Sharing

Sharing information and experience is something I learned. I was affraid of people seeing my work because I was affraid of very negative comments. Now I know how to comment and to act and change my work according to someone else's point of view, because sometimes we believe that we are right and the true is the opposite.

I also learned that technology is human made. It won't eat us and we can command it if we just try. My classes are well done and updated thanks to technology. Although it is hard work to be on a course on line it pays back all the time you spend on it. As Victoria I would love to stay incontact and teach each other even more.

As Azhar and other collegues, I am also thankful with Deborah for her time and patience.

Johwyson thank you so much for helping me with my project.

Roxana

Learning styles a tool we can not forget

For next class I plan to take the chart of learning styles from http://www.chaminade.org/INSPIRE/learnstl.htm for my students to read and circle the way the learn best. From that I will make my lesson plans according to their learning style. As Stephen says "Digital technologies, with their propensity for facilitating multimedia-oriented and interactive activities, are tools that can be leveraged by teachers to create learning experience that are rich in perspective and form". So on line I will get different activities that will help my students learn the way they need. I also plan to take into account what Johwyson say that we can help students with their weak learning style, too. There are very good ideas on "Learning and Teaching Education", since it is not easy to apply different learning activities for language education that at the end have harmony.

Now I understand my students even better. I wanted them to learn the way I was teaching and not adapting my teaching to the way the learn best.

At the end of each class I will take into account Azhar's Sandwich Feedback Technique. I will praise, criticize and praise once more.

Roxana

The sites for teacher resources-exercise generation has so much to use. It is really a relief for a teacher because we do not need to spend so much time and money in audiovisual aids. Here in my country audiovisual aids are very expensive specially if it is audio. That is why I consider a tresure this type of sites. It is easy to use and it is available whenever you need it. There is also a common place like Googles which I really was not going to try untill I say the video that Azhar has placed on his blog. It is really easy to make. I will give it a try. I want to have my own google page people. As soon as I have it ready I'll let you know. I will take advantage of this because I will ask my students to go to the google page and read it.

Roxana

Autonomy and technology

The idea of learner autonomy is my dream. I want my students to be independent with their learning and I really want to serve as a guidance only. They are reluctant of searching for what they need. They are accustomed of getting everything from their teacher. Well this will change.

I'll be more patient with my students. I'll talk to them as persons not like learners.

What I've learned that it is easier to teach students to be autonomous of their own learning than to teach professionals in any area.

Since we do not have a computer lab. I will leave homework on nicenet. My students will be able to answer it at home or in any café. I'll use the computer as a cooperative learning tool. I'll ask them to write a five line folkstory each, and to paste it on nicenet. Or maybe they can write them in class and I'll paste them on nicenet. What do you think? Which is better? Then they can read each others´stories and choose one and change it if they wand and add more information to it. This can work as using the computer to do individual work, too. I do not want to add more tasks because they really are hard to cheer up.

As Azhar points in her reflexion: Rao say that with creativity we can make a change even if we just have one computer in the classroom. We just need to learn and teach basic computer skill to give it a try. I'm doing this believe me.

I have another group in Didactics and I share it with Edgar Perez. We are using nicenet there. In the conferencing we gave them the topic named "Contextualizing Language Instruction". We also gave them some reading links:
http://www.cal.org/resources/diggest/005contextual.htm
http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/francais/frcore/sec/in
http://educatinnorthwest.org/webfm_send/460

There are instructions there, but since it's something new for the students some of them are complainning saying that they do not know what to do. They do not have learning autonomy. They want the teacher to do everything for them. It is hard work. The nicenet key is )297789D85. If you can check it I'll be very happy. There are instructions but students don't seem to understant them.

Roxana

A PPP Expert

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

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

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