Good Bye!

This is our final week. I feel myself a little sad,  relieved and glad at the same time. I was not aware of how much I could learn during this course. After we began it, I thought I could not be able to do all the tasks. However, with Robert`s and everybody else`s help that was possible. Wow, we were introduced to a New World: Nicenet, Blog, Rubric, Delicious, Jupter Grades, Webquests, Interactive Powerpoints Tutorials,  ANVILL, Google docs, Hot Potatoes…

 In relation to theory, we could understand better how they are related to the use of technological tools. For example, Learning Objectives (The ABCD Method), Skill-building Websites for Oral/Aural Skills, Skill-building Websites for Reading/Writing Skills and Technology-enhanced Lesson Plans, Project-based Learning, Creating Student-centered Classes, Learner Autonomy, Teacher Resources Online, and Learning styles - technology connections.

The best thing is that we could choose an activity and apply it with our students. Reflect and think about improvements to work with it next time.

Thank you all for sharing your experience and thoughts during all the Building Teacher Skills Through the Interactive Web course.

Best Wishes,

Marcia Pinheiro

Week 9!!!

Hello everyone, we are almost there. I believe we all are happy because we could post our final projects. This week I could enhance a lot my knowledge related to learning styles. Sometimes we work with activities and we do not stop to think how many learning styles they can achieve. For example, when we work with videos we can reach all of them. I have worked with videos with my students since 2008 because I think it is really productive to let students share their ideas and voices with many people around the world. However, only now I could stop to think about learning styles. From now on, I can think about varying activities with different styles to reach a bigger number of students in the classroom.

During this course we could learn lots of different activities to work with our students. Unfortunately, I could not try all of them because I really did not have time to learn how to work with such interesting activities, like creating a course on Nicenet, or webquests. After the course, I am going to try them and work with them with my students. We are almost at the end, but I feel glad to have learned a lot on how to implement a technological tool in class with our students. 

Week 8!!!

This week was really busy. We had the opportunity to know a bit more about ANVII, a free Course Management System developed by Jeff Magoto. Even better, we had the chance to "meet" Jeff Magoto, who was the moderator this week, and made things much clearer for all of us in relation to ANVILL. We could also take part of a Webinar with him, which unfortunately I could not participate because I was in class with my students. In addition, we could learn how to create a class site or make online activities. I like those a lot because we can create the exercises and add them in a blog, for example. Finally, we could choose one of those to work with our students. At last but not least, it was the week of peer collaboration. After finishing the drafts of our project we could read our partners project and try to help them improve by making some comments.

Week 7!!!

This week we could read two good texts about Learner Autonomy by Thanasoulas and Shue, and could have some ideas on how to help our students enhance in that. We could notice that learner’s autonomy goes far beyond independency. I liked knowing how this concept have gained more importance over the years by learning a bit more about philosophies  it comes from like Positivism, Constructivism, and Critical Theory.

In addition, we were given some internet ideas to work with one computer classroom. I especially liked those because that is my reality when I take my laptop to class. One tip I am going to use with my students is ‘schools of thought’ at CNN.I feel that I am in the right way yet, I have a lot to improve.

On the other hand, I started working with the second technological tool with my students. I gave them two stories to work with Readers Theater last week so that they could read them at home and yesterday they decided on who is going to play each character. Next week they are supposed to record their lines and later I am going to make some comments in a way that they can improve mainly their oral skills.

The Change!!!

This week we started talking about technology aids to engage students in large groups. We were given many ideas to do that. By the way, they can be effective with small groups as well. Second we had to develop a power point activity. I felt myself like a child discovering a new world with my attempt of watching tutorials and doing it myself. I learned a lot. The thing about this course I most like is that we can put in practice what we learn.

The main task at the blog this week is to describe the activity we have been working with our students. Just to refresh your minds I decided to work with a group of students who are at the basic level and attend classes on Fridays. Most of them are teenagers. They come to school once a week and have three hours of class. Last Friday (May 11) I gave them a paper with a name of a classmate. Then I asked them to stand up and ask their classmates what they were wearing. In case they did not know the name of all of them they could ask their names as well. Next, I let them take some notes for two minutes. Their homework was to describe online what the person they had the name was wearing and what he/she looked like without writing or saying his/her name. In addition, they had to ask who the person was in way that the other students could try to guess. This activity is to emphasize the present continuous and appearance. There are two students who are in their forties in the group. They came to me and told me that they did not know how to deal with blogs and I told them to come during my coordination time in the morning in a way that I could help them to post their work. There were fifteen students last class, but I sent emails to 19 students.

On Monday morning I created the blog sent them e-mails with the link and told them that they had until today (May 18) to post their compositions. It was a thrilling beginning of week. I was really anxious because until Wednesday no one had posted anything. But on Wednesday morning the two ladies I mentioned before came to school to ask me to help them to post their compositions. I was really happy to help them. Finally, at least two students posted. I was somehow relieved. Then yesterday, other ten students posted their writings and posted some comments trying to guess, according to the descriptions, who the classmate was.

I can say that I am very happy with the result so far. Sometimes, not all the students hand in compositions and that can happen in an online activity as well.

You can check their work at the blog and the link is:

http://i60v4e406.blogspot.com.br/2012/05/describing-classmate.html

Week 5!!!

This week we started the discussion with the importance of working with project-based learning (PBL) . There are at least two features I consider very important while working with PBL, first they give the opportunity to students to work in a meaningful way. Second, students can learn and practice interpersonal skills. Thinking about those features I have decided to create a blog in a way that students are going to practice their writing skills describing a classmate and at the same time interacting with each other. I have to confess that I also like the idea of not collecting compositions and correcting them later.

Another thing we learned this week is how to create a rubric. I am going to use the one we created this week in a way that students can assess their classmates. Another innovative aspect in my teaching process. Let’s say that it is going to be the first time I am going to  use the alternative assessment during the evaluation process.

  

We also learned that there is another way to work with inquiry-oriented activities via Web Quests. There is even a link to Brazilian site giving instructions on how to create a Web Quest from a university in São Paulo (USP): (http://web.archive.org/web/20070617040349/http://www.webquest.futuro.usp.br/

Wow! lots of things. It seems that time to put theory into practice is coming. I am glad that this week we have been completing half of our webskills course.

Let’s see how things work. I hope we all can succeed with our projects.

Week 4 - Reflection

This week has been a very productive one. I really enjoyed visiting the websites suggested by the course and see that I can use most activities with my students. I learned how to write and integrated lesson plan, that is, writing the objectives of the core subject area and the technology goals for my students. That was my first lesson plan at Google Docs. Sometimes things are there and we do not try them. Despite the fact that my lesson plan was a very simple one, I liked the idea of preparing one with subject and technology objectives.

By the way, I tried to use the activity proposed yesterday with my students. Plan A was taking the students to the lab and do an exercise with pronouns. The librarian told me that only 4 computers (from 12) had internet access. I had 20 students in classroom, so I gave up working with plan A. Plan B was showing and doing at least one activity of the websites proposed in the classroom, so that the students could do the other exercises at home. Unfortunately, there was no internet access in the classroom. Consequently, my option was plan C. Which I did not write in my lesson plan: I passed a list to students write their e-mail addresses and now I am going to send them the links for the activity. I am somehow used to tech problems so I was not frustrated at all.

I hope next week everything will be solved.

Delicious!!





Week 3 started a little late for me because I had problems accessing internet. I was really anxious about it.

To tell you the truth I was curious to know about the meaning of that word Delicious!! I kept thinking of that, but as time goes by so fast, I did not go on the net to check before this week. I was glad with the surprise. Now we can save our favorite sites and access them everywhere.

This week we’ve been focusing in audio and oral skills. Like Robert, I particularly like working with that topic with my students. I liked both articles I read. The one about authentic material, that is, if they are not prepared specially for language learners they are authentic. It takes out all the doubts about that. The second one was: New Perspectives in Teaching Pronunciation. I’ve never tried any of the ideas about using internet tools with my students before. Maybe it is an idea for the project.

Finally, we were given some projects from previous courses to read to some have ideas to work with our own project. However, I feel a little puzzled on how I am going to work with my students.  I have some ideas, but nothing concrete yet. That is why I am going to read more projects before week 4 to have more ideas.

Week II - Reflection

This week has been a really busy one. I had to use all my free time to complete the tasks. We had a lot to read and write. I think I am still getting used on how to manage my time for the course.

It was also a week for decisions. We had to decide on a group of our students to work with using technology. I haven’t decided yet on how to work with them. I hope during the course I can have a clear idea on how to develop extra activities using technology in order to help my students to improve their English. In addition, I hope to develop my own “webskills” to reach such a goal.

First of all, we had to describe one of our classes using behavioral learning objectives, following the ABCD model. That is a new theory for me. It is a new way of thinking about making objectives clearer.

It was very important to realize that we can expand and have good choices to search on the net for educational purposes like noodletools and twurdy. I am glad I can use them from now.

This is just the beginning of our webskills adventure. I hope we all can succeed.

Week 1 - Reflection

Hello everyone,

just like some of you this is my first blog. I have always thought about using a blog with my students but I was not able to do it before. I am glad we are here sharing our blogs and trying to improve our way of teaching using this internet tool.

I believe that the student’s interaction can continue out of class. That’s why we can use this blog to work with them in a project, for example. In my school, the students are supposed to present a final project at the end of the term. I am thinking about making a first experience using a blog with them in their final project.  

Best,

Marcia