An expert on powerpoint presentation that's how I feel. It took me four hours to creat a powerpoint presentation. I read "Creating interactive presentation Using Power Point. I read it before and while making my PPP. It was not har, but since it was my firt time using all those devises, it took me a long time. I also read Interactive Power Point and I was looking at it when making mine. I will teach until August 9 because here in El Salvador we have a National Festivity called "Fiestas Agostinas", and they always give us a week of vacation. So I'll see my students in a week. I'll have this PPP ready for them. I don't know you, but I love it. I won't take photocopies like I always do or nothin like it. I have time to practice my presentation with powerpoint. I'll take into account the advice that is in "Presenting with Powerpoint".
Talking about Teaching Large Classes I read " Teaching Large Classes, and Teaching Large Classes II. It is helping me since the cycle began, and I have a group of 40 persons in Didactics I. I already began using nicenet and a blog with them. All this is new for me. I am getting used to it. I'm making mistakes, but I'm learning. I plan to use more of the ideas from the readings. The text "Improving Lectures with Technology" has given me very good ideas on how to improve my classes using technology on line. I know it is worth the effort, but it is really hard to keep up with technology.
My students, the ones I see only on Mondays, are afraid of technology. I'm having a hard time with them, but I do not give up.
I read Azhar's and Victoria's blog. What I learned from Azhar is that you can create different kinds of blogs. That will help me with my big group and I also will apply it with the small one. Victoria mentions so teaching technics. I knew some of them and I had forgoten others. That will also help me in my class.
Roxana
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
It is worth the pain
Project Base learning seems hard work for the teacher since monitoring a project is a big responsibility; however the benefits it gives the students like natural practice and puting into reality their English learning using something real is something unforgetable. You reach all the learning stuyles and skills you can imagine. The problem I find here is that you just can assigne certain time I find here is that you just can assigne certain time to this approach in each class because a project has its own limits and extension. You can check your students' work, but not all of them work at once if you give different tasks to each person. I would use it but is I have two hours class, for example, I would just assign one hour to this approach and the rest to the normal class. For a project to be successful it must follow certain steps like making the objectives of the reacher very clear and reachable. It must be something they would love to figure out. It could be for the class benefit, the community or their own.
On the other hand, talkiing about WebQuests, I find this very useful for me because the students can practice their English outside of the classroom making or answering excercises without feeling the stress of being tested like a normal evaluation. they can access at any time when ever they have time. The only obstacle I find is that I would use it for extra practice and it really takes time, patience, material and knowledge to do it. to make a WebQuest is not so easy as it sounds. It's easy to answer and participate in it, but not to build it or to create it. To construct a WebQuest you must follow and fill in all the steps or sections it has. Anyway, it's a very useful tool if you want your students to be busy using their English outside the room.
Like Victoria said I also find this week very fruitful and beneficial for me, my students and my collegues. I am sharing my knowledge with one of my workmates. He is applying it in Didactics of the English Language I.
Now, talking about rubrics, Stephen Hart says something real. A rubric is a good tool for informing students of learning expectations and it is also a tool for assessing learning outcomes.
With all this we have gone through what Arjana says effective self-evaluation. Now we are thinking about significantly improving our teaching skills, and you can only do this by checking each class, updating yourself and sharing your experience with other teacher.
Roxana
On the other hand, talkiing about WebQuests, I find this very useful for me because the students can practice their English outside of the classroom making or answering excercises without feeling the stress of being tested like a normal evaluation. they can access at any time when ever they have time. The only obstacle I find is that I would use it for extra practice and it really takes time, patience, material and knowledge to do it. to make a WebQuest is not so easy as it sounds. It's easy to answer and participate in it, but not to build it or to create it. To construct a WebQuest you must follow and fill in all the steps or sections it has. Anyway, it's a very useful tool if you want your students to be busy using their English outside the room.
Like Victoria said I also find this week very fruitful and beneficial for me, my students and my collegues. I am sharing my knowledge with one of my workmates. He is applying it in Didactics of the English Language I.
Now, talking about rubrics, Stephen Hart says something real. A rubric is a good tool for informing students of learning expectations and it is also a tool for assessing learning outcomes.
With all this we have gone through what Arjana says effective self-evaluation. Now we are thinking about significantly improving our teaching skills, and you can only do this by checking each class, updating yourself and sharing your experience with other teacher.
Roxana
Saturday, July 17, 2010
What a lesson plan with technology? What's that?
We certainly live in a changing world. No matter the science or art we ae talking about it changes fast specially now with technology. Everything seems to become easier and faster, but the point is that not all suits everybody well. We must be very careful with the material and information we use from the net as we also must take into account not to fall in plagiarism. The ideas are certainly very useful; however give credit to the person that has made them possible. I learned that I must be very careful in this matter and also that it is true that almost everything in a lesson plan is cooked if you download it from the net; however, you must check it and make certain changes to adapt it to your class and level. Those are the changes that we don't like because it takes more time than usual. Besides you have spent lots of time already surfing the net. Guess what? It's worth it becuase you get authentic English from places like www.breakingnewsenglish.com, www.amnesty.or and www.panda.org not to maintion others.
The lesson plan with technology vertion word seems easier than the one from PDF. That's the one I'm using. I also included in my class other sites that I learned on the XI National Conference for Blog Teacher of English. One of my favorites for writing practice is a second life site where you actually chat with a cartoon character. It is nice because you can use it with adults that are afraid of talking "LIKE THE ONES I HAVE". The site is http://showcase.pandorabots.com. There's also a place for language practice: www.elfs.com/sorythr-html and many others.
To make your class easy and smooth using a lesson plan with technology is not so easy. It takes lots of time and patience taking care of each single detail with the material used in general. If you do this you're class will be just fine. But as Liliya said in her blog "It took me more time than I had expected". However as Azhar says on her reflection by doing this you can encourage your students to do something different, and later tha class could compare their finding orally, in this way adding speaking and listening developement to the lesson. That's a pretty good idea. Thanks Azhar. And what about Hanan, it is true you can surf the world in a very short period of time. Let your students do the same.
Roxana
The lesson plan with technology vertion word seems easier than the one from PDF. That's the one I'm using. I also included in my class other sites that I learned on the XI National Conference for Blog Teacher of English. One of my favorites for writing practice is a second life site where you actually chat with a cartoon character. It is nice because you can use it with adults that are afraid of talking "LIKE THE ONES I HAVE". The site is http://showcase.pandorabots.com. There's also a place for language practice: www.elfs.com/sorythr-html and many others.
To make your class easy and smooth using a lesson plan with technology is not so easy. It takes lots of time and patience taking care of each single detail with the material used in general. If you do this you're class will be just fine. But as Liliya said in her blog "It took me more time than I had expected". However as Azhar says on her reflection by doing this you can encourage your students to do something different, and later tha class could compare their finding orally, in this way adding speaking and listening developement to the lesson. That's a pretty good idea. Thanks Azhar. And what about Hanan, it is true you can surf the world in a very short period of time. Let your students do the same.
Roxana
Saturday, July 10, 2010
BON APPETIT
Please excuse for having two blogs, but I have one for mistake. I'm afraid of erasing it. Can you please help me Deborah. What I did is that I wrote the reflexion once more.
I always surf the net to get material I might use in class, the difference I found now is that when I surf the net I know where to go and how to look for information to get better results that might cover my students' needs in less time possible. I get material that has been prepared by real English professionals. They have made it and it has worked well in their class and they just simply share their experience with others. I read Developing listening skills with authentic material and it gave me pretty good ideas in how to use realia and its importance for English learners. The curious thing I found is that when you use listening you apply pre-while and post-listening to the material you get. Here in our campus we apply those steps (pre-while-and post) in reading. I did not know that it works just find with listening. I just got a lesson plan for oral practice and one for listening practice from those stytes. I also dowloaded some board games which I found fun and interesting to use. What I would recommen for those who use this type of material is to check it real good to see that it covers the structures you are using in class and to time each activity. They are not timed. I consider time very important in an English class. Of course time here is not a subject to any change. It is flexible. For me it's important because I just see my students once a week for two hours. I have to get the best I can from them and from the material I use in a short period of time. Time is like gold in my English class.
Delicious has become and important tool in my life since I have my own library on line. I can even order it in alfabetical order and according to needs name the tags I have. The best of all is that i can share my library with others and they share theirs with me. I get very useful information that has been used by other English teachers and has suit their needs just fine. I consider this type of professionals that share their knowledge with others genious, because a genious can not be selfish to improve the science he/she is working on. He/she must share it with others to see different answers in different locations. What is good to you might not be good to me.
Reading Victoria's and Azhar's reflection I have seen that they are quiet similar to mine refering to delicious.com. It is true it is not hard to use; you just need to explore the page to get familiar with it. They seem to like it as much as I do because it really is useful. You can see your files any time you want if you are conected from any computer.
I'd like to specially than: Deborah, Azhar, Stephen, Izabella, Arjana, Camelia, Arbi, and Hanan for responding my SOS mail. Thanks for being so kind.
Roxana
I always surf the net to get material I might use in class, the difference I found now is that when I surf the net I know where to go and how to look for information to get better results that might cover my students' needs in less time possible. I get material that has been prepared by real English professionals. They have made it and it has worked well in their class and they just simply share their experience with others. I read Developing listening skills with authentic material and it gave me pretty good ideas in how to use realia and its importance for English learners. The curious thing I found is that when you use listening you apply pre-while and post-listening to the material you get. Here in our campus we apply those steps (pre-while-and post) in reading. I did not know that it works just find with listening. I just got a lesson plan for oral practice and one for listening practice from those stytes. I also dowloaded some board games which I found fun and interesting to use. What I would recommen for those who use this type of material is to check it real good to see that it covers the structures you are using in class and to time each activity. They are not timed. I consider time very important in an English class. Of course time here is not a subject to any change. It is flexible. For me it's important because I just see my students once a week for two hours. I have to get the best I can from them and from the material I use in a short period of time. Time is like gold in my English class.
Delicious has become and important tool in my life since I have my own library on line. I can even order it in alfabetical order and according to needs name the tags I have. The best of all is that i can share my library with others and they share theirs with me. I get very useful information that has been used by other English teachers and has suit their needs just fine. I consider this type of professionals that share their knowledge with others genious, because a genious can not be selfish to improve the science he/she is working on. He/she must share it with others to see different answers in different locations. What is good to you might not be good to me.
Reading Victoria's and Azhar's reflection I have seen that they are quiet similar to mine refering to delicious.com. It is true it is not hard to use; you just need to explore the page to get familiar with it. They seem to like it as much as I do because it really is useful. You can see your files any time you want if you are conected from any computer.
I'd like to specially than: Deborah, Azhar, Stephen, Izabella, Arjana, Camelia, Arbi, and Hanan for responding my SOS mail. Thanks for being so kind.
Roxana
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