As we reach the end of any thing be it a trip, a party, a school year or what ever, we feel that saying goodbye is the expression we hate most no matter how aware we are from the beginning that we are bound to say it. In this course I have one of my best trips in the field of teacher training. I think all my class-mates will have the same opinion. A long time ago Christophe Columbus led some of the most important journeys in human history which led him to discover the Americas. A discovery which altered the whole world as it was known then. My journey through the course is just as important and fruitful.

Ding these ten week I have learnt multitudes  of things all fostering my better teaching practices.I can list them as follows:

• Search engines
• Wiki
• nicenet
• using the blog
• Rubrics
• Webquests
• Tools for educators
• .......

The list is still long which means that we had benefited a lot from each and every activity we did so far.

All I can say to my colleagues and teachers is that I am grateful. Now I know what it means to study online and I also know the bulk of possibilities that online resources can provide me with in a very Short time. In addition, I can create my own teaching material. Surely this will make of me a different teacher.

I wish all the best to all of us.

Ilham

Week nine reflections:

Greetings to all

I feel that we started counting our last hours.

During this week we started our week with a topic of great importance in the field of teaching. Multiple intelligences enable us to value our students as wholes not just in terms of old standards which see intelligence a particular performance. Now we are more aware that our students can progress if we give them the chance to show their attributes. Similarly, considering MIs leads us to accept and benefit from the different learning styles to reshape our teaching strategies to fit these styles. It is high time to abandon the one recipe lesson that applies for all students in all classes .the teacher is bound to be flexible. Surely technology provides the best tools to cater for all the learning styles at once.One more idea in this respect is that we ourselves discover new things about how we prefer to learn and teach.

Our second accomplishment for the week is the final project that we were able to send. It was a very important for me to go through the exrerience of writing and proof reading our colleagues projects.

All the best

Week eight reflections

Dear all,

Like all the weeks in the course, I learn many new things.

To start with, writing the report gave an opportunity to pre-view my practices as a teacher in light of this training. There has been a great deal of information to be processed before the application can take place. I learnt that in trying to implement technology in class I’ve got to take many variables into consideration. One other element I find very important here is that a teacher who plans to integrate technological tools has to be fully aware of all the intricate details that may, if not regarded, hinder his lesson and turn it to nothingness. Furthermore, he has to outline the possible mishaps and tries to find a way out. Writing the report thus really added to my experience.

Secondly, I learnt a lot about the tools suggested for this week. We have discussed learner autonomy in previous discussions. These tools exemplify how a teacher himself should develop and use his autonomy in preparing his lessons or activities. Besides the tools suggested give him a break from the monotony he may feel when he uses only one source material. So making fun-activities, tests, flash cards and so on and so forth are all new to me. In fact I am still trying to figure out all the intricacies of hot potatoes, even if I have heard of it a long time ago but had never tried it.

Since learning is a process I can’t say I have mastered all the tools fully. I am sure I will learn a lot more about each and every tool. Every trial teaches me and adds to my experience. I feel my lessons have not yet finished. I will carry on learning them after I finish this course.

Concerning the tools for educators, I don’t know why I can’t download my activities. Does anyone have a clue? By the way I have followed the instructions but it doesn’t work.

I also quote Shirish question about ANVILL: how can I use it with a one computer in class.

Regards,

Ilham

Week seven reflections

Greetings to everybody,

This week information load is as important as the preceding ones.

During this week I got to reflect on the meaning of learner autonomy and it implications for both the students and teachers.

At first glance the word autonomy equals independence. Independence from the authority of the teacher who is the leader of the class; the fountain of knowledge to whom all have to pay attention as he starts shedding his knowledge on the passive , empty-headed students. The teacher, on the contrary to the related out dated tradition of teacher role, step.  He starts playing other roles. Rather, he is an assistant. He helps leaners get through their learning process by valuing in them all the positive attributes that make them successful learners. He should train them to adopt useful learning strategies and understand that learning is not restricted to the four walls of the classroom. Notwithstanding, it is a process that can take place where ever. All they have to do is to be alert to what goes on in their surroundings. The first article stresses the importance of these elements in relation to the topic under discussion:

·         Learning strategies

·         Learner attitude and motivation

·         Teacher role in fostering autonomous learning

·         …

Secondly, it goes without saying that the aim of the course is to enable us to integrate technology in their teaching practice. Therefore, the introduction of a task like planning a one computer lesson plan is aiming at the realization of the course goals. Of course the task is meaningful. However, it can’t be done perfectly without having an overview of activities and preparations that a teacher has to do on the class computer before it is integrated in teaching. I find the examples presented very useful. They gave me an insight to how my computer, which is supposed to be used in class, should look like.

As I am doing a plan project, I am trying to write the details of the report. The articles I read were of great help since they touched upon the topic I’ m dealing with. I hope I can finish my draft before the dead-line and my peer-reader too will not find any complication. By the way it is great to a peer reader. We are sometimes unable to spot some our mistakes. So another reader may be more efficient.

Finally, the overall lesson I learnt from this training is patience, especially when connection is too slow.

Cheers to all.

Week 6 discussion

Hello all,

Firstly, this week again I am thrilled by the amount of important information I’ve got to know about teaching large classes mainly because I see teaching crowded classes is not something that all teachers are  eager to do. The ability to keep track of all students and provide them with the necessary help in an hour session is too difficult; I had to spend too much time getting students to write, reading and correcting all their mistakes in class, which means three hours in one lesson. Each student, on the other hand, attends more to his own mistakes. With the use of pre-planned correction, and having students read others’ writings. I think I will be able to go over the writings beforehand and direct my correction session. Students also will be able to interact and discuss their writings.

Secondly, for a long time I felt using power point presentation is not that distinguished. Many slides are being moved. The audience is passive, and at times feels bored. Personally, I used to think that over using power point in class may not be of great help. In teaching the present simple for example, my students and I are used to following the explanation of the lesson step by step on the blackboard. They had to write the examples on their copybooks. That’s why I have never thought of depending on PPT. the second reason maybe that I am not well trained at doing that. I felt there may be some mishaps if I tried some tool I don’t know well.

During this week I have been learning about PPt and experimenting on it.

Like some colleagues, I will not have students to work with them on my project. This means I will write a project plan.

Ilham

Week 6

Oh dear! this is the sixth week. I am trying to keep up with tasks of each week. Meanwhile, I return previous weeks and see other suggestions from other teachers. Today I've seen the webquest suggested by Ida. I like it because it gives an idea about how we can teach basic English to our students, especially because mine are just beginners. It looks motivating.
Thanks to all who are presenting us with new possibilities. 

This week was as amazing as the preceding ones. I learnt a lot about new tools,alternative assessment,and PBL I tried to create my web quest. Something which  I ll complete as soon as could  

Fifth week reflection

Greetings to all,
I said in the beginning of this course that I am going to learn a lot of new
things. That's true. This week I have learnt how to devise a PBL and put alternative assessment tools into practice.  I have also learnt an interesting lesson: Dealing with technology means having a lot of patience, especially when one is not well informed of all the details of the functioning of a computer. True I have been using it ever since I was a university student but because my learning was far from formal training I still have to find out about some minor things that may cause trouble. Today I had to stop working for a while after spending a good amount of time typing my checklist. Of course I didn't want to waste any more time. However,and as I said I am still learning about my PC, I accidentally switched off the mouse. I tried to continue working, but a second touch made impossible to get back to the rubrics templates. After struggling to fix it i just felt it is necessary to turn it off all together, and repeat the whole job from the beginning. While waiting for the computer to reload, I thought it is good to take a look at the booklet. How funny! a double click on the left corner of the mouse could have saved my time. Here again I am thankful to the course it makes learn through discovery.
Best wishes,
Ilham

hello there,
Happy to be back to the blog after a long week with a lot of rich material to read. At the first two days of the week I  could write just few things and read a lot. Right now I have posted my technology enhanced lesson plan. It took me some time to decide on which skill to focus, and also the sites to use. I made it at last.
I may say good morning because it 2 in Morocco.
best wishes to all.
Ilham

Week 4 reflections

Greetings to All

Here we are in our fourth week. I agree with colleagues who say that we hardly feel the length of time we have been studying together. But we are fully aware that we have been learning a lot of interesting stuff.

 As I started reading the article How to Write Integrating Lesson Plan, I felt that the task of writing a technology based lesson plan is not at all easy. All the lessons I used from the net so far were not based on using technology in class. They remained classical, suggesting the use of blackboard, chalk and talk plus handouts. This idea made me read the text again and again to be able to make decisions on the next step.

I started pondering over my ABCD objectives, ways to integrate technology and so on and so forth.

I fathomed I had to read more articles so that I can see clearly how to take each step properly. Thus I read two more articles: How to Develop an Integrated Lesson Plan, The Effects of Integrated Lesson Plan on Students.

What I liked about e-how.com is that I could shift my first article to others following the directing hints at related articles which are being read by other people interested in the same topic. This time and energy saving.

I ended my day thinking of how to start my lesson, bearing in mind that we don’t have neither    PCs nor net connection in class. The only solution I thought about is to ask students to bring their laptops ( a few of them can)or give them some tasks to do outside the class. Then their work out-come can be presented in class.

Dlicious is really delicous

Some months ago I felt upset because I couldn't access the educational links my colleagues in The Morccan Association for Theachers of English (MATE) kept sending on my facebook. At first I didn't have time to check all the sites. I said well let's do it later. But after a while I couldn't. I wondered if it was possible for me to find it again. However, the search, with time limitation was a headache.fortunately, I don't think I am going to experience this feeling of disappointment for loosing my online resources with my Delicious page.

I still have a slight problem. I can not put the bookmarklet  on my PC even if I tried to drag it to my tool bar many times. It didn't work.

Still Learning about blogs

Yesterday I learnt a new thing about my blog.Priviously I tried to go over my colleagues blogs by clicking their names on the class wiiki. I got tired of opening too many windows to start working.Luckily, I noticed the "add blog" I thought it could be of great help to all the blogs on my reading list.So I started adding all your blogs. It took me sometime but I am glad I have done it.

Second week: More to learn about the web

Firstly, when I joined the class I was thinking of its outcome. That is what I will acquire, teaching habits I will develop, and how well I proceed with my work in the course. I thought all this is going to be shown at the end of the course. I was astonished to receive an e-mail from Janine asking to check my grades. I knew I didn’t hand in some tasks on time for some technical reasons. To my surprise I happened to do all the tasks. I was pleased to know  I am on the right truck, which I hope to keep to. I didn’t have enough time to fully explore the site but I believe it just the right tool to be used to evaluate my students performance. This is the second lesson I learnt.

Secondly, I read the word search engines in the task. I felt a bit scared. I know that there are multitudes of them. The most used one is google of course. However I am asked not to use it. I seemed to me that the task is challenging , bearing in mind the limited time I have to do it. I did a search about search engines and was overwhelmed by the number I had to check before I can try one. Fortunately, Janine gave me a good help when she provided a whole list of specialized search engines from which we are to choose. Here I found it easy to check the ones of interest to me, focusing on education/teaching. That made my life easier. I guess “noodles” are my target from now on. Surely, there is other  new information I am going to learn throughout this training.  

First Lesson

dear All,
This is the blog I was trying to make look active. It took me quite a long time make to all the steps correctly, maybe because it is the first blog I ever created. Was this task easy for me? surely not. When I read the task at first I thought it a matter of following some piece of cake guidlines on the documents I could read. However it turned out to be harder not because I could not understand the language but because I had to deal with the computer.That is; the absence of the human side in technology hinders our quick fruitful response to any instruction at first. I understood ,as a reasult, that my students may undergo the same kind of confusion as they start their learning via the web which I have to help them through.This was the lesson I learned from trying to creat my on blog.I think there are other lessons to come and I hope learn them all with you.