Week 7: Real Partnership starts & more!

During this week lots of ideas have sprung from the discussions and from the readings. I was very surprised when I saw how my e-classmates’ experiences vary and enlighten many issues related to the classroom practice. Similarities and difference to our own teaching situation make us reflect more on the different aspects of in order to improve.   

Learner autonomy:

This topic really touches every teacher and it’s the ultimate goal behind his/her mission. If we succeed to make of our students autonomous learners then we can be proud of our teaching.

 We shouldn’t spoon feed our students for the exam at all. We have to equip them with skills for life.   

One computer classroom:

Before this week, I was somehow frustrated not having a computer lab at school and having only my laptop. Now, through the discussions, I’ve noticed that most of my e-classmates from different parts of the world have almost the save situation. More than that, they even have shared some interesting activities and lesson plans to do only with a single computer in the classroom. This comforted me a lot and encouraged me to create more activities to use for the coming lessons.

My project log:

This is the second week since I introduced the e-portfolio project to my students. They liked the idea very much and started preparing for the hardships of the journey!

Last week, I’ve done a short demonstration on how to create an account on weebley.com and let some students start their accounts with an introduction. I also asked the rest of the class to do the task at home in order to have every student with an account this week.

The result was really encouraging; 15 students out of 18 managed to create their accounts and uploaded their welcome word and their introduction. This link is an example:

http://agamod.weebly.com/

Sylvia is my partner for the project review and I’m glad we have almost the same teaching situation. Her Skype project is also interesting for me. I hope we’ll share the best practices we’ve got and we'll start a real partnership.

Good Luck Everybody!

Week 6: More Interaction!

             This week was hectic for me trying to manage doing everything in one time!

 I started reading about all the topics of the week; engaging students, teaching large classes, interactive ppt…Then I went applying the techniques of an interactive ppt for the first time! I used the hyperlinks, audio and pictures in different attempts.

It was time consuming but an interesting job! 

              Using technology tools to create students-centered classes is the best way to deal with large classes. We can use the four skills websites, interactive CDs, interactive ppt… Very simple technology can make a big difference. Few years ago, I used to bring an ipod and small speakers to the classroom. This created a huge difference especially when I teach in a remote area. Now, with all the technology at hand one can even be more creative.

               In our Moroccan context, large classes are one of the big problems that the EFL teachers suffer from. It needs action research, professional development and resourceful schools. Also, teacher initiatives can do a lot based the facilities of the web.

              

               For my project, I started last week with a demonstration of how to create an account on Weebly and how to post information for a digital portfolio. I received emails from most of the students telling me that they did the first steps and still working on the rest. I hope next week will be more fruitful!    

    

         I wish you all a nice weekend!

Week 5: Project Based Learning, Alternative Assessment, Rubrics & WebQuests

-During this week, I investigated very important topics related to the teaching of EFL thanks to this web-skills course. One of the main topics is the use of PBL in the EFL classroom. It was an interesting opportunity to rethink about how I use this PBL with my students. I used to assign projects the traditional way. But now I start introducing online tools and electronic content to help my students come up with interesting projects and teach them some new skill that they will need in their real life.

I also had a chance to explore some Alternative Assessment techniques and pickup one of them (Student e-portfolio)   to develop it as a project. At this very moment my students are busy trying to create their spaces on Weebly.com and getting the content from their binders to have an e-portfolio. I even did a demo session with them this morning and they liked very much!  

-Concerning Rubrics, I used to introduce some success criteria to my students but they were not as clear as the ones I created this week using Rubistar.  In this way students know in advance where they are heading to and it will certainly make a difference for them.

-WebQuests give a new dimension to learning and teaching. Students feel very comfortable following the materials created by the teacher. They try their best to do the tasks and meet the requirements.

As a whole, Technology facilitates life but it needs solid orientation and constant reflection!

Enjoy your weekend! 

Week 4: A professional grouth!

Despite all the difficulties like time pressure and low connection…, this week was very fruitful for me!

Through nicenet discussions I found lots of very useful website and ways to use them(ABCD objectives).

Now I have a list of excellent sites, some of them bookmarked on my delicious page!

What I liked most about this week’s assignments was the lesson plan because I had to precise:

What is the objective of the lesson?

How to achieve it?

How to check the results?

What technology to use?

What’s the alternative plan if things didn’t go well?

The variety of the websites shared by my generous colleagues here make life easier for EFL/ESL teachers around the globe.

The project task for this week spots the main problems we face in our classrooms with our students and by sharing those problems, we'll find out ways to solve them using technology.

My objective of joining this course is to grow professionally. So, week after week, Ifeel the improvement .That's just wonderful!

Week 3

Congratulations all of you!

It was such a delicious and fruitful week spent together!

I would like to thank all my colleagues in this valuable course for their generosity and help. This week I’ve learnt a lot of things through creating a delicious page, bookmarking, searching about aural/oral skills and reading projects of previous participants, but especially from your posts and ideas.  

             Before this week, I knew nothing about most of the interesting sites you introduced to the group mainly delicious.com. I used to bookmark my favorite sites the old way saving them on a word document or sending them to my email box.

 Now I am happy with the new skills I acquired. I learned how to use delicious.com effectively and I started sharing it with my students and colleagues around.

         Concerning the websites for EFL teachers, I’ve learned some bits through my ELT community here in Agadir that initiated some training about this topic before especially within the Pedagogical Research Unit (PRU), which I am part of. I am also very grateful to the people in my webskills class for sharing the best ideas, websites and classroom practices they’ve got. It was a great opportunity to learn more about the best ways to teach aural/oral skills through the web.

Finally, I’ve looked through some previous participants’ projects and found out some similarities with my classroom situation, my students needs and my action research focus. I came across some problems that were raised in my classroom and went through the solutions the participants tried.   

To sum up, this week was a trigger for me to start working on the following steps of my project and an occasion to discover more my instructors' & colleagues’ virtues!