Reflections of Week 10-“Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”

  

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

The Best Ways For Students (And Anyone Else!) To Create Online Content Easily, Quickly & Painlessly by Larry Ferlazzo 

 Another find of the week was RubiStar a free tool to help teachers create quality rubrics.

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.

The task-ABCD model for writing Objectives gave a new dimension to my teaching methodology.It has given me new ideas to teach and train my students.

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.

Week 4 was focused on how to use technology to enhance reading, writing, and vocabulary skills. I found Activities for ESL students very useful.I also found very informative article on how to create Technology enhanced Lesson Plan.

Project based Learning(PBL) 

and 

Web Quests were two very good findings of week 5.

I learned how to create interactive power point in week 6.

How to turn a PPT into an interactive video and How to convert a Power Point into a Prezi-Frame:ology helped me a lot to complete my task. 

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.

In week 7 we covered the topics of Learner Autonomy and One computer Class room  .Both these topics are very important for English Language Teachers. I read Learner autonomy: drawing together the threads of self-assessment,  goal-setting and reflection http://up.wallwisher.net/20121112/2c28808faf59a6b8495d7038bcbdae85.pd by David Little,Learner Autonomy:Bird in thehand orBird in the bush by Samual P H Sheu http://coyote.miyazaki-mu.ac.jp/learnerdev/LLE/8.1/sheuE.html

§     What is Learner Autonomy and How Can It Be Fostered?http://iteslj.org/Articles/Thanasoulas-Autonomy.html  by Dimitrios Thanasoulas.

§     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-

§     ESL Activities for the One Computer Classroom (S.Gaer): Word-Processing Ideas:http://www.susangaer.com/sgaer/onecomputer/wordprocessing.html

Internet ideas:http://www.susangaer.com/sgaer/onecomputer/internet.html

§     Strategies and applications for the one-computer classroomhttp://www.lburkhart.com/elem/strat.htm A list of ideas with a US school focus, but most ideas are relevant to any setting.

§     7 Categories for Classroom Computer Use http://www.seirtec.org/present/onecomptr.html

 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.

In week 8 I created a Survey as an assignment," Building Teacher Skills Through the Interactive Web-A Survey" https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArIkbFQUSxtldEFOUjB0Q3FqTzgxZ3hDeFJtRGZLTnc#gid=0

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 :

§     Tools for educators - word search, bingo, crossword puzzles, and board games: http://www.toolsforeducators.com/

§     Lanternfish - flash cards, bingo games, matching, multiple choice exercises to print out: http://bogglesworldesl.com/

§     Easy Test Maker (paper tests):http://www.easytestmaker.com/default.aspx

§     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. 

§      Some interesting exercises at http://eolf.univ-fcomte.fr/index.php?page=technically-interesting-hot-potatoes-pages

§     Crossword Puzzle Games - Which can create crosswords to save and use on a computer or print out: http://www.crosswordpuzzlegames.com/create.html

§     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'

§     http://clear.msu.edu/teaching/online/mimea/smile/v2/index.php

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:

http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic68.htm 

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:

http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSdir/styles.htm

§     http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-learning-styles-quiz

§     More on learning styles from Richard Felder

http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Learning_Styles.html

§     Using learning styles to adapt technology for higher education:

http://www.indstate.edu/cirt/id/pedagogies/styles/learning.html

§     A longer scholarly article that also compares different learning style inventories: Student Learning Styles and Their Implications for Teaching (PDF)

http://www.crlt.umich.edu/sites/default/files/resource_files/CRLT_no10.pdf

§     Sailing the 5 C's with Learning Strategies: 

http://www.nclrc.org/sailing/

§     A general article from the New York Times looking at recent research on study habits and learning styles

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?_r=3&ref=benedict_carey

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