week 9 - reflections

In week 9 we switched back on a theoretical input - Howard Gardener's Multiple Intelligences concerning learning styles. I am very familiar with this issue, but it was good to revise it and take a further look at my project report and correct it critically with the multiple intelligence issue in mind.

With a chart list of each intelligence I questioned my activities and did some changes and adjustments, which suddenly seemed necessary in the means of a motivatind, effective and active learning situation. 

As I learnt from my English students, that the quantity of used web tools is unimportant, the learning activity, that meets students' learning styles best, should be much more focussed on. I was too much worring about the technology, which should actually just be  a helpful tool and not the issue itself. 

I also learnt that it is important to foster learning content and design lessons, that can be easily stretched out, in case students need more time and more practice. To make it clear and simple, I have to keep learners busy throughout the training with motivating tasks and invite learners to design and plan lessons the way they would like it as well, so I can find out about activities they prefer, enjoy and especiall their learning style. 

Actually I had planned to introduce ANVILL to my voluntary students (= guineapigs to practice my first web tool training) , which they suddenly refused to sign up. I reflected on this to find out the problem and I am sure I taught too many tools within a short time. Adult learners don't like to register averywhere. They think about the consequences and do hate spamming and unpleasant email, adverts, pop ups........
Unfortunatel they said, that all the technology was a bit too much in such a short time, which I think they were right. I didn't leave enough time to foster English content and allow time to get familiar with specific technology tools in a playful way.

If I had introduced ANVILL in the beginning, I am sure this would have been better, because they would have learnt to work with the advantages of a learning management system from the very beginning and would be working with it passionately now.

Now, I would leave a bit of time to work creatively with what learners already know and after some week, I would invite my students to do a poll about expectations in class, ideas to look at and if they feel ready for new tools and platforms or if they would have any other language expectations and need.

This survey can be done by www.kwiksurveys.com, a free and easy to create web tool for surveys. The survey link is easily embedded into the homepage/site/learning platform. 

http://kwiksurveys.com/s.asp?sid=g3sqxsieq667co4107231 
I enjoyed exploring this web tool.

There is one issue that I really learnt in week 8 and 9. When we had to set up our blog at bloggers, I decided to prepare an empty page for each week, because I love planning ahead. With blogs this turned out to be a bad idea.
An added blog post is listed beyond the latest date and not entry, which I did not think of in the beginning. If I prepare the template for all pages right in the beginning but post it with comments later on, it would not be rearrange and relisted beyond the latest entry, it would just mix up. This is very annoying for me, because my blog entries do not come up in the order I would like to have them and with blogs, this cannot be corrected afterwards anymore, blogs are not as flexible in template design as homepages. I feel very sorry, that my well planned strategie turned out to be a mistake. Now I know it better and will be able to prevent my students from making the same mistake.
Grrrrr!

I also did some changes to my final project in the rubrics and the deadline for students' homework. I think this should be just a guideline to get learners to start work more regularly. Due to some live circumstances, technology,... I will have to be prepared to slight chances, so that learners have the chance to meet goals and do work successfully, which is pure motivation. Not all learners have the same potential, positive learning background and attitude and will to learn studiously. Well, it must be said, that we still have to keep in mind, that we teach humans and no machines.