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.