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.
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.
Hi Brigette! Indeed, you have identified and clearly articulated a focused problem. This is exactly the kind of issue that works well for our final project. It is never too early to start brainstorming and working on the project. We will go through in steps, but if you are ready to move along you can. -Robert
ReplyDeleteHi Robert! Thanks for the helpful feedback.
ReplyDeleteBrigitte
Hi Brigitte,
ReplyDeleteI like the way you have organized your blog. Regarding the problems of the students, it seems like we have totally opposite situations that your students don't have but our students need to face various problems even the problem of electricity for 12 hours a day.
Regards
Mandi
Hi Brigitte,
ReplyDeletereally I also like walwisher/padlet very much!It was new for me and I made another one for my classes.I think in future I can use it in my teaching widely.
See you,
Peri