, to foster their collaboration in the class.
5. Each pair will report in class the topic (or one of the skills) that they have chosen to teach in a simulated class.
6. The progress of their work as well as any other materials related to teaching and technology tools will be regularly posted on their blogs.
7. As an optional tool, I will introduce them to Penzu so they can keep an online diary, recording their progress or any concern.
8. Students will make use of Noodletools to search for the materials that they want to incorporate in their final project.
9. Students will be also asked to design their own assessment tools during their project, as it will be a simulated teaching.
10. At the end, they will create the project with the WebQuest, including multimedia elements and have the link published on the blog.
11. An alternative to the Webquest project could be the creation of an interactive power point, where multimedia elements should also be part of the PPT.
12. Along with the Noodletools, students will also be introduced to Prezi, Glogster or PicLit.

Their assessment will be based on their progress during the course, their blog posts, their comments as well as their final project task. We are not talking about a traditional way of teaching, so I will introduce to them alternative assessment and rubrics. Rubrics will be distributed, in the beginning of the course. They can act as instructions for students while they will work for their final task. There will be two types of rubrics to be used in the class, one that will be designed by the teacher and the other that will be for peer assessment. Both the teacher and students can work on designing the latter.

Students will be assessed for their research skills, their content organization skills, collaboration with the partner, the originality of their project, their innovative skills, technology skills and presentation skills.

There will not be any formal assessment for this particular subject, since students will demonstrate during the course whether they have mastered the literature given during the lectures, or the additional readings that they have to digest to master and operate the new technology tools.

Some of the resources that students should consult are as follows:

Web Tutorials and Information

www.thesearchenginelist.com/#e

 

http://www.thesearchenginelist.com/video-search/

 

Blogger Help - Google Help

Rubric Tutorial:
http://health.usf.edu/publichealth/eta/Rubric_Tutorial/default.htm

Zunal Free WebQuest Maker Tutorial - EDUC-8847 - home

www.primaryaccess.org 

Twenty Ideas for Engaging Projects | Edutopia

www.edutopia.org

http://www.englishforeveryone.org

Lauri's ESL Website

fog.ccsf.edu

Interesting Things for ESL/EFL Students (Fun English Study)

 www.manythings.org 

A project-based learning activity about project-based learning - a good how-to, step-by-step approach:
http://www.sun-associates.com/lynn/pbl/pbl.html

Authoring Information on the Web

Multimedia and Authoring Resources on the Internet: http://www.library.northwestern.edu

/media/resources/multimedia.html

Multimedia Authoring Web: http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/authoring/

Digital Video Information on the Web

Adobe Premiere: http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/main.html

Digital Movies in Education: Tips and Techniques: http://www.apple.com/education/dv/tips.html

Digital Video with Windows Movie Maker: http://www.microsoft.com/WINDOWSME/news

/articles/digitalstate.asp

Video Guide: http://pblmm.k12.ca.us/TechHelp/VideoHelp/VideoGuide.html

Windows Movie Maker: http://www.microsoft.com/WINDOWSME/guide/digitalmedia

/moviemaker.asp

Literature review:

• Ivers, S. Karen and Barron E. Ann Multimedia Projects in Education: Designing, Producing, and Assessing, Libraries Unlimited.

• Rose, H. D.,  and Jenna, W. G. (2012), Curricular Opportunities in the Digital Age, The Students at the Center Series, Job For the Future Project

Week 5

                          

This is another week of reading, exploring, sharing and learning!
This week's main topic was about PBL and closely related to that we also had to read about alternative assessment.
Since PBL is in itself an alternative way of teaching, we could not but learn about alternative assessment as well. PBL was not something entirely new, or something that I have never tried before.
In fact, in one of the subjects that I am currently teaching, we encourage our students (future teachers) to turn PBL from an alternative way of teaching to a traditional one. While reading about PBL, about its advantages and how it is gaining more and more ground in teaching nowadays, why can't we also encourage our students and colleagues to work with it?
Recalling the old saying that Omar also mentioned in one of his class discussion, only when you do something, then you will never forget it. This is the essence of PBL. Students are actually doing something that they will never forget. Let them learn geography or history or English by actually searching for that information themselves, by actually building it themselves and being proud of their product.
I also know that I am carried away with optimistic feelings and thoughts but at least it is worth trying.
When I first introduced my students to PBL, I honestly, thought they would not make it. I thought that they are never going to work after classes for an assignment that they have never done before. I thought that all the difficulties will discourage and defeat them. On the contrary, I was the one to be disappointed with my own gloomy thoughts. The first projects that they prepared were really good.
Now that I have also learned about WebQuest and how to make a project there, I am certain that my students will like it even more to work on their projects.
My only concern about project based learning is not teaching at the university level, where we are not so obliged to follow the national curriculum as long as we achieve the overall goals. The issue that I also raised on Nicenet discussions was time. The reason why I am also mentioning it here is to raise a question.
I don't know much about the other countries but in Albania if you are a teacher of a high school or elementary school, you will have to prepare every day your teaching journal (a detailed lesson plan) that is conform to the curriculum. Things are stricter at this level than at university level. So, teachers have to follow a plan that has to be according to this curriculum. Therefore, I raise my question again: Where are teachers going to find their time to work with their students on a project? Is it going to be an after class assignment. since there is no internet in class? Are we sure that it is going to be successful on regular basis?
These are some of the questions and issues that I see as drawbacks concerning the application of PBL in our classes.

Closing another fruitful week,
Best regards,
Daniela