Reflections on Week 8

As you might notice, I am posting part of my assignments later than the deadline. I apologize it wasn't my intention. Two weeks ago, I took advantage of the four hours I had to spend in the airport and posted my last blog post. I didn't know that one week after things will be crazy in Cairo and that Tahrir Square will hold its "second revolution". Unfortunately, I was stuck in the hotel not far from the clashes and without Internet.
Now I am finally home,  trying to catch up with what I missed.

Apologies done, let's start reflecting on week 8.
Actually, this week made me discover a great tool: ANVILL (https://anvill.uoregon.edu/anvill2/). This website is an amazing discovery for the teacher and the student at the same time. It is mainly used for ORAL communication purposes in and outside the class. I strongly believe that a continuous oral practice of the language is crucial for students. Actually this is what they have been missing.
After being introduced to this tool, I thought about changing the change I used in my project but it was difficult to manage this kind of sophisticated and complicated ways of teaching. I have to understand it well myself to be able to implemented in class!

Then comes funny part. We were asked to create our own exercises online. For an illiterate in technology like me, it was a real challenge. In this activity, I enjoyed exploring all the websites suggested, but mainly two of them were more accessible and easy to use: 
http://www.toolsforeducators.com/
 http://www.crosswordpuzzlegames.com/create.html
Through the second link I designed my first crossword puzzle! I really enjoyed making it and I think that my students will enjoy it too.

Last but not least, we submitted the draft of our project. It was important for me to do the first step of the project, especially that I won't be able to implement it before January. I really look forward to introduce to my students the change that will make their lessons more useful and enjoyable.

Best,
Ghada 

Reflections on Week 7

This blog post is coming to you directly from Egypt. I landed two hours ago!
Before going into reflections on this week, I would like to thank Donna for introducing "Delicious" to us. It is amazing to format the computer without having to care about your favorite links.

Introduction done, reflections will flow. Usually, when working on the assignment I get frustrated, especially when there are interesting and useful resources and ideas that I can't use in class. I sometimes felt that I don't fit in this course. This week, I was happily surprised to see that this week's "subject" deals with teachers with few resources like me. I really enjoyed sharing my experience in a one-computer class.
The situation in a class with one computer with unstable connection to internet is quite challenging for a teacher and demotivating for a student. I even had the experience of last minute problems, related mainly to connection or the computer itself, where I had to improvise to fill the lack.
Although this kind of situation is stressful, it made me a stronger person in terms of dealing with stress and unpleasant surprises.

I also enjoyed working on the lesson plan. Actually, it made me think about another way to use a video that I find amazing and worth sharing. I advise you all to watch it (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12618167).
It was also helpful to write ABCD Objectives. Actually, I didn't have the chance to apply it in class, since I haven't teach for a while and writing it from time to time is a good exercise for me.

In the coming two weeks, we will be presenting the first draft of our Projects (or Plan in my case) then the final version. This also coincides with the two-week training I am having in Egypt. I am sure that it will be stressful and crazy, but instructive at the same time.

Greetings from Egypt!

Ghada
 which coincide with the two

Reflections on Week 6

This week has been enriching with its several interesting readings and activities. In the discussion task, we had to choose between "PowerPoint and Interactive classes" and "Engaging Students". My choice was motivated by the class I am teaching at the moment.
As I mentioned in my post on Nicenet, this class takes place on Saturdays afternoon (after school time) or Sundays morning. For this reason, students sometimes come lacking motivation or energy. I have been using games and small-group discussions to have their attention and energy back.
Therefore, the article that called my attention and that I enjoyed exploring is the one about "Enhancing Learning by Engaging Students", accessed at http://umbc.uoregon.edu/eteacher/webskills/material/engaging_students_handout.pdf. The article provided me with a variety of activities that will, for sure, help me in engaging my students in the process of learning in class.

The other part of the assignments has been very exciting  as well. I created a PowerPoint presentation in a new way. Actually, I used PP for my studies before but not as a teaching material. I found this experience very interesting and I liked designing slides following some of the interactive techniques. I looked at some of my course-mates' presentations and they were great. Unfortunately, mine is not as "sophisticated" and developed. I still need to work on this part!

Submitting the final project is due in 3 weeks! For the next step, we have to start implementing the technology-related change. The issue I raised is the lack of opportunities for my students to "speak in English". So I suggested an online platform, Nicenet for instance, or a  common project to work on. Donna recommended the Nicenet as good and workable. I totally agree with her and reading the article about "Generating and Facilitating, Engaging and Effective Online Discussions" (http://tep.uoregon.edu/technology/blackboard/docs/discussionboard.pdf) gave me some instructions and tips on this kind of discussions. However, there is a possibility that I don't see my students for a month starting from next week, in addition to the persistent Internet issue in the country. Any suggestions would be more than welcome!

Look forward to Week 7.

Ghada

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!