At the beginning of the week , I read the tasks:
- Preparing two drafts of the project plan,
- Reviewing peer project plans and reports.
- Surfing the tools provided by our mentor and then,
- Preparing a good classroom site or a good exercise as a credit
I thought that would be easy. I will not need to spend too many hours working with my laptop.
The tools and the sites we were exploring seem endless. I had great fun at the beginning doing all the printable flashcards, crosswords, matching exercises with "Tools for educators" at : http://www.toolsforeducators.com/ . It took me quite a time.
The part that I liked best is "Peer E valuation" . It is a new on-line peer assessment for me. I am accustomed to the idea of "Peer Coaching "and I would like to share a video with you at :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-abWqXlkFY&feature=related
Then I did write my project plan and I mixed it with the project report. Doing it in a hasty manner, the first draft was not that good. I did a kind of self assessment using the checklist and so, the final draft came up with many differences.
I have to apologize to my peers as they will be reading almost different versions.
I saved the hot part last. "HotPotatoes". When I started working with this wonderful programme, which is my first trial with it , I was depressed that I almost gave up. My first trial with a JMatch minimal pairs exercise was not that good. But I do not easily quit,.Being inspired by my classmates creations, I kept on trying till I ended up with two exercises: "A gap filling sentence" and "A crossword' which I think are O.K. I uploaded all exercises at
https://sites.google.com/site/webskillssu2010/hot-potatoes-and-other-exercises. I'll be waiting for Dr. Deborah 's view of them.
The easiest tool to use for me was Nicenet , and so I created my class site using this tool.
While Stephen and Khuloud tend to agree with me , it seems that Luiza had some reservation about using Nicenet with students as it not so "attractive" and teachers have to "we have to stimulate them in the beginning." .Her point of view is valid from a learners' point of view, but from a teacher's perspective, it is a record of students' work. Considering the management system at Nicenet, she ended up having a class.
Truly amazing sites. The question remains:"What would be some of the constraints?"
I would share my point of view with what my colleagues have mentioned in their posts.
- Some of these sites are not free, as Azhar stated . This will be an extra burden on the teacher if the schools do not get kind of regulations to pay for sharing the links.
- With the rapid changes in technology , we struggle with the constraint of time to follow up as Bella has mentioned.
Some of the sites that I visited are:
1. EFL MA TEACHERS FALL 2010: Bella
2. Mulitmedia in ELT : Bella
3. Miss Azhar Classroom: Azhar
4. Boost Your English :Arbi
5. Elective English :Class Two : Arjana
6. Literature Class 11th grade :Khuloud
Finally:
I feel jumbled with " Too many tasks" at the same week
Yours
Hanan
4 comments:
Hello, Hanan.
I could see you really profited from week 8's benefits. I'm glad you learned and spent a lot of time in front of the computer trying to keep up with what our other coursemates are doing. For me, this is the most difficult part in this course. So many interesting things our coursemates do and, sometimes, we really have no extra time to check all of them out. I hope Deborah keeps our nicenet on even after they course is finiched. I'd love to go over each one of my coursemates works just to try and get some more ideas that we may have missed.
Regards,
Johwyson.
Dear Johwyson:
Thanks for passing by.
I think that you are reading my mind.
Though I had some time this week to check on our colleagues work, it was not the case in the past. I keep referring to the previous weeks for reference and to think of some good ideas mentioned.Still, I cannot get enough.
Maybe this is what makes tools like Nicenet, Wikis and Blogs unique. They are like journal reference.
I totally agree with you that we need to have access to the class site even after the class is over.
I remember that Dr. Deborah once mentioned that she is trying to provide links that are accessable even after the course. I hope this applies to the class site as weel.
Dear Hanan
You are right that this was not only a loaded week but it was fun. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to look at many sites.
I also agree with you that therewas something for every teacher this week. I also tried Nicenet and I think my students will love it. I am still working on it though for my project.
But I must say that it needs a lot of careful planning and thinking so that both the teacher and students are not frustrated by the outcome.
Like Liliya,I also tried x-word generator. Though I struggled at first, I found the process of creating a comprehension quiz quite fascinating.
Best,
Juliet
Dear Juliet:
It is nice seeing you at my blog.
The loaded week you mention actually sould be added as one of the constraints you talk about in your blog.
I agree with you that the technical skill is the key to the use of any technology. Therefore up till now I am exploring the wikis but haven't created a complete one though.
The needed infrastructure is something beyond the control of teachers. However we need to push for having that infrastructure especially after noting the benefits of having it.
Yours
Hanan
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