Week 7 Reflection

This week I read two articles about learner autonomy and three articles about the one- computer classroom. Then, I participated in learner autonomy discussion in Nicenet. As a part of task,I posted two power points in wallwisher- one prepared by my student as a part of group work and another “A survey of Learner autonomy in language learning” prepared by Wang Zhe, Doctoral student in Peking University.

Next, I commented on the blog of Alicja, where she has buttressed on the importance of the learner autonomy and effective communication; and its long run implication on the learning of the students. Then after, as a part of project Task, I decided on peer-reading the project or plan report with Prakash sir because we have been teaching in same institution and has been sharing about all the tasks since week 1.

As a part of project work, I have been implementing technologies like nicenet, blog, interactive powerpoint and think pair share in class and have been getting positive responses from my students. I have been seeing them engaging and participating in the tasks. All of them are the members in nicenet now and will have blogs by tomorrow.

I usually post links in nicenet link-sharing option for the reading in home and they (my students) read or download reading materials from there. Those who don't have electricity problem participate in nicenet discussion and those who have limited electricity and internet access bring their assignment in copy. Since, here’s more than 14 hrs. Load shedding these days in our country, it is a bit difficult to beat the challenge; however, it is not invincible. 

Three days back, my students knew how to create interactive PowerPoint. Yesterday and today, we had an interactive power point presentation from students’ side.  As a part of example, I have even posted one of the power points prepared by my students in our wall wisher. Today, after PowerPoint presentation, I showed in class you tube video and short article on learner’s autonomy. They took both the video and article positively and told me that they would they would change their reading habits and write the reflection on blog each week about what they have learnt in class and home.

 In nutshell, I would say that the technologies we are a breasting through webskills course are very effective, engaging and participatory. But, it is sometimes difficult to implement in the class in our local context because it is new to teachers, students, and parents. I think it is wise to adopt and implement these technologies in local context.

Sitaram

Week 6 Reflection

This week, in reading and discussion on nicenet, our focus was on creating an interactive and engaging class.  Our task was to create an interactive power point; and project was to keep note on the change in our class brought about by the technology and the final task was to write and comment on the blog.

The article “Using technology in teaching large classes” focuses on online assessment and improving lectures with technology. The articles shed light on making better and effective teaching and learning when comes teaching in large classes. As we all know, teaching in a large class is daunting and requires a lot of efforts and techniques; by reading the articles I got the idea on drawing the students’ attention and engaging them. “My students are lazy. They don’t study. They don’t concentrate; they better prefer to make different excuses.” We always blame our students this way.  The articles in our reading section this week can help solve such problems.

According to the articles, the classroom can be made more interactive and engaging by interactive lectures, just in time teaching, creating memorable lectures, collaborative and cooperative learning, on-line assessment and so on. We can use the technological tools like nicenet, webquests and interactive power points as well to make our class more interactive and engaging. To engage students more in their research and independent learning, project based learning could be better. This week, the idea of creating memorable lectures from attention to comprehension to integration enticed me.

After completing discussion section in nicenet, I started creating interactive powerpoint. It was the most difficult and time consuming task for me in webskills  till today. It might be because of my naivety in technology. Ultimately, I made it but have a doubt whether it is ok or not for our instructor.

 “How to create an interactive quiz using powerpoint master by Simon Slangen, “how to create and use interactive powerpoint quiz games” and “creating Interactive powerpoint presentation” by Drs. Terry &Cathy Cavanaugh could not help me much because I hardly understand them. However, the tutorial on interactive powerpoint on http://www.pitt.edu/~poole/office 2010lesson10.pdf helped me create interactive powerpoint.

This week, I introduced my technological solution ( i.e, Nicenet class) to my students to make teaching and learning more effective.  Five days back, I had created a nicenet class and gave them(my students) class key. Next day , I found more than 50% of the students joined the class and posted their introduction. Out of 75 students from three sections, 68 has joined the nicenet class. The remaining will join soon. It is a good response from them.  In nicenet’s document section, I have posted an article on writing essays and gave 2 links:  Perdue writing lab and essay sample on social issues. I found them quite eager in searching those materials in nicenet and discussing about them. It is the positive change I have found  in my students this week.

Cutting the long story short, this week I have come to know about interactive powerpoint and interactive class, which I think will help me make teaching and learning much better.  Though both were new to me a week back, but now I cherish knowing them thanks to Webskills.

Sitaram

Reflection on Week 5

Like the previous weeks, week 5 also has brought new surprises in my life. I have got the opportunity of reading the articles on rubric, alternative assessment, project based learning and webquests. As I am quite used to in traditional way of teaching, I found them quite amazing and become a bit skeptical whether I could apply them in my context or not.

The article on alternative assessment gave me insight on the use of alternative assessment while evaluating students work. The very interesting part of it is, it fosters the learner-centered classroom; these methods give learners opportunities on their linguistics development and their learning processes. As the features of it are solely based on students’ performance and evaluation, it provides enough opportunities for the students to participate not only in their learning activities but assessment as well. I think incorporating alternative assessment with traditional forms of testing will be quite useful and effective in ESL/EFL class.

Article by Susan Gaer has given me much more idea on making the project more effective. She sheds a light on making students learning more effective by involving them in their work. Unlike traditional teaching and learning, students identify the problem and moves forward for the solution in project based learning. They create their own issues and if needed teacher facilitate in their task. Her suggestion on the projects: The project must be geared to the population, the students must see value in a project and flexible timeliness helps teacher to determine the project work where as it gives the students the impetus to activate themselves for the work they are doing.

Another task, we went through was webquest. Going into it, I feel like I have found the treasure in Treasure Island. Webquests, in my opinion, can be very useful for my students and me as well to manage the project based learning and bind my students in track. The very features of it like introduction, task, process, evaluation, conclusion, credits, teacher page, and students’ page can be a complete package for the teachers and students. I think this web tool will be helpful to my students to know what their task is, what they have to do from their part, what could be the evaluation model, what are the resources links etc. I think it will prevent students digressing from their task goal because they do not need to go beyond the webquest and search the material for their projects as the materials can be made available by the teacher in webquest in advance.

This week as a project work, we dealt about the problem that we face in our class room along with the possible solution. In my class, I found my students quite oblivious in learning English it’s because they find it difficult in getting the authentic materials. I think the problem of my class can be solved by the introduction of Nicenet class which could be helpful in providing them links of the websites for their study.

Finally, I had a comment on Claudia’s blog. I liked her train metaphor. Like her, I also have found the journey on webskills amazing with new surprises each week. I feel like I am growing each day.

Sitaram

Fourth Week Reflection

This week I read two articles: Using the internet in ESL Writing &Three Extensive Reading Activities by Jarek Krajka and Mei-ya Liang in reading section. They are worth reading as they gave me plethora of information regarding the use of email and the handling of the E-books for classroom purpose.

Article by Krajka buttresses the use of internet especially in non-English speaking countries in obtaining the invaluable sources. In his article, he tries to explore how email helps to switch us from teacher-centered to students-centered teaching and learning. According to him, using email in an effective way helps to creating effective learning environment. He strongly advocates the use of web and email in foreign language instruction, mainly because it allures the learners to authentic materials and helps to learn English in international context. His idea on setting up a class page, teaching basic searching skills, showing students how to benefit from the advanced options of the Internet browser, writing e-mails both to each other are worth reading. Besides, he argues that the teachers should be active enough to solve the problem of their students so that they do not feel lost and overwhelmed by technology.

Article by Mei-ya Liang “Three Extensive Reading Activities for ESL/EFL students Using E-books” further gave a way-out to get the authentic material through e-text. As Mei-Liang said such reading would help students not only to read e-texts as their own pace, but to share their text with other students with different abilities and interpretations. Learners can monitor, revise and evaluate their work during the learning process.

The next task we did last week was nicenet discussion on web searching and its relevance on the students. Among the sites given, I found ESL Independent Study Lab-Michael Krauss http://www. Lclark.edu/~krauss/toppicks.html helpful in making my students work on grammar and writing section. The comprehensive details in those sections will help me to go through it in details and teach something important to my students. I tried heteronym from htt://legacy.lclark.edu/~krauss/toppicks/toppicks.html helpful in making  my students. I found them curious and very inquisitive to know more.

Afterwards, we were assigned to design a technology enhanced-lesson plan. I don’t know how better I did this task as I did not find the lesson plan in http://www.bcps.org/apps/CBTIA/ in my first two or three attempts and I gave in. Anyway, I did it by collecting the idea from the post of my classmates.

Recalling the moments of Webskills week 4 in nutshell, I found this week a bit hazy probably because I did have hectic schedule and could not give the time that I was supposed to; however, I sneak into my study room and tried my best to go through it as far as possible.

Sitaram