I have a mixed feeling of happiness tinged with sadness while writing this blog.I feel happy because there is a sense of satisfaction for accomplishing the goal but I feel sad to leave this vibrant group and our instructor Courtney,and realizing that ten weeks of learning curve will not move in the same direction and settle down for some time .Dr.Seuss wrote these lines most probably for a similar occasion:
“Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”
― Dr. Seuss
Every journey has a destination.We have reached to our destination.It was a virtual journey where we sailed together for the same destinations from different corners of the world.It is a milestone in our professional careers.
Now we will move in different directions but equipped with knowledge and skills as defined in The Levels of Teaching Innovation (LoTi) Framework as the effective use of digital tools and resources to promote higher order thinking, engaged student learning, and authentic assessment practices in the classroom--all vital characteristics of 21st Century teaching and learning.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
― Winston Churchill
Yes . This is also not final.Completing this course
has filled my heart with more courage to face the challenges of the web world
as an ELT professional.
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard
Now I am looking backwards to understand and give
my reflections on the topics which were
most successful and most useful for me.
In week 1
my achievement was creating my own blog.
In
my Reflections I wrote,
"This is my first experience of creating a
blog.Due to some reasons I could not give my reflections earlier.It is a unique
experience to share your learning on a blog which is a very
interactive platform.
This course provides us an opportunity to see this
activity as a learners point of view where we can follow these good practices
with our students with required modifications."
One article which I liked very much was
In week 2 the find was Noodle
Tools which made Web Searching very
interesting.All of us reviewed different search engines and analyzed them
in terms of use in their own classes and shared their advantages and disadvantages
with recommendation about the search engine.I was amazed to see such a
wonderful way of searching the web.
Week 3 started
with the task of creating own page on delicious.com and save at least 3
bookmarks. It was a new experience for me.It helped me to bookmark
and organize my web search.The best thing about delicious is that you
get benefit of Group search and sharing.
In
the task related to"Aural/Oral Skill Building I read the article of Julia
Gong on The Employment of
CALL in Teaching Second/Foreign Language Speaking Skills and another on
Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials by Lindsay Miller.
Three
stages listening suggested by Miller of pre listening task, While-Listening
Task and Post-Listening Task are very appropriate.
and
I learned how
to create interactive power point in week 6.
Prezi was
certainly the find of the week for me.
Jeopardy was also a good learning experience but I
could not use it because of the paucity of time.I have planned to use
it in my class with more practice.
§ All these articles covered different
aspects of learner autonomy.I strongly feel that language learning can not take
place unless learning is autonomous.
We in India
usually have one Computer Classroom I used computer for showing PPT,Video and
pronunciation but now I can think of using it in many other ways after
reading these articles on One Computer Classroom-
In week 7 Nicenet did not work properly.This happens in classroom teaching
also.Technology is very supportive and helpful when it is working.The learning
was that we should always have a back up plan.
I also
created a class on Nicenet by the name of Winners.My students
can join this class by using this link- http://www.nicenet.org
Students can
follow this link and create a new account by using a unique user name and
password.This class creation reminded me of my opening a new account of Nicenet
for this course.
We got a lot of resources to make exercises
online :
§ Hot Potatoes - http://hotpot.uvic.ca/ It's
easy to use and lets you create matching, cloze, scrambled sentence, and
multiple choice exercises and crossword puzzles.
§ Web Poster Wizard - free website for
teachers and students to use as part of a course. It uses a very plain format,
but it's very easy to create something with text, one graphic, and links on
each of 4 pages:http://wizard.4teachers.org/
§ SMILE- a variety of web-based activity
generators. Requires a free registration. Click on "I am a new user"
on the opening page in order to register. The applications here are quite
interesting, but they take more time to learn to do'
I opened all
these links which was difficult for me to handle in one go but I used Hot
Potatoes and Google docs to make online surveys.I will revisit these
resources again to make their best use.I will have to revisit these web pages
again to find out their relevence.
But the
best resource and the find of the week was ANVILL which
stands forA National Virtual Language Lab.It's a modern web-‐based replacement for the old
language lab with new features useful for giving learner autonomy.It replaces
old language lab in a true sense.The best thing is that it can be accessed from
any where.With the tools like Voiceboards,TCasts (teacher
broadcasting),Livechat,Forums,Quizzes and Surveys,Practice Recorder ,Lesson
Planning &
Course
Management it covers most of the aspects of a good virtual language lab.
I liked the
feature in which a teacher who registers for ANVILL, gets the ability to create
courses (and the tools do so).As per the information provided," A course
consists of lessons, voiceboards, etc. Teachers add their own students to
courses. Once added students can see class lessons, links, and files. They can
also make forum posts, use the voiceboard, livechat, etc."
If we as a
teacher can not create an interesting interactive virtual class after having
facility like ANVILL,there is no one else to blame.
It is full of
possibilities which can be explored with careful detailed planning.
In week 9 once
again we had a great collection of material for our Discussion topics of
Learning Styles/Multiple Intelligences
.All these
reference materials helped me to develop my viewpoint on the topics of Learning
Styles?Multiple Intelligence.I went through all of them.I found some of
them very detailed .Here they are for further reference:
§ Tech tools that support multiple Intelligences:
Understanding different learning styles is an
important part of effective teaching, with and without technology.
§ While there are a number of different
ways of exploring learning styles, this article from Richard Felder explores
the impact of different learning styles on classroom performance:
§ More on learning styles from Richard
Felder
§ Using learning styles to adapt technology
for higher education:
§ A longer scholarly article that also
compares different learning style inventories: Student Learning Styles and
Their Implications for Teaching (PDF)
§ Sailing the 5 C's with Learning
Strategies:
§ A general article from the New York
Times looking at recent research on study habits and learning styles
I have
mentioned those topics and technology tools where I have gained some ground.I
am unable to comment about the irrelevance of these topics without
revisiting them after the course.We can use them at any later point when the
requirement is there.In this information age we lag behind if we are uninformed.It
is important to manage the information at your hand as per the needs of the
learners.When I compare my own self before and after this course I find a stark
difference.I must appreciate the concept of peer reviewing of Final Project where we learned and helped each other.
This course was
a great collaborative learning experience for me.
I would like to
thank Courtney and other course moderators for developing us as professionals.Thanks again for transforming us.
My special thanks for all my course mates.Please keep in touch and share your new learning experiences.
A thanks giving
is customary but I am really overwhelmed. I would like to express my feelings
in the words of J.A.Shedd -
“He who thanks
but with the lips
Thanks but in part;
The full, the true Thanksgiving
Comes from the heart.”
Best wishes for 2013.
Regards
Raj
