Week 10 Final Draft.

I cant believe this 10 week course is now about to close and I find myself  far ahead of what I was at the beginning of this course. My understanding of web-based resources and techniques is better and overall  it has made me capable of using web based resources better than anyone else, I can now use the learnt skills and acquired techniques for promoting language skills of my students.
These 10 weeks have brought me closer to the other teachers around the world who are innovating, experimenting and doing their bit to teach English in their own surroundings.

The overall experience of the course has been a wonderful one, all the readings, tasks, assignments and posts on blog along with the final project is worth cherishing in all ways.

Knowing about new sites which can be used to make exercises, crosswords, puzzles, etc has come as a really fun-filled package. I have truly loved all these especially Delicious, Voki, Nicenet, Rubistar, Noodletools, etc are on my favourites list.

Doing all this as a project has also been a great experience.

Above all, I feel really happy that I was selected for this course and I look forward to being in touch with such great instructors as Jodi and Celeste.


Cherry 

Week 9

This week opened with a little less work after the final project finalization phase.
The discussion topic for the week was Learning Styles and Issues related to Multiple Intelligence. We read articles by Howard Gardner and Richard Felder and learned about different learning styles and different needs of different learners. Knowing about the variety or better to say the mini world in our classes was very exciting.
I liked the ideas and tasks mentioned by Richard and Howard. It is really important to allocate right in order to keep up learner motivation and indulge everyone in learning experience.
The various types of learners as indicated by Felder really triggered my thinking to better distribute work in all my classes.

Being engaged in active discussion with Celeste this week was also very inspiring. her questions, ideas, answers are all thought-provoking.

Also working with Miguel for my final project was a good experience.

Week 8 Integrating Course with Project Plan

This week has been a real mental work-out, integrating contents of a course into a project plan is not an easy task. This week brought us three tasks in general- discussing the use of ANVILL and other exercise generators and online tools; creating an exercise; and drafting our project plans.
Let me start with the use of ANVILL it really is a mine in itself with so many features and child friendly interface. Also thought of using Class Site on Google and Nicenet's ICA with Blogging as E-Diary.

I created a crossword using crosswordpuzzlegames.com, found it interesting as first timer.

Posted my project plan and awaiting Miguel's comments. Already posted comments about Miguel's draft.

Cherry

Week 7 Teacher and Technology

This week we tried to discuss about the use of one computer in a classroom and about learner autonomy. Both the topics have been very interesting and thought provoking. I believe learner autonomy is the first thing a learner needs to be able to pursue any type of learning. It is like a pre-requisite for learning.

To talk about one computer in a classroom is really brilliant idea because not everyone has the luxury of a computer each for her/his students, at least here in India.
I am fortunate to have digital boards and a CPU in almost all my classrooms, this makes experimenting easy and teaching and learning have become fun.
My one computer classroom lesson plan is also a fun activity that helps promote quick-thinking and structure analysis.

The next thing we did this week was to find a partner for our final projects, my partner is Miguel and I decided to comment on Miguel's blog this week but unfortunately there's no post on his blog , so I'll have to comment on someone else's blog. So I have commented on Bonjana's blog.

Cherry

My WebQuest

Tried to make a WebQuest today.
The experience was very good but I am not sure about the quality of my WebQuest.
The URL of the same is http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=152096.
Please check it and comment.



Cherry

Week 6 Gearing up !

Week 6 is almost half way through and it is time to start thinking about the final project, at least form a mental picture. I am not very clear about my final project right now but am happy and satisfied by all I have learnt on this course so far and feel content with all I have been able to do so far in my classes for my students.

• To speak about student-centered classroom I try to engage students as far as possible in a more constructive role of taking the discussion further and to be truthful using one and more techniques all the time is not possible but as teachers we know what to do, when to do and how to do? to keep it going, I do the same. Sometimes I use one or more techniques shared through Nicenet post or sometimes just thinking on my feet does the trick.
• The task this week i.e. to create an interactive PowerPoint was an interesting one but at the same time a challenging one, because here in India teachers are not very computer/technology friendly and i am also trying to better my IT skills day by day. But anyways trying this was a good experience and I hope my attempt is liked/praised by all.

•  When it comes to implement technology related changes in class, I 'd like to talk about how there has been a change in my two major classes, one is class X that I have taken up as my target group for my project. The other is my class XII, a group mostly lazy, uninterested and unwilling to spend time to learn a language. They rather prefer studying other optional subjects. But it has surprised me to see that even they find PBL and technology enhanced lessons very engrossing and have been fully geared to do what is told.

One instance I can share is of trying to teach them some idioms and proverbs in one of the classes, the moment I showed them the fun and the ease of communicating well by using these through some recordings, they were very curious and keen to learn more and very happily have taken this up as their holiday assignment.

The other group i.e. class X is quite active and are in touch with me through internet (facebook, emails) during the holidays also. It is so motivating to see this.

• This week I got a chance to look at Stefani's blog and found her reflection(Week 4) quite interesting. She has talked about the problem of students engaging in self-talk using their native language and freezing when asked to speak in English. This I must say is also the problem in my scenario, students engage in their own talk using Hindi and just become dumb, if asked to speak in English.Though with constant encouragement and motivation they have started trying break their cocoon and to my relief have started talking in English in class when needed.

Week 5 Alternatives For Language Teaching

This week has been the mid junction for our course and has been interesting as all other past weeks. The task, assignments and the project step have all led us forward towards exploring and sharing newer ways of assessing teaching and learning of English, which is not an easy job.
The use of Rubrics is not new to me and I remember last year at a training session I had worked out an acronym for it, which is R= Rules
                                   U= Used
                                    B= Before
                                    R= Remarking/Rewarding
                                    I= In
                                    C= Class (for our)
                                    S= Students (by us)
Also the use of P B L is a very good idea, it helps foster collaborative learning and at the same time instills a lot of formal and informal language skills.
I have shared one of the project based assignment on Nicenet Conferencing myself. That project turned out to be a very good example and was appreciated by all.

The idea of WebQuests is although a new one for me and I have to certainly work more on it before I can use it for my students. Hope to be able to use it and know it by doing the Extra Credit Assignment.

Cherry