Reflections on Week 5

First when I read the article about the "Alternative assessment" http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/assessing/alternative.htm, I thought that it won't work on my students. This feeling comes mainly from the "Tunisian mentality". We are used to having teacher-centered classrooms where there is no exchange of information, only a donor (teacher) and a receiver (students). Then came the step of creating our own "rubric" using as always a new and "magical" tool, Rubistar (http://rubistar.4teachers.org/). This website allowed me to create my first (hope not the last) assessment rubric, that you can check through this link:http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=ShowRubric&module=Rubistar&rubric_id=2111613&. 

This method provides a detailed assessment system clear to both the instructor and the leaner. 

The other interesting and very inspiring part of the Week 5 was the project-based learning article,  "Less Teaching and More Learning" by Susan Gaer. The author presented several project ideas that she experienced herself with her learners and that succeeded in accomplishing the goal targeted. I really enjoyed reading this article in which I might have found a "potential" solution for my class issue. 

Like all the previous weeks, this one was full of new ideas and tools that will help me innovate and improve the teaching quality.  

    

Reflections on Week 4

My country, Tunisia, is rebuilding itself in the path of the transition to democracy and education is one of the main fields in process of reshuffle. Thus, I strongly believe that as a teacher I have an important role to play in this process. For instance, last weekend the country had its first REAL and transparent elections. 

All Tunisians were involved, even those who don't have the right to vote yet like my students. These politically inexperienced teenagers surprised me with their awareness and understanding to what is going on around them. 

Therefore, such minds need to be developed and enriched. To help me, I found  a website called "Breaking News English Lessons" available at: http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/. I t is a website that provides several interesting and "fresh" topics with their text and questions. Have a look, I highly recommend it!

There is another website http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Krajka-WritingUsingNet.html, which is actually a great and very inspiring article. It also provides readers with different kinds of writing . 

·    Besides, the reading part in Lauri’s ESL Website (http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried/stories/stories.html) is diversified, stories for different levels through several interesting theme. The grammar part (http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried/grammar/grammar.html) is clearly presented and the quizzes could attract the student’s (or the user in general) attention. 

However, the use of this website could be restricted to an “e-use” and unfortunately the majority of my students won’t have access to it.

ESL Independent Study Lab: http://legacy.lclark.edu/~krauss/toppicks/toppicks.html. I found this website well structured with different resources for different levels. I forgot myself exploring it!

Many Interesting Things for ESL Students is another discovery. 

That was an overview on some of the websites I had the pleasure to explore for this week. 

Reflections on Week 3

This week it was about discovering a new tool that will make our lives, or at least mine, easier. The "magical" discovery has a name and a nice one, Delicious. In fact, it is a web page where it is possible to bookmark all the useful links. 

At the beginning, I couldn't get the added value of this page and how it is different from the usual bookmarks that I have been using. It was only when I read one of my course-mates' post that I realized its particularity. 

Actually, it is a bookmark that can be used no matter if the computer has been changed or not. 

For someone like me, this helps a lot. Lately, the Internet connection has been unpredictable, and I was obliged so often to bookmark an article or a given link that I couldn't read on the spot. However, reading them later would be sometimes difficult because they get lost in my messy bookmark.  

With Delicious in my life now, all I need to do is getting more organized since I have the right tools and reasons to be so. 

Another assignment was to read a Project Report of previous participants and comment on it. This activity was actually like an initiation to what we will be doing during the coming weeks. 

The project I chose was very interesting and instructive, and I found some similarities that I should take into consideration when working on my own final project. 

Reflections on Week 2

The first reflection that I need to mention is that I declare myself officially Illiterate in internet and computer-related issues. But I think that with time and perseverance I could be someday at the head of  Steve Jobs' legacy. Obviously, this can not be true as I need an eternity to at least learn the basics. 

However what really captured me about this Week was the assignment of describing the classes we will work on our final project. It is always a pleasure to speak about this specific group, because they are smart, determined and motivated.I have already described this class in my previous posts and won't do it again to avoid repeating myself. Actually, I am going to introduce them to you through the following pictures. 

These pictures were taken during an activity called "This is me" in which students introduce themselves, not with words but with symbols. 

At  presentations, students came out with creative ideas and were happy and excited to share them with the rest of the group. I can see from their determination that they will have successful lives. 

Look forward for Week 3!

Week 1 Reflections

I have always preferred buying the newspapers rather than reading them on-line. It is all about touching it and feeling it real. Nevertheless, the world is growing and developing around me and I need to cope with it.
I have some friends addicted to blogging and when I see how useful it is, I become motivated to create my own blog. However, I have never done it.

Now that this first step is done, I need to explore it and make it ready for people to read and comment on it.
I believe that not exploring what Internet has to offer is an illiteracy. For a teacher, it represents a wide range of teaching material and innovation source. Thus, I really hope to get used to all this, in order to start using it effectively and creatively.