Week 2 Reflection

  

   Here I am in the second week. I have made it! It has still been very demanding, and challenging in terms of reading assignments and comments to give on www.nicenet.org because of time constraint. However, I feel very joyful and excited about all this as I progress little by little to our final project. The course has been pushing me to my limits and I am glad that I am feeling this way. What is more, the different posts from colleagues on the aforesaid web have been enriching and uplifting to my professional growth. I cannot even state how much I have been learning from my dear friends from all over the world. Below these lines, I am going to mention some of the things I did, and learned.

   WEBSEARCHING: as most people, I thought Google was the only search engine worth trying among our students. I was totally wrong since I came across this tremendous web site that opened my eyes to see new academic horizons. http://www.noodletools.com Here, I tried each and every one of the search engines and portals and; one stood out for me and for my students, namely: http://www.bing.com. Within seconds, it drilled down related topics to that of what I typed. It also showed me the exact number of results on the right. What is more, one can narrow down the topic either by language or by region. Needless to say, its toolbar supplied me with a contextual thesaurus, a translator, and a universal text input. This website is a must! I learned that it is much faster that other search engines and one spends "more time doing and less time researching" for a given topic, which is the slogan of this website. Thumbs -up to it!

   ABCD MODEL: "How to Write Clear Objectives" from Pennsylvania State University's Teaching and Learning office was the corner stone to write my objective on www.nicenet.org. It provided me with the necessary ingredients to spice up my academic goals much better. I learned that (A) stands for audience or students. The (B), on its part, stands up for behavior or skill. The (C) represents the condition or context that is provided by the teacher or the classroom and (D), typifies the degree of accomplishment or mastery one expects the students to possess at the end. (Heinich, et al., 1996). I strongly think that- thanks to the ABCD MODEL- I will have to sit down and re write my syllabus at school. Way to go ABCD Model!

   PROJECT TASK: Here, I described in vivid details my Introduction to Literary Studies class. I also gave the class setting and the type of technology used by my students inside and outside the classroom. The instruction time was also provided and the students’ ages. I am eager and willing to start using a new technology tool among them. It is going to be fantastic. I can´t wait to see my students ´reaction when time comes to try something powerful, different and technological in the classroom.

   It has only been the second week and, I am learning much more that I thought I would. For the time being, I am going to apply the ABCD Model to my syllabus, I am going to push my students to use www.bing.com as a search engine for academic purposes in the classroom, and I am going to apply graded conversations to my students either on Edmodo.com or on Nicenet.org. I feel so fortunate and blessed to belong to this turning point course. It is going to impact, for sure, my class for the better.

 

 http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=abcd%20model&FORM=BILH1#view=detail&id=155068F72E601155838ADA2F978DCB1D2E651F1F&selectedIndex=0