Week 10 Reflection

   It has been the best 10 weeks of my academic life and I would eternally be thankful to Donna Shaw and to all my colleagues around the world. I cannot believe this turning point course has come to an end. It seemed like yesterday when my classmates and I started to be part of this wonderful, insightful, and unique experience. I will never forget this Webskills course. From the bottom of my heart, I can say that I was born, technologically, speaking again.

   As for the different things I did and learned, I can mention an endless list of technology tools and websites. However, the knowledge I acquired cannot be measured under any circumstance. Blog Rolls, Lesson Plans, Rubrics, Interactive Power Points, Padlet,  and the Project itself were some of the things I put my hands on. I am really proud what my online friends all over the world and I accomplished while taking this tremendous course.

   I have, nowadays, the certainty that all of us are going to make the change, where students from Mauritania to Norway, from Sri Lanka to Kuwait, from Spain to  Taiwan are the ones that are really going to receive the academic instruction and the blessing of being agents of change as well. It is now in our hands to pass the torch for others to light up.

   One more time, thanks to the U.S. Embassy in Paraguay, thanks to the State Department, thanks to the American English Institute of Linguistics Department at University of Oregon, thanks to all of my colleagues whose wisdom, generosity and patience lead the way, and a very special thank to my editor in chief Esala Malawithanthri. A big hug to Juan Pacheco and Husni Mahmud, and my warmest regards to Albana and Brahim and to all my colleagues around the world. Guys, I am going to miss you a lot!

   

Week 9 Reflection

   As I sit down to write my second to last blog for this course, I realize that nothing gold can stay forever. The countdown has already started. I will have to be born again to express all the great and amazing things I have been learning in this online course. It is hard to say good bye to all the colleagues that have inspired me throughtout these nine weeks. It feels like as a piece of me began to miss everyone. I will be eternally thankful to each and everyone of my classmates, and above all to our professor Donna Shaw. Here are the highlights of this week.

   Learning Styles, tech tools ANVILL: It is well-known that students learn in a variaty of ways.There are some who are reflective learners who like to stop and reflect about what they are learning. There are even others who are sensor learners that love learning by relating their instruction to what is out there in the world. Others prefer to learn visually like the visual learners, where pictures, time lines, and color coding are very important for their academic growth.The sequential learners, on his part, like order and organization. The good thing about each and every learning style is that teachers can also provide them with the right technology tool to foster their strenghts. In other words, for the reflective learner, the teacher might use blogs, Nicenet, e- mails, and peer-editing. As for the sensor learners, he may use WebQuests and Problem-Based-Learning activities. The visual learners can best learn by Interactive Power Point, Stupeflix videos, and Padlet. Finally, the sequential learner intake more instruction if google sites with calendars are provided.

   Final Project Report: Last Friday, we had to turn in our final project reports. As I turned it in, I felt like a great weight had vanished from my shoulder. The last time I read, and re read and re read a piece of report was when I finished my dissertation for my undergraduate degree for college. I will be eternally thankful to Esala, whose wisdom and patience made me see my final report from another angle. Congratulations to her!. What else can I say? Well, I feel tired mentally speaking, but at the same time I feel like everyone in this course is a champion due to the endless hours we spent working on the different tasks and above all on the final project report. Again, I can honestly say that my academic life has changed tremendously.

   All in all, It is hard to say good bye. It is even harder to say thank you to the U.S. Embassy in Paraguay for the support, to the Department of State for having granted me this scholarship, to the University of Oregon for having provided us with the best professor, to all my colleagues from all over the world for their insight, commitment, and wisdom...to our dear Professor Donna Shaw, whose humble and so down to earth comments and guidelines made us be agents of change for generations to come. Guys, I will miss you a lot. God bless you all!

Week 8 Reflection

   I cannot believe week 8 is gone and that we have only 2 more weeks to go . Every time I think about it, I appreciate even more the effort everyone has put into making this course a turning point to our academic life. Again, this week was very demanding and above all very insightful. Below these lines, the most important highlights are going to be discussed.

   Final Project: I had to write my report in three days and I did not want to leave any thing behind. I checked what I had done before in Nicenet and added more information as requested. What is more, I pushed myself to my limits so that I could just write the final touches to my rough draft for next week´s final report. I have to admit that working with Esala was a big help as she made me look my final report draft from another viewpoint. I learned a lot from her comments; and I would really love to work with her again. She is the best!

   Task: For this week´s assignment, we had to either create a handout,  an exercise or a class site. I decided to do the most difficult task because I chose to do the latter one. The process was extremely diffucult, and time-consuming. At the end, I was kind of proud with what I have accomplished. However, I am very far away from creating a perfect website like Donna did. 

   Discussion on Nicenet:  We were given a discussion topic about how to improve the lerner autonomy and how the use of technology can make  our instruction much better. The benefits of all this is endless as our students, at least most of them, are already good at the use of technology. Needless to say, as teachers, we have to give them more effective and interactive technology tools for our classrooms to be more indepedent, and thus forge well-rounded citizens; who are going to be ready to solve the problems of the 21st Century.

   We have only 5 days left! I do not want this course to end. I feel like I will always be in need of Donna and my wonderful classmates from all over the world. I cannot believe we are almost done with this turning point course. Guys, I will always be thankful to you. You all guys rock!

   

Week 7 Reflection

   As I sit down to write about  this week´s blog, I can´t stop to refect about how far we have gotten up to now and how much we have grown, professionaly speaking, with this turning point course. I looked at the days left on our calendar and I realized that I have only 13 days to present my final project. I wish I could have this training session all my life. 

   This week has been quite fruitful, and very dynamic as I had to write about one-computer classroom on Nicenet, upload a file to Padlet regarding e-learning, find a partner to work with; and implement the discussion topics on my students via the tool I chose. I cannot complain, this course has fulfilled me completely. Here are the most important highlights. (I cannot believe we have only 13 days left)

   The One-Computer Classroom: I didn´t know that there were a wide spread of activities one can do with only ONE computer in the classroom. Susan Gaer, among many final products, suggested the creation of a newspaper or a monthly class magazine. Her ideas are great as she gives step by step directions about how to be successful while doing these projects. She said that is very important to have a fixed schedule, which means, to be able to meet at a certain time per week and that the division of the group, by section, is of vital importance as well as the identification of the different collaborators like reporters, editors, advisors, photographers, typists and the layout crew members for the success of the project. http://susangaer.com/studentprojects/newspaper/spring00/

   Padlet: I have to confess that Padlet is "very cool" as my students would say. There are so many things we can do with it that the sky is the limit. However, I have two on top of my head which can be used among our students. The first one can be ask for quotes that the students can find inside the book and post them on the wall. Another great activity can be upload students´stupeflix videos so that everybody can go to one wall(page) and learn from his/her classamtes. This tool is a must for every teacher!

   Find a Partner: I posted an "advertisment", and invitation, so to speak, on Thursday morning to work with a partner on our final project on Nicenet. Thanks God, I didn´t  wait much. Esala  Malawithanthri and I are going to do our best to read each other´s final projects and thus do the peer editing thing together. I am really happy to work with her.I think it is going be great learning experience for both.

   Implementing Techonology Tool: Once again I implemented two discussion topics on my students this week. This time I got a little more feedback than the last time I tried. Also, I realized that now they are interacting each other more independently. I just had to give every now and then some comments like  a moderator does. I hope to collect more data this week so that I can say  what the drawbacks were as well as the strengths of this wonderful tool.

   Finally, It has been my third week of implementation and I understand it is vital to write every single thing on our day-to-day notes so that we can record the different happenings in the classroom. I only hope my students can take advantage of this tool and thus participate more actively in class for their own benefit. One more time, hat off to Donna and to all my colleagues of this webskill course. You guys rock and I am already start missing you!

   

Week 6 Reflection

 

   Another wonderful and productive week has passed by. I guess this week was the corner stone for the final realization of the projects and plans. As usual, we were given a lot of interactive teaching & large classes information to share and discuss on Nicenet as well as on interactive PowerPoint Presentations. Below these lines, one can find the highlights related to the aforesaid topics.


   Interactive Teaching & Large Classes: It is well-known that teaching in large classes can be challenging and at times very frustrating. However, there are some tools and techniques that can help us to have more interaction among students and thus more learning to happen. One tool that might work very well is Nicenet. This website offers you the opportunity to make every body participate without being put into the spotlight through a series of discussion topics posted for every single week. By doing so, the teacher can have feedback from all of his or her students, and not just about some during class time.


   Regarding this issue, a technique that would go hand in hand with this website could be the Just in Time Teacher (JiTT). What this technique does is basically use "a brief-base question delivered before a class meeting" (quoted from What is Just in Time Teaching?) Once the students have responded to the JiTT activities- in this Internet Classroom Assistant called Nicenet- the teacher can gather and process the information before the class starts, so that he can only work in class on those learning gaps that weren't not very well covered by the students previously. This strategy works as it encourages motivation and preparation before the class as well as it promotes ongoing formative assessments. Needless to say, it also targets students' learning gap.(http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/justintime/indexhtml)


   It is also important to mention that the strategy Think-Pair-Share can be used to mitigate the one way street called lecture mode. It basically provides students to think about one question or problem that the teacher lectured about (usually after 15 minutes).Then, the student has to turn around and share it with a partner and, if time permits, share that piece of information with the audience later on. This activity is very dynamic and also lets you do some others variations like in Think- Pair- Square and Concept Test.


   Interactive Powerpoint Presentations: I thought PowerPoints presentations could be O.K. However, after having read how to create interactive ones I realized that this technique can benefit both small and large audiences. It is not just O.K. It is one of the BEST Tools to implement in the classroom. I always had the curiosity about how people did jeopardy games. I used to say to myself that they were vey difficult, and guess what? I was right. It was one of the most difficult tasks I have done, but at the end I am glad I learned how to do it for my students´sake


   Implementing Technology Tool: I started implementing, discussion topics, on Nicenet, for my Introduction to Literary Studies class last week on. I started to do so as I didn´t get as much feedback as I wanted to from them. Out of my 25 students, only 5 responded actively in my class during the first four weeks. I was very disappointed. I was very enraged with me and I blamed myself for their lack of participation. Just then, we were given some tools and techniques from our webskills course and, no doubt, I chose NICENET. This is how I used this tool on them:


   Firstly, I said to the class, on the last week of April, that we were going to try a new tool for the class along with Edmodo. They all agreed and I proceeded to create a Nicenet thread on May 1st. They were also required to turn in two replies: One answering the prompts by Wednesday 7th, at midnight, and Two; answering the classmates´responses by Sunday 11th, at midnight. The same way as we do with Donna. Regarding this topic, 15 of my students did turn in their responses on time, which is 60 % of the class participation compared to that of 20 % (5 students) in the first four weeks. Only 3 students (12 %), turned in one day later. As a result I had an overall 72 % of class participation, which is 67 % increase.


   Even though all of them agreed to sign up and do the participation on Nicenet, there exist still seven people (28 %) that haven´t responded to the prompts. Two particular things to mention while my students were responding each other is that they didn´t quite understand how to post their answers. Most of them just replied to my post, leaving classmates without the chance to reply to them. To solve this problem, I told them on May 9th, that they had to use "Post new message to the Crucible" instead of replying to me. The other "obstacle" or confusing moment was when one of my students, created a whole new topic. Again, I had to explain that they could only reply to the prompts or disccusion topics of the class and to respond to each other´s messages.


   Finally, this is my second week of implementation, and I hope to see those seven people responding to Nicenet. I also tend to implement JiTT next week on. I will keep you informed how all this goes. I can´t wait to see more positive results. Once again, I am so happy to belong to this turning point course. Thanks Donna, thanks a lot dear colleagues!

   

Week 5 Reflection

   It has been the most productive, and demanding  week since April 7th. I can honestly say that I have made it through, up to now, thanks to the professor's help and my classmates' support. I was pushed-no doubt- beyond my limits to read important new types of information like alternative assessment, PBL, and WebQuest.  At times, I felt like it was too much; yes too much of great information that I have contact with now and that I hope I can put into practice with my students and share with my colleagues. Here, the most important information with its advantages and highlights that we were exposed to:

   Alternative Assessment: encourages one´s students to become more independent tremendously. To begin with, it is authentic because it "replicates the world communication context and situations" (The Essential of Language Teaching: Alternative Assessment). It also measures what the students know, that is; their strengths and not what they don´t know (Huerta-Macias, 1995, p. 9). In addition to this, it highly emphasizes the final product and not what they can learn for a given final test and then, once it is passed, it is gone. Likewise, it is more interesting than the traditional assessments as it fosters the integration among peers, teachers and self.


   Project-Based Learning: motivates students to work independently a lot as it offers certain aspects that are flexible and interesting to them. Firstly, it provides the students with an extended time to work on the complex question or problem they are trying to analyze. In other words, they don´t feel pressured as to meet the teacher´s goal with the time frame of 55 minutes. Similarly, they don´t just sit in the classroom and hope someone could tell them the skills they have to gain in order to be competent. On the contrary, the students are the ones that grab knowledge according to their own inquiries. Also, they can manage their own time and the type of product they want to present to the teacher provided that there are some guidelines and supervision from him/her and finally the students will be confident enough as to present their findings to other people apart from their peers and teacher (http://bie.org/about/what_pbl). I would say that PBL is the best way to encourage students to work in class as they are co-authors of the learning-teaching process carried out in and outside the classroom.


   WebQuest: stimulates students' interest in working on their own as they have to use a lot the computer to find answers to their inquiries on the Internet, and I am positive; they enjoy every second of it. Gone are the days in which one had to go to the library and had to check out books to answer the teacher´s questionnaire. Nowadays, everything is in the World Wide Web. That is why, it is very important to motivate students to try WebQuest as it fosters creativity with its open-ended questions like "What can be done to stop people from polluting Mother Earth? Here, they will find out many possible solutions and not just one dictated by the teacher. Apart from that, by doing WebQuest, students will be working on higher levels of Bloom´s taxonomy like analyzing and synthesizing, and not just the very basic ones like knowledge and comprehension.


   Finally, I would really like to highlight two sites that are spectacular for the creation of rubrics and for the implementation of WebQuests in the classroom. At www.rubistar.4teachers.org; one can pretty much create and customize rubrics from scratch and, at www.zunal.com, one can develop WebQuests for students to utilize as other types of assessments apart from traditional ones. All in all, I am very content to belong to this extraordinary course. My academic life is being fulfilled.

Week 4 Reflection

 

   It has been almost a month since I started with this online course and I can honestly say that I have been spending more than two hours per day researching with pleasure different sites on the internet for the benefit of my students as well as for my own professional development. This week has been, no doubt, the toughest of them all as I had to find a web page that could go with my Introduction to Literary Studies class. Thanks to the links provided by the professor, I came across one that I will be talking more about on the lines below. Week 4 focused, mainly, on three different aspects; namely: Reading, Writing and Vocabulary Skills, Problem or issue in my class, and the creation of a technology-enhaced lesson plan. Once again, I enjoyed every single second of it.


  Reading, Writing, and Vocabulary Skills: Jarek Krajka´s article "Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instruction" gave me wonderful writing activities such as "letter to a friend", "formal letters", "biographies", and even "the description of a festival". However, the writing activity that I will implement- starting next week on- will be "The description of a book". I got really into it, as my first year students and I read four books per year and I kow for sure this writing activity will be one they like a lot. On this note, I checked the following site http://www.tv411.org/writing and, to my surprise it offers free videos about how to write ideas, and frequently mispelled words. What is more, it also has free download lesson plans of different topics about the writing skill. I highly recommend this site for any writing activity.


   Problem or Issue: In this section, I had to identify a problem or an issue in my class in terms of the use of technology. I reflected a lot on this topic and I identified one, which is the students´comments or feedback. What I want to point out here is that not all of them participate actively in the discussions of the class due to time-constraint, shyness or apathy. Nevertheless, I think I got the solution for that. I will give a try to Nicenet next week then I will see the pros and the cons either to implement it or to forget about it and use another one. It will be a pilot technology tool next week on. Let´s wait and see!


 Technology-enhaced lesson plan: According toWarshauer and Whitaker (1997), there are three components for successfully planning and implementing internet projects from the very beginning: 1.The goals of the class. 2. the way the integration of technology should be done in the classroom and 3. how the technology is linked with the teacher´s syllabus. In tother words, one should not just use technology for the sake of it. One should only use it as a mean to facilitate much better the goals to be achieved in the ESL/EFL classroom.. I totally agree with them. Regarding the technology-enhaced lesson plan I had to do, I can only say that I learned to think of a back up plan in case technology is not functioning. I cannot even remember the times I failed due to technical problems in my classroom. From now on, I will have a set or extra worksheet just in case.


   It has already been my four week and I can clearly picture some of the possible solutions for my student´s feedback problem. For the time being, my action plan will be to give a try to this pilot technology tool to motivate more to my students. Also, I will use more writing activities from http://www.tv411.org/writing and always have in mind that not always technology works in the classroom. Final project, here I come!

http://artofteachingscience.org/text/ch12as.html