Project idea

End of week 1: the idea of what to reflect on in my final project report is getting clearer and clearer.

The setting with young learners in Austrian grammar schools and high schools with good PC and internet equipment is no challenge. Young learners and teenagers are curious about technology and are used to doing their homework on PCs. Generally inn my live online classes with one-to-one tuition  there are well experienced learners and mostly techies. I cannot think of any situation with web problems.

My children are also used to work with PCs at home and in school and rarely ask me for help. They easily work out the problem themselves, but mostly there aren't any problems.

I would like to think, plan, write about the classroom setting, which I call the worst case, which is without internet connection in class in rural districts. Adult education centres in the countryside are given less money by the government, therefore many institutes are lacking of internet connetion during lessons and PCs. So I have to get my learners to work online at home and collaborate with their classmates (a mix of lower-intermediate and intermediate adults) online. This can be very challenging.

There is a very powerful chance that I see when I get learners to work online at home, I could schedule tasks twice a week and set deadlines. Students would have to read, think, work and collaborate in English at least twice or three-times a week, comment on the listenings and texts which they had to look at and read other students' blogs to compare their results. Furthermore reading other students' blogs can be very inspiring. 

In week 2 we were introduced to the search engines and their multifunktional use. As I like using wikipedia and alta vista and of course google, I was amazed to see the long list of other search engines. In my project work I would like to prepare an activity with a search engine. I would choose one, that learners are not familiar with, to create a double learning effect (learn about a new tool and it's usage, gain information about a specific topic).

The ABCD model as such was new for me. I know some other models, which are similar in some points. The conclusion of comparing all those useful models is, that there is no less useful model. All of them help the teacher find a good way to create a learning and activity balanced lesson - guideline for a well prepared and balanced lesson plan.

Week 3 was a busy week and very useful for collecting ideas and links for my daily teaching situations, as well as for my final project. Especially valuable is the link list on Robert's wiki " Oral skills"
http://esl.about.com/od/englishlistening/English_Listening_Skills_and_ActivitiesEffective_Listening_Practice.htm


listed links
https://docs.google.com/document/edit?hgd=1&id=1VetPq4HY9wF1sAsxEPzlUcgJWSF1i3eulJqeOlm_nog#

Johanna Zubel's project (Spring 2010, Poland, Jesuit University) learner level B1-B2, matches very much with my students and the projects I am working at right now. I can identify myself with her project and feel inspired by her thoughts, tasks, ideas and final e-teacher project work.
 Project Report for Graduate Students at the Jesuit University of Philosophy and Education "Ignatianum".


Composed lessonplan on googledocs in week 4:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TKg2K-97AqjB8YyANyOdgcXogOepRUSGHuNFuwQQC9U/edit



In week 5 we were asked to clearly think about and define our project problem and how web technology and PBL issues could improve learners' language progress. Now I have changed my I project idea slightly and cut down the numerous problems to just focus on ONE specific problem.
My 12 adult learners aged 35 to 50 who are familiar with using internet technology at home but unfortunately English classes at rural Austrian adult education centres are equipped with internet and PCs, will learn about hobbies and free time acitities. They will be given many links about travel blogs, and summarize vocabulary, and in project based tasks they will have to create an online travel report and online CV about their free time activities.
Due to the fact, that I meet my learners just once a week in a block of 3 lessons, I will split the project into several activities and learners will be given a deadline to do and hand in their work. Work-split and deadlines are to get learners to work regularly at least 3-4 times a week, in order to maintain steady language learning progress. Projects are designed to be worked out in peer groups, so due to the fact that learners are familiar with skype and collaboration platforms, they will be able to meet online for collaboration.

Extra task:
Reading about webquests, I found a very interesting idea with leisure time
http://questgarden.com/23/74/8/060426031216/, I especially liked the evaluation section, which I think is well balanced.
I tried my own webquest in a very simple way , therefore I just converted my lesson plan from week 4 and tried to create an evaluation as well which seemed to be the most difficult part of creating a webquest.
http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=182960

Rubrics:
As I already mentioned in the extra task, creating rubrics/assessment/evalutaion criteria seemed to be the most challenging task for me in week 5.
Rubric ID: 2285683
http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=ShowRubric&module=Rubistar&rubric_id=2285683&

In week 6 I most enjoyed working with power point slides, ready to use samples with an interesting layout and interactive functions. A very handy tool.

Wow! The wallwisher tool of week 7 is a fantastic, playful and easy-to-use interactive tool, which I am sure I will use for my English classes. Unfortunately I won't be able to introduce it in class, due to off-line situation in the education centre, but after class, when students make use of their private PCs! Looking forward to playing with it. Web-technology in language learning has its utmost importance in collaboration and the use of authentic material.

I would like to introduce wallwisher as after class forum and discussion board, to brain storm and trend indicate, also to give learners a platform to address ideas, wishes, problems,....
http://padlet.com/wall/5b0mkpa97l (eteacher padlet)
http://padlet.com/wall/q8z5rzzeg6  (my padlet)



Week 8, project draft plus material can be looked at and downloaded from
the course wiki:
https://sites.google.com/site/webskillswikiwinter2013robert/signup/yves-brigitte
The best tool of week 8 is Anvill with voiceboard. Additionally to Anvill I created an extra learning platform, actually a homepage with blog function extra, but very easy, simple and fast to create, set up and overview.
see: www.jimdo.com
my page: www.brigittefalkner.jimdo.com


Week 9 means coming to an end, which also means having nearly finished a very fruitful, enriching and busy teacher trainig. Final projects need to be reread and rewritten so it can be handed in on Friday 12noon Oregon time.

After my week 8's wake up of more pace for students learning and curriculum, I have to sadly chance my project draft quite a bit. My volunteer project class refused to work on ANVILL because I had not given them enough time to foster the introduced web tools before and so I myself failed my future planning. But nevertheless I learn from this experience and know now, that adult learners are not to be compared to teenage learners. 

Teenage learners like to play and have fun with the PC, whereas adult learners also like playing in a simple and easy way (depending on their age and personal interest in the technology). Adults think further and are sceptical sometimes. Teenagers would download nealy any program that their friends tell them, without consequences. Adults don't like to download too many webtools, because when they have to register at too many communities or platforms they fear to get spammed and an abuse of their private data.

Further more, this week's curriculum informed and discussed about
Gardener's multiple intelligences. Many informative articles could be read, (many links did not exist anymore) but this article http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr207.shtml
is absolutely worth reading, because it shows how easily students with their naturally given potential and a failure of teachers and school systems with narrow-minded thinking can be lost as undiscovered raw diamonds.

Although Gardener has mentioned many good comments on learning strategies and multiple intelligences, I for myself want to add one specific sentence to this, which he loved to argue:

Educator and researcher Howard Gardner argues that the educational system's narrow view of intelligence must be replaced with an attempt to mobilize the student's full range of human intelligences."

find more to read with activity chart:
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/intelligence/teaching-methods/2204.html?detoured=1

http://www.teachervision.fen.com/intelligence/teaching-methods-and-management/4811.html?detoured=1
This useful chart helps to create a multiple intelligences balanced lessonplan. 

Week 7 - reflections

Topics of week 7 were:
              Learner Autonomy     and     One Computer Classroom

Learner Autonomy
Many authors (Thanasoulas, Sheu, Candy, Knowles, Benson, Sheering, Holec,... just to name a few) tried to define and explain the definition "An autonomous learner is...."
and I would like to mention some of their quotes, which I believe, are  most important as core statement like:

- an autonomous learner with his/her individual thinking and learning process reflects, decides and learns critically, self-directed and independently. Learner choose aims, purposes and set goals, organises and carries out chosen tasks concerning the chosen criteria for evaluation;

- the pro-active role in the learning process with developing ideas is far more important than the passive role reacting to the teacher's aim;

- I would also add, that they are highly motiviated to achieve their self-set aim. I am sure motivation, related to self-esteem, is one of the key factors that influences the progress and result of learning a second language and which also enhances a long-lasting learning process;

- learners are aware of their social context in which their learning is embedded and get independent in their thoughts;

- who are able to develope specific strategies such as selective attention (paying attention to specific aspects of a task); 

-Johnson, Pardesi and Paine claim that fostering learners' autonomy can be only done by fostering teachers' autonomy. I do partly agree with this point, because it depends on the learners (children or adults), the class setting (in school or online) and the alternatives that teachers think of in specific situations. Sometimes there is very littel autonomy for me as teacher in my classroom at the educaiton centre, but when I offer learning material to my students online, I gain autonomy and als pass on autonomous learning responsibility to my students. Educational systems and teachers' roles have chance since 1990 (article by Johnson, Pardes and Paine);

- the paragraph " Persuasive Communication as a Means of Altering Learner Beliefs and Attitudes" does not completely meet with my teaching experience! Persuasing Communication is not enough to change lerner beliefs and attidtudes, giving learners motivating tasks with high persentage of feasibility to provide a chance for learners to succeed in projects and  tasks helps to stay motivated and there has to be a teacher who will adapt resources, materials, and methods to the learners' needs and even abandon all this if need be. In short:  Learner autonomy means becoming aware of and identifying, one's strategies, needs, and goals as a learner, and having the opportunity to discover and experience new approaches and procedures for optimal learning.

In Samuel P-H Sheu's article there was mentioned that,  "....administrators or selection committee in schools to be aware of the necessity of learning autonomy as one of the criteria since they have no concept of it nor even any introduction available. Perhaps this is because they do not want their authority to be challenged, or the input that teachers might have is discouraged. This suggests that administrator autonomy may have a part to play in developing learner autonomy,...."
Here I have to add that some teachers, who have been teaching for many years rather fear the preparatory changes, challenging lesson planning and timeconsuming workload. Once I suggested to let the learners decide on the class topic for more motivation and participation in project work, and I was just answered, that the teacher doesn't want to change his copy-hand out system, which he had practised for many years. The teacher was afraid of new topics, the learner could suggest, which would also require a learning process for the teacher as well. Autonomy is both, self-directed learning process for students and teachers!

One Computer Classroom

link with many practical and useful ideas for using ONE computer in class: http://www.lburkhart.com/elem/strat.htm
http://www.seirtec.org/present/onecomptr.html

Due to the fact that I neither have Internet in class nor a PC, my reality is a "NON Computer Classroom" instead of an "One Computer Classroom"

Well, I could bring my own PC/Laptop to class, but still there is no Internet.

- possibilities for students with computer technologie - NO Internet:
  * Dokumentation
  * Information
  * Examination
  * Practice
students would have to bring a flash drive and do tasks, activities, exercises, online search at home, but still cannot complete classwork properly, due to badly-equipped situation in class; students wait too long until it is their turn to work with the PC;  


- possibilities for students with computer technologie - WITH Internet:
  * Dokumentation
  * Kommunikation
  * Collaboration (peers, team)
  * Information
  * Examination
  * Practice
students would have more possibilities of web-resources and online information but still one PC would be engaged all the time, so others had to wait too long = less productive, here they would also have to bring their pen-drive and finish/do/collaborate most of the work at home;


- possibilities for teachers with computer technologie - with or 
  without Internet:
  * Dokumentation
  * Evaluation
  * Practice
  * Demonstration
  * Presentation
  * Preparation
  * Examination
  * Information
of course, teachers would profit most from PC and Internet in class, if there is just one computer;


In the beginning I always focused on computer labs and that I would need one PC for at least each peer or each individual person, but when I started questioning the classroom szenario, which I am used to (no PC, no Internet) and listing up the possibilities with just one PC, I was surprised, that even one PC without Internet, can enrich classwork enormously!
Online spread of documents, information, presentation,... after class from home via Internet!



Using PC for audio, video, graphics, interactions and enhancing learning competition is great fun. Due to the fact that I do not have PCs and Internet, I have to work online with interested students after school from home. 

I somehow bridge the gap between web-technology enhanced learning from home (students and myself) with NON-web-technology learning in school by putting data onto students' flash drive. This allows students to present their ppts to the class.





Wallwisher
This tool I liked best of this week's curriculum. As it is a very handy, useful and playful tool to comment, come up with ideas, do a quick poll or trend indicator among students concerning specific topics or problems. Before using it, I think, I would have to set rules that only short posts and comments are allowed, otherwise it gets too message-crammed, unclear and confusing.
Writing short notes only would help being a little more organized with wallwisher.

Suggestions for use in class:
- as quick poll or trend indicator;
- summarizing problems concerning specific topics and discussing one by one post, after 
  discussion/problem solving delete post by post until wall is empty = overview/forum
- brainstorming vocabulary as a warm up;
- doing grammar exercises as a quick recap or comprehension check;
- collecting interesting links/videos/articles concerning specific topics
- collecting links for online tools
- collecting links for students' blogs, online ppts, students' online CVs with pictures which
   makes links easier to remember and match/allocate;
- giving homework and collecting project results

- platform where students can collect ideas for topics, presentations = planning of lesson content for teachers and learners, also teacher gets a picture about learners' interests = hidden analyse!
- analysing platform before course start, to find out about likes & dislikes, expectations, needs,...;
- split in peer groups by rearranging students next to each other in columns (each wallwisher post could display Name + link for online CV or link for blog or email address or small pict = pictures help remember names more easily;
- scheduling tool, find best time, when most students are available for doing peer work;
- and many more.........!

I am sure, all these ideas are very learner autonomy enhancing! It's a platform for learners to meet, discuss, decide, brainstorm, inform, visualize, teach, ask, collaborate, exchange, work, think, advise, teach, learn, read, write, or just be passive = really autonomic and self-governing!

Mainly, I would use it as an interactive web tool that helps to collaborate, visualize, structure, guide and mind-map.

                         

Week 6 - reflections

Week 6 started with interactive issues for large classes. One of the first articles, especially about rubrics and its introduction to large classes and still manageable assessment work and tight timetable, I came across an eye-opening comment:

The rubric becomes a kind of contract between the teacher and the learners, so that learners know that if they do the things associated with "excellent" in the rubric, they will get an "excellent" mark. Students are more motivated, and assessment is easier. Students must get the rubrics when they begin the task.

I realised that I had completely misunderstood the function of rubrics, as I was taught in my teacher education and used to it for assessment after the students had handed in their work. Actually students should be introduced to this guideline before project start due to motivation and common agreement between teacher and learner! This point forces me to change some of my teaching techniques. 

Furthermore were the articles informative about various technological tools and facilities for responding in big/crowded classes and many useful links for teaching. I just want to point out, what impressed me the most:

- clickers (personal response system)

            immediate response, motivation for shy  students, check whether info    

            has been understood, improves response manageability of big classes

-blackboard (free online class management system)

https://www.coursesites.com/webapps/Bb-sites-course-creation-BBLEARN/pages/learn.html

                  I registered at a collaboration, which I think, does fit very well for my

            classes for after-lesson-study, extra material, homework,  

            collaboration,....

https://brigittefalkner.coursesites.com/

            especially the immediate test, score & result system that motivates 

            and engages learners faster,  also clear info what was misunderstood

            and students would immediately try again to succeed. = more

            frequent assessment

I liked the idea of priming (sending emails before the discussion to find out about good points or where to start the discusseion and also referring to students' good points during the discussion, which was made ahead via email, which motivates students for discussing and lecturing in front of class.

Discussion board:

I do agree with what was mentioned in the article about discussion boards, that most of learning happens in a student-centered class. Many tools, especially interactive tools enhance interaction and student-centered learning among students, which is the most enriching learning szenario. Personally I think the the time-management is the most difficult challenge of providing students with information  + technology + discussio topics + assessment in a timely manner.

           

           

How to teach large classes

We can generate some interest by bringing demonstrations to class to gain the audience' attention by creating smaller interactive groups. Powerpoint presentations + introducing well prepared questions, prereading ahead homework and the classroom setting with small group discussions, problem based learning and experimental learning would keep many students busy and manageable

Due to the fact, that I don't have internet, beamer or interactive whiteboard in class, I would not demonstrate a powerpoint, I would rather focus on reading & summarizing with articles, magazines, journals, Internet,.... A topic given that covers the momentous course issue would have to be summarized by group members and take turns choosing and summarizing

reading & summarizing

choosing and summarizing an article from the media (newspapers, newsmagazines, science magazines, journals, or the Internet) dealing with a topic covered by the course. 

Group members take turns choosing and summarizing the weekly article on behalf of their group. Personally I think this learning process is beneficial to students in many ways: 

- It encourages literacy about current events in the field among everyone present, including the instructor; 

- improves student reading and analytical and comprehension skills by requiring students to summarize two-to-three page articles in about half a page; 

- improves students' confidence in their oral and written communication skills while also enhancing those skills;

- helps keep students engaged;

Collection of useful links worth exploring:

Concerning PowerPoint in class:

(referring to Stanford Professor Liberates Large Lectures:

Economics Professor Timothy Bresnahan gave his first teaching tip at the start of his talk, "Large Classes: "This is my first trick for you," "You want your students to be active; you've got to be a little passive."

Bresnahan said one way he practices passivity in his statistics class is to simply "shut up" after giving students a fun problem 

Further I would like to add an interesting thought by "Enhancing big lecture classes"  By Rick Finnan and Donna Shaw

- collaboration among many strategies is the most effective one

Powerpoints should be:

(personal check-list)

-short - clear - simple - not overloaded with information

-watch the time

-I would not use ppt in traditional class due to NO beamer, but I love using it in live online classes embedded in video conferencing solutions such as

- blackboardcollaboration.com (former Elluminate)

- digitalsamba.com

- google pages

- vyew.com

-spreed.com

Reading: interactive lessons in large classes

brilliant resources for teaching ideas

http://www.thiagi.com/interactive-lectures.html

     

In my opinion, summarizing main points of presentation and discussing it is the most productive and effective way for students.

http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/interactive/typesoftechniqu.html

Interactive lecture techniques such as role play seems to be a typically traditional classroom activity but in the virtual world of the more advanced web tool "Second Life" role play becomes even more an effective way of teaching to a bigger audience. From pair work to a big group - reading, speaking, video, audio - everything is possible!

Brilliant video - a must watch!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQra4baNwP8&noredirect=1

What did I learn overall?

I am used to working with power point and was happy to get the chance to create 2 ppts with lots of different interactive tools (links, videos, writing, whiteboard, listening, gap fill, listing activity, links for reading,....) then I asked volunteer students to act as guinea pigs and find out, where I would have to improve my ppt lessons. 

Due to the fact that I neither have an intereactive whiteboard, simple whiteboard, beamer nor internet connection in class, I had to demonstrate this in an online class with video conferencing technology. I used Digital Samba (1 teacher, 2 students)

The result was rather disappointing. I had to realize that I had prepared 
"too long lessons = too many slides"
"too many different tools and pictures"
"too much information on one slide"
"not flexible enough - too stiff"

As conclusion, I have to set rules for myself to not forget to 
keep the power point  lesson 
                                   clear & simple & short!

Looking at too many slides for more than 1 hour without any physical interaction is much too long, even they are adult learners, too many different tools and pictures and too many complex activities rather stress the student than help to understand and learn. Too much information on one slide lowers concentration phase and the structure, e.g. follow up of slides, should be considered a bit more flexible. In case of lack of time, it would be better to skip one or two slides, which are not essential, so that students have time to work towards an end, which should avoid a sudden stop in the middle of a slide.

Now I feel for a new start to redo my 2 powerpoints, but this time I just keep focused on one - clear & simple & short!

Week 5 - reflections

This time I start my reflections on week 5 before I comment on Nicenet.

Mid week I had a look at the articles and additional material "project based learning" and "assessment".
http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/assessing/alternative.htm
http://rubistar.4teachers.org/
http://www.ncsall.net/?id=385
http://susangaer.com/studentprojects/

The articles were extremely interesting and somehow eye-opening. After I had read the articles I felt quite clear about the problems we face in our country with competitive international exams. Lerners' results do not climb over mediocrity or stay even lower. Still assessment in Austria emphasises ONLY on the learners' weaknesses instead of their strenths, what a sad waste of potential!

Teachers also complain about work, work, work and exhausting teaching szenarios in classes but when I read the lines "project based learning provides less teaching and more leaning" whereas the teacher centered learning szenario is  too stiff and too book-oriented. Of course this teacher centered teaching style means too much teaching and too less learning in relation to the teaching-learning balance, in other words the autonomous learning process is missing and underdeveloped in class-project-work.

The video link (which is a briliant video, a must see) http://www.edutopia.org/stw-project-based-learning-best-practices-new-tech-video made me reflect my teaching style:
- Firstly I was proud that I do use a lot of off-line project-based-learning elements in my class, but still would have to improve, unfortunately world wide web hasn't been used in class yet due to off-line situation.
- Secondly when I watched the link a second time, I felt a strong need for internet and computers in class, unfortunately the comission decided to not invest money into internet connection and computer lab, not even one pc in class for the next two years. So I would have to put up with the current situation in my classes at the local adult education centres for another two more years.
- Thirdly, I do think there is only one chance to motivate my learners to work intensively at home. Pair work is a bit complicated, due to their distance to each other, because learners drive to class once a week, to meet for language lesson. Forcing students to pick this unique chance to consume very intensive language lessons with gaining web-skills at the same time, would be something outstanding and special at adult education centres in rural areas in Austria at the moment - a pionieering task! Offering traditional language training paired with technology from learners' homes, would enhance more regular and self-governing home-study, giving more autonomy to learners and finally improve their results.

Lots of good material, ideas, teaching guidelines! As I understand webquests, these are useful and material-filled platforms for both, teachers and students.
Webquests:
http://www.zunal.com/
http://www.webquest.org/search/index.php
     

Furthermore Robert suggested some great links:
http://www.wikispaces.com/
https://www.coursesites.com/webapps/Bb-sites-course-creation-BBLEARN/pages/index.html
http://www.emergingedtech.com/2011/02/what-are-the-best-free-hosted-course-management-systems-on-the-internet/
http://wallwisher.com/
Wonderful sites and tools that provide help in class management, collaboration and assessing as well as mindmapping and brainstorming. Now I am sure, these 10 weeks e-teacher training are much too short to explore enough helpful and inspiring tools for web enhanced teaching as there is still so much unexplored and undiscovered - an unbelievably rich pool of tools and rich week teacher training!

Week 4 - reflections

Reflecting week 4,  in contrast to the three weeks before, it is to say that most useful links for grammar, reading, writing and the best pool of links for English teachers was presented in this week.

I had a very intensive look at most of  by the e-teacher suggested  links  in Robert's wiki and a reading and writing plan for week 4, and I was overwhelmed by so many very useful links which provide precise tools, activities, ready prepared exercises and all sorts of listening and grammar sections, AND all this ready to use!  see one of the links:     http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/

Actually I felt, that I did't know, what to start with!      

Adding all the links to delicious would have been a nice idea, but I do not have Internet access in class, not even a computer lab, so if I want to pass on good links to the learners for self-study at home, I'd better use an offline data base, which would be "excel", to collect and list up, sorted by categories and send out emails with links as soon as I am at home connected to the web.

All those wonderful tools would work brilliantly in class, but I have to plan my lessons at adult education centres without internet in class and facilitate all learners with links information and description for their interactive learning-at-home activity. I have already realized in my live online classes (which I cannot teach at adult education centres), that precise lesson planning is the basic of a successful learning szenario due to the articles about using CALL.

The google list at Robert's wiki is a brilliant idea. Everyone can add useful links and share sites, tools and platforms that help with succeeding in teaching English to younger and more mature learners. A great thanks to Robert and all the participants who are cooperative and share their teaching material and resources with others.

My most favourite links for this week were
http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zHHAwnOBsyfDKQnZbC8OdoBXGbKjtPn6T-xaNXPvhuY/edit

http://www.englishstudydirect.com/OSAC/medianews.htm

http://www.thebigproject.co.uk/news/#.UQwPTb9dPXY

http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/englanda-k.htm

http://www.wrx.zen.co.uk/britnews.htm

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/comic/

and a funny vocabulary activity :

http://blog.writeathome.com/index.php/2012/10/200-ways-to-say-went/

I think that I feel like my students having ups and downs during this intensive project.

Finally reading many Nicenet discussions of week 4, I commented on Mustafa's Nicenet discussion concerning the role of a teacher and I started reflection on my role as teacher in comparison to the teachers I used to know when I was a young student or teenager. My role is very different.

My roles are like:
- a facilitator (I provide material through links)
- mentor/coach (I open the door for learners to find out about new unknown      fields/issues...)
- guide (I accompany and guide my learners on their way to improve and succeed)
I think this is a lot of responsibility I am very much aware of, indeed.

Brigitte

Week 3 - reflections

Another amazing week has just started: 

www.delicious.com
Useful links like delicious  and similar web tools werde examined and looked at. As I am not new to delicious and some simple links sharing tools, I was still impressed by the vast variety of links for knowledge sharing and collaborating out there. 

http://similsite.com/websites-similar-to/?s=www.diigo.com&ch=5378387101&gclid=CJmY4di9_7QCFUbKtAodLWwALQ
Similar sites to delicious. It's amazing how many are available out there in the net.

www.voicethread.com
If you wish to give your presentation a voice, just choose this one. Looks funny and easy, can be easily handled by pupils and students for presentations as well, or by teachers when introducing a new topic in a lively way.

By the way I tried a new search engine which let me discover similar sites to delicious!!!!
http://similsite.com/about.html
Similsite is an interesting, an easy to use and free search engine, fast and handy but the the listed overview/clear structure would need improving.

Although there are masses of helpful tools, I am still looking for something to store links plus material plus pictures,... on one online platform. All the data should be administrated by an "ACCESS-like program" and all data should be easily linked similar to tags, to rearrange and sort by categories. Today I felt like a web-newbie, although I have been working with web tools for years. This makes me even more curious to dive deeper and deeper into the virtual world. 

Thanks to Robert's wiki with the list for collecting useful links for buillding oral/aural skills, and I also appreciate my classmates work and added suggestions of fantastic material and links. It's worth using it in class and for preparing lessons. 
https://sites.google.com/site/webskillswikiwinter2013robert/suggested-links/oral-aural-skills

Reading some of the eteacher pre-course project papers and looking at classmates blogs and posts is in fact a very timeconsuming task, but due to all eteacher participants' teaching experience, their comments and enriching ideas, I think it is worth spending nights in front of the PC, to get inspired and of course to improve teaching styles and teaching material.

Johanna Zubel's project plan of Spring 2010, she is teacher at Jesuit University in Poland, impressed me most, because the leverl of her learners and the class-mix is in some ways similar to mine. I also liked her detailed instructions and clear project design. In her daily teachings she faces a lot of problems (no internet in class) and extends the communication to an out-of-class activity. And her ideas to solve this problem is very much the same with what I have to put up with.

I do understand her ideas, plans and issues and like her focus on learners' needs throughout her project.

Week 2 - reflections

The second week was even better and more compelling than the first week.

Long lists of search engines, with links I have never heard before giving well structured and easy to find material for teachers, learners, administrators , education mangers,...... It was just wonderful.

It really and truely was a very timeconsuming task to search, read, write, add to blogs comment, but I am sure it was worth spending all the time.

In the beginning I felt a bit confused with the ABCD model, which was new to me. I know quite a few strategies and teaching models that help creating a well prepared lesson plan. They all seem to be a bit similar  to the ABCD-model but each model/strategy had a specific focus. 

Overall I am sure that all have one in common:  a well prepared and balanced lesson that meets learners needs in class. I suppose, the idea is to the ABCD-model as guideline to prepare our final project exercise.




Learning languages is like puzzling, 
each effort we take will complete 
the picture piece by piece slowly!



Now it's time to get some sleep, in order to be fit for week 3!

Week 1 - reflections

In the beginning I was a bit worried about this task. My last blogs, which I had to create, turned out to be a bit complicated and I spent many nights on the PC for getting to know the program and basic functions.

So I rather felt  a little bit unmotivated with 
this task due to my negative experience. That's 
not me on the pictures, but these pictures expressed my experience and feelings that 
came up first.

                                                                                                                                                             After I had had a closer look at Robert's 
blogger instructions, the worries seemed 
to be ungrounded. Thanks to Robert's clear instruction paper, it turned out to be fairly
easy to start a blog with blogger.com!




If I had given this task to my teenage learners without a clear instruction paper, they would have managed after some time, maybe in peer-groups. But! If I had given this task to learners, who are busy at work,  aged between 50 and 65 and no regular PC users, who do struggle with computer, programs and enough time to prepare for English lessons  without any clearly written instructions, they would have felt unmotivated and also would have been overtaxed. The precise instruction guideline step by step gives it a good start and motivates learners, who need it,  to explore and find out more!  



End of week one - summary, 13 Dec 2013

I read almost all the blogs and was overwhelmed by a long list of useful weblinks, ideas, ideas of classroom rules and teaching expertise. I appreciate being a member of such a wonderful and diverse webclass.

I would like to point out interesting issues, that I realized as the most important ones when starting an web skill based language class:
1) clear rules need to be set up and discussed with the learners
2) well prepared and precise instructions for creating a blog
3) positive feedback and permanent technical support in the first week

Nicenet is a very useful, easy to handle and clearly structured discussion platform or lets call it an 'academic chat forum'. Learner don't need to worry about design and the function, it works similar to the explorer on the pc, so I think, learners no matter which age, would scarcely have  any problems to with the use of nicenet.

Before I didn't think about using blogs for teaching as a writing tool in class, I used to search topics and and just passed on the links to the learners for extra reading material,... 
Now I thinks blogging is like writing into an exercise book. By the end of semester one can review the personal development and improvement from the beginning to the end. Blogging documents the language learning progress and its improvements like a web magazine!