Week 10: Reflection

Dear All,

I think we have learnt a lot of useful things during this course. We have learnt about a lot of useful tools that we could integrate in our classes like Padelet, Wiki, Anvill, WebQuest, etc. It was useful to learn how to use these tools. Many of the sites were useful too. We learnt about some sites that we can use to generate sheets and exercises like easy test maker and hot potatoes. We learnt about how to teach reading, writing, speaking and listening by using some good sites like real-english.com and breakingnewsenglish.com. We used all of these tools and sites and I think I am ready now to use them with my students. 

We have learnt a lot of important teaching skills like writing ABCD objectives, writing a lesson plan with technology, planning a project based learning lesson, helping students to be autonomous learners, and planning a good lesson that appeals to the different styles of learners. All these skills are very useful and will help me to teach in a better teaching style.

The project or plan we made helped us to apply what we have learnt or planning to apply it. This helped me to have a practical idea about how to plan to use a tool and how I predict the outcome of using this tool in class could be.

For sure it was a very important course. Now I can use many of the tools well. I still need to plan for using them in class which I intended to do during summer vacation. The most useful tools that I think I will try to use are Wiki, Padlet, WebQuest, Storybird, Rubistars and blogger.

 I am happy that I attended this course.  I am glad that I met all of my course mates. I learnt a lot from you all. Thank you. Your ideas and experience were very useful. I will really miss you.

Thank you Donna for everything. You really helped us a lot and you made me feel that the course is fun even when I have a lot of work to accomplish. All the instructions are detailed enough to make things much easier. You always encourage me and motivate me. Your ideas and discussions are very well prepared and very useful. Thank you Donna. I will really miss you Donna.

I cannot believe that the course is finished. I will really miss the course. I will miss being busy all the time, and learning new staff and a lot of useful information that will help me in my career.

I wish the best for you all.

Ola,

Egypt

Week 9: Reflection

Dear All,

Anvill is a very useful program. It was my pleasure to attend the webinar with Jeff and have a good idea about how to use Anvill. I had to be readier for the webinar by reading and trying to use Anvill. However, I did not have enough time to do this. 

Thanks Jeff it was a very useful lecture. Sorry Jeff that I did not have enough background information before attending the lecture with you. Yesterday, I created an account and I am trying to put the activities on it.

This week we had to finish the final draft of the plan report. I hope that I did it well.  Peer correction was an interesting experience to me. I want to thank Ju for working with me. Her feedback was very useful. I hope that all of you did a good project report.

The reading was useful. We need to vary the activities to help the students with different learning styles to learn better. There are a lot of useful technological tools and material that we could use to plan different activities that suit all the students learning styles.

Ola,

Egypt  

Week 8: REFLECTION

Dear Everybody,

This week was an exhausting week. We had to hand in the first draft of the plan report besides the rest of the other assignments that we had to do. However, it is a very useful week. We finished our first draft of the report. I think also revising each others' work and giving feedback to a classmate and having feedback from a classmate is a very good experience. It was my pleasure to work with Ju. Thank you, Ju, for working with me.

It is a good experience because seeing others' people work help us to have a wider view of the project. I guess we learn more about the project and we get useful feedback from our mates so we learn from each other.

The tools that I explored this week were very useful. I still need more time to explore them more, especially wiki. I think wiki is a very useful tool to be used in class and I intend to use it.

Although I explored all the tools, I still did not finish the task of using a tool yet. I did not make up my mind yet which tool I am going to use because all of them are useful. I wanted to use wiki. However, wiki is complicated and needs a lot of planning. So, I am not sure if I will have enough time to do this or not. I hope I can because I really like it.

Good luck for all of you with your projects.

Ola,

Egypt

WEEK 7: REFLECTION

Dear All,
This week was good. I liked Padlet. I think it is good to use with the students. It could be useful in many ways. We can use it as a wall board so the students can express their feelings about some tasks, present their work on it, suggest ideas, work together on a project, share websites and videos, etc. However, I think it needs some regulation. I need to set rules for using Padlet in my class or the students might use it wrongly especially that my students are middle school students.

 I liked the articles that we studied this week about Autonomous learners. Actually, I got interested in this topic that I want to know more about it. The problem is that while reading about autonomy, I found difficulty to understand some of the views because it is discussed from a philosophical perspective that needs a lot of thinking and meditation. However, I think I could just focus on the idea autonomous learner applied in teaching language. This will make things easier for me and more practical.

I also loved some of the ideas that we can use in one computer classroom. Since I have one computer in my class i think applying these ideas will help me a lot and will allow the students to get more involved.

I am working on my plan report. I am trying to do the best I can. However, it is not easy. Hopefully, I will be able to do something that is not bad. I really liked it to be a project and to implement it with my students and to observe if it will work the way I want or not. Unfortunately, I could not apply it for now.However, I am planning to apply this plan and other things I learnt soon. I might apply a lot of what i learnt this summer, as the center I am working in is preparing for summer courses. They asked me to make my plan for the course I am going to teach this summer. I guess this is my opportunity to apply the things I learnt here. I am excited about it. As soon as I finish my plan report, I will start  to have a good plan with integrated technology to try with my students. I hope it will work the way I expect.

I wish you all doing fine in your projects. Good luck for all of you.

OLA,
Egypt

 

WEEK 6: REFLECTION

Dear all,
In this week, we made an interactive PowerPoint presentation. it is much better than the standard presentation. it allows the students to learn in a more student centered approach. it is a very good experience. I liked it and I will use it.

For the project, I have some obstacles in implementation because the exams are coming at the end of this month and students do not want to do any new activities. They just want to revise for the exams. So, I guess I will make a plan. I am working on it but I feel that the time is running and I am worried that I might not be able to have a good report. It is much easier to make a project because we can just record what happens during the project, change our plan according to the needs of the students, and get results and comment on them. However, I do not think I have much choice here. So, I will try to make my best.

I hope that this week was good for everybody. I always like to thank you, Donna, for your comments and feedback that helps me to be more motivated. I also wants to thank you for the well planned instructions that always allow me to learn better and to get the most out of this course.

Ola,
Egypt

   

WEEK 5: REFLECTION

Dear All,

This week we learnt a lot. I loved the PBL.

It is a something that will allow our students to be creative and motivated. It will allow them to be more engaged in learning as they will do something of their own choice. They will do their best to present their project in the best way they could. So they will learn a lot. I will try it for sure.

I loved the questions that Donna asked in the discussion thread. They are really important questions that allow us to connect things together to see the whole picture clearly. We can think about the connection between project-based learning, learner autonomy, and critical thinking. Moreover, we can understand the connection between rubrics and learner autonomy. Also, it is very important to understand the challenges that might face us when we start a project that helps our students to be autonomous learners.

WebQuest is a very useful tool if used and planned well. Its problem is that it needs a lot of planning and a lot of creativity or else I think it might confuse the students instead of helping them to learn. If it is well planned, it will be very useful in developing critical thinking. The right topic should be chosen and the teacher needs to exert a lot of effort planning it. But I expect that the result learning deserves the effort.

I always use rubrics but I always get them from the internet or from teacher books. However, I found rubistar is a very useful program. It helps the teacher to choose the criteria that she wants to include in her rubric according to the level of her students and according to their needs. I liked that. It is very easy to use and we can save our rubrics, too.

The time is running fast. After tomorrow we will start week six. Who could imagine that!

We really learn a lot every week and I guess this course will help us to be autonomous learners ourselves.

Ola,

Egypt

Week four reflection

Hello everybody,

This week was good. I read the articles. I loved the "three reading activities for ESL/EFL." The three activities are choosing a book, reading and sharing it, then evaluating with reference to a rubric. I found using children literature in teaching is a good idea. However, I am not sure about how adult students would react to it. I think they might not like this and see it as a childish. I think adult students, even beginners, need simple texts but not simple topics. "Using the internet in ESL writing instruction" was really interesting paper. This is because I really want to know new ideas to teach writing using technology. I loved the process of writing which is getting information from the web, writing an essay or letter, emailing it to a friend, and publishing. It will motivate the students. He mentioned different genres of writing and how we can plan to teach these genres to our student. It is a good technique especially when it is planned well. I mean we should specify good websites for our student that could serve the purpose of writing. For example, writing a formal letter after reading real problem that really happen in the world is a very good idea that will help the students to be connected to real world not just writing about imaginary problems.

When I explored the websites, I found some useful sites. I liked http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/. It is leveled and well planned. Thank you Donna and everyone who suggested it. I also liked some of the writing websites. One of them is storybird that I mentioned in my nicenet. Another one is make belief comics (http://www.makebeliefscomix.com). The students can create their own comic strip. It is really good and fun. The children will like it for sure and they can communicate together using it. I want my students to learn while they are having fun. I do not want them to feel that education is a punishment.

For the lesson plan, I spent a lot of time doing it. I wanted to do something new. I got very excited with comic strips website and I wanted to use it. I hope that my lesson plan is OK.

For "Delicious", I tried to find if can arrange my bookmarks in folders but I did not find such an option in it. Tags are fine but I really like to arrange my bookmarks in folders. I am used to this and I find it easier for me. I do not i might get used to the tags.

Anyway, it is a good week.

Ola 

Egypt