Week 10: The end!

“You teach best what you most need to learn”- Richard David Bach

Technology is going on huge steps, teachers are digital immigrants and students are digital natives, these are the 3 main reasons for which we as teachers should learn about tech in order to be at the same level of our learners (at least).

If so, there are many options but I think that the biggest one is attending to  online courses due to the time that is not enough for teachers who have to teach, to prepare plans, to review tasks and so on.

What I have learned is a lot about technology enhanced to the teaching process, I learned for example how to create my own blog and now I can work in it with ability, how to work in Nicenet (Internet Classroom Assistant) and how to post in it, I also learned how to write the general and specific learning objectives based in the ABCD method A (audience), B (behavior), C (Condition) and D (Degree). I also got that there are a lot of web pages to investigate something and not only the google page but the noodle tools that present many different options of webs, also I created my own account in www.delicious.com a page on which we can bookmark and interact with people around the world. Also I learned about listening and reading activities to be done in class with the students. The reading and writing activities were developed in order to obtain experience in the development of these skills, also I learned how to elaborate a lesson plan; this was very useful for me especially because I used this new plan in order to participate in an academic contest in the place in which I work, of course that with this plan I got the first place.

I have also learned about how to work in the Web Quest a page on which there is a model to do lesson plans and also to find more information about different educative projects useful for both teachers and students, another important web is rubistar, on which we can create our own rubric of evaluation needed for all of teachers around the world and where you can use the models to create rubrics; I also learned about different strategies to work with large and small classes using technology, since that it exists CCS (classroom communicative system) a technique to work with technology in the class because it makes students feel more comfortable than in a traditional class making us interactive teachers.

I read a lot about autonomous learning and how autonomous learners do their best when they are studying giving the teachers the opportunity to develop the science in an easy way, also I learned about ANVILL (A National Virtual Language Lab) and the developing or oral and written skills in the teaching learning process.

I finished my final project that took place since the beginning of this online course; it was a very hard task however with the guidance of our tutor Donna it turned easier. To develop a project of such dimension involved creativity, responsibility, and effort from all of us.  Other good point was the co evaluation because we created a friendship relation with our partners and they evaluated our project with honesty and professionalism.

Arriving to the end of this webskills course I learned about the learning styles, the multiple intelligences created by Howard Gardner and how teachers should use this in order to improve the quality of education of the students, even though this is a topic widely analyzed; now we know that it requires continuous study.

More than all, I learned to express my opinions in a written way, I learned that everybody respects other opinions, I learned that there is no problem if you have mistakes while you are expressing your thoughts sincerely, in other words I learned to learn.  Of course I will not be an expert but as Nicholas Murray says: “An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less” now I know that I learned to study more and more.

 “Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself”

--Chinese Proverb.

Maggie

Week 9: Learning Styles in Teaching (a new era)

Decades ago teaching was merely an act of giving knowledge to the students, a class was a place where the teacher was standing in front of the students and used to teach the new topic in a magisterial way, so everything that the teacher said was right, with no errors and the students didn´t have the opportunity to give their opinions because it meant a lack of respect to the teacher.

After that, education has changed, time arrived when teachers accepted the students’ opinions and gave them more responsibilities in class with the objective of doing them critical and analytical, but the essence was the same, the teacher in front of the students sharing the knowledge.

Time has been running and the educative setting has changed again.  The multiple intelligences set by Howard Gardner were taken into account before doing the teaching process; we could notice that nowadays teachers don´t see the students like learners only, but like persons with different skills and abilities and with different ways of catching the knowledge.  So this is very helpful especially for the learners and for their parents because the grades now are sustained in the learning style that the student has.

Learning styles help teachers to evaluate their students in a better way, because a student with visual learning style has different skills than a student with auditory or kinesthetic learning styles and thanks to the training courses that teachers have taken, this topic such as that about multiple intelligences are basis for the teaching process.

Based in what I learned I can suggest to teachers to do a test in order to discover the students´ learning styles since the first day of classes with the objective that teaching be more effectively, you can find some webs to do this test and however here there is a link on which you have to answer 30 questions: http://www.ldpride.net/learning-style-test.html or if you prefer you can go to this other link: http://www.wright.edu/~carole.endres/learnstyles.htm

Once the students have detected their learning style it is convenient that teachers help them to improve it as much as they can, for example if they are kinesthetic learners, try to find some pages with activities related to this, e.g. www.hotpotatoes.com

All above mentioned is possible when teacher works with heart especially when He/she is sure that everything he/she does is in benefit of the students.

Maggie

Week 8

Time is running and I cannot believe that we are finishing this course, how much we have learned, how much we know that we didn´t know before, so this is great because this can make us better teachers.

In this week I have learned about ANVILL, a web created by the University of Oregon and a tool by means of which we can attend to webinars or to face to face courses, it happens that most teachers want to attend English courses and they don´t do that because the unknowledge, so here teachers have a good opportunity to know about different seminars.

Besides, thanks to the assignment sent by Donna, I have surfed in the net and I found a page on which a teacher can create his/her own virtual course, I am talking about WizIQ (teaching on line), an easy and free tool, it is as easy as creating a mail account, I reviewed the blogs and I noticed that Loly added a tutorial video about how to sign up in this web.

Maggie

ANVILL

After reading the information about (A National Virtual Language Lab) I was amazed especially because it focuses on oral and aural skills and I consider that we as teachers must work a lot developing these skills, so I took a look about the page and I was so motivated to create an account as a new member, so I did it also because it is free; however, I cannot attend to any course yet because I do not have the invitation.

After signing up I surfed by the different pages and I put special emphasis in the “learn central” page on which we can find more information about past and future webinars and invitations for them.  On the other hand this page provides a page about “language teachers´ conferences” and I consider that this is benefit to all of the English teachers around the world because we can review the place, the topic, the speaker and if we are interested and of course if it is economically possible, we can attend to it.

The use of this tool might change the way I teach by means of the webinars, because as a new engine I can say to my students to attend them and it might also change the way that my students learn, because they do not have experience attending webinars yet and they will be very expected to them, moreover this will make the students to think critically about how to create their own webinars giving them an autonomous learning; nonetheless, the problem may be the students´ economical situation, because as I mentioned before not all of them have a computer and it is necessary to have at least 70 cents for paying one hour in a coffee internet, so probably the solution may be to construct webinars en groups? What do you think about this?

Best;

Maggie

Autonomous Learning

It would be great to have a computing lab in each institution that an English teacher works, however this is just an utopia because the real economical situation of many countries is bad, that is why teachers must prepare for different situations, in my country (Ecuador) teachers generally work with their own laptops and with a projector, this makes easier the teaching-learning process and helps the students to be motivated when they attend classes.

In spite of the economical situation, there are autonomous learners who have a wide knowledge about technology and about different subjects by themselves, and this happens not only nowadays, we can take as a real example to “Benito Juárez” (the Mexican president in 1850s)as an example of determination and effort despite his poverty.

Actually there are a lot of learners who prepare by their own and teachers must use this to involve them in programs of scholarships or in other programs that will benefit not only the student but his/her family and of course his/her country, don´t you believe it?


Kindly,


Maggie

How we can be interactive teachers.

How we can be interactive teachers. 

Working in large classes is difficult to teachers because it demands more patience;  however the University of Oregon shares different techniques to be used in both small and large classes, it is necessary that we as teachers involve ourselves in this world of knowledge, so some of the techniques presented are: Think-pair-share, concept test, question of the day, book-ends, start with a question (even though) this last one is probably the most commonly used for English teachers; these are only a few examples but if you want to know more about them, please go to Just-in-Time Teaching. 

CCS (classroom communicative system) is one of the techniques with which you can work with technology into your class.  Technology makes students feel more comfortable than in a traditional class that is why we can find some webs that will help us in our daily classes.Also there are much more techniques to be employed such as Concept Test, a technique on which teacher has to work with questions and answers getting that the learner creates his/her own concept, to do that it is necessary to use pictures and some slides in blank in order to get the student´s attention and motivation, this technique is used in a power point slide show.

So, there are a lot of techniques to be used by teachers in class, only it is necessary to investigate more about them, to be creative and to do the things with love.

Maggie

Week 5

Dear friends,

In this week I  learned a lot about the different tools in the web, and how easy we can work with the technological tools, so it is incredible the helpness that the Web Quest can give us, of course that this takes time, and on the other hand it is necessary to surf on it before doing our work.

the way in which we can do the rubrics is incredible, some time ago I had to do a rubric evaluation for another course and it took me a lot of time because firstly I did it in word and then I saved it in a pdf file, now with the Web Quest it is easier to do it.

I already created my own account in this site and I guess I have to do a lot for the 30 days free.

Greetings,

Maggie