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!