Week 10- An end for a course and a beginning for using technology to the full

Some experiences in our lives affect us for all, some not at all. This one, taking part in this course,  is part of the former category. These ten weeks are absolutely relevant for my future career since my way of teaching will be defenatly changed.

After I had acknowledged the level I am , respectively level 4a, due to LoTi, I have already a goal in mind so as to step a little further.

These weeks were tremendously full of everything: information about things I thought I knew all about, just to discover even more, webtools which will not be just a spice to add in my lessons, but a part of my teaching. Anvill, WebQuest, Nicenet, Jeopardy game are only some of the names I got acquainted with and then we got to know each other. There were things to be reminded about all the four skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking, about assessment and things to change our perspective. We can now approach everything mentioned with technology in our activity. The context each of us has in his/her country can be changed positively since we were offered so many alternatives( as just one example- how to use only one computer in our lessons). Creating interactive power-points was the best for me since I found out extremely valuable information and I could put it into practice, assisted and guided by our wonderful guide Donna. I feel like grading Donna with 100% for her activity and tell her that I want that her activity influence more and more teachers who come here, in this virtual space with a good level, leave with a better one and depends on them to become the best in using everything they learnt here.

We were busy sometimes, happy when we accomplished the tasks, willing to offer support and advice, sad for not being able to read everything, glad reading our tutur or colleagues’comments and so on. I have experienced a variety of feelings and I have learnt a lot of things, ready to be put into practice when the school year starts.

The course seemed like a constuctive play for teachers, where we learnt a lot and we had fun as well, we  encouraged one another, tried to impress ourselves and the others by what we created, in one word , we had to give the best of us. In my opinion, such courses make us become better, stronger and more motivated in achieving our goals in teaching and even in our lives.

All the best to you all ,

 Laura- Cristiana

WEEK 9- It's Not How Smart You Are, It's How You're Smart!

Dear all,

I confess that since I have seen all the topics of this course, I have hardly waited for week 9 to come. I have been familiarised with the types of intelligencies at different conferences but, as each week I was amazed to find out so many new things, I expected the same to happen during this week. 

And indeed, my expectations were rewarded. First of all, referring to the classification,  to the seven types of intelligencies I knew about, I found out that I can add others , namely the naturalist and the existentialist intelligences as Gardner proposes. The last one mentioned here is  called by others the spiritual/religious intelligence. 

The types of intelligencies are of utmost importance for teachers, it is as if they have all the necessary data so as to be able to accomplish the best of their activity. The teachers, especially the form teachers should apply tests at the very beginning of the school year in which to see what type of intelligence his/ her students have and also to make them know this. Thus the students would be helped because they will learn what are the best methods to be used by themselves so as to acquire the necessary knowledge. On the othe hand, teachers will be able to use the information when they prepare for their lessons, taking into consideration these aspects. A teacher can’t address within the same class to all types of intelligencies but he/she can be able to do it within a unit. School in our country still insists just on the verbal-linguistic and logical-mathematical types of intelligencies since the results here seem to be more palpable. But we, the foreign English teachers have wonderful opportunities to use all the types in our lessons, I repeat, not all at once, but whenever appropriate in our lessons. 

What is more, technology can help us in doing this with great success as I found out by reading the article ”Do Technology Based Lessons Meet the Needs of Student Learning Styles?”, on the site, http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/edtec596r/students/Rosen/Rosen.html#ls. We, the teachers, need to do our best so as to meet the needs of our students by providing a variety of lessons using various teaching methods. And since technology and computers easily combine various media formats, they can provide a variety of different learning opportunities and address to various learning styles. Using technology, I personally can provide my students’ types of intelligencies lots of activities to be used both in classrooms and at home.

All people learn in different ways, and we need to take that into account when designing our lessons. There is not one teaching method that will work for all learners. Since all learners are different, we must provide a variety of teaching methods to better match the variety of learning styles that students bring to the classroom. In this way, frustrating situations for both teachers and students will be easily avoided. Teachers will not be frustrated with low test scores, unresponsive or hostile classes, poor attendance and drop outs , while students will be able to understand what they are taught.

Last, but not least, we had to post our final project. It is great to be able to apply almost everything we have learnt during the past weeks in a final product. I have used the ideas my colleagues , Celeste and Natalya oferred me and I hope that this project is better written than the previous one. Still, ideas keep coming into my mind in order to improve it. I am looking forward to Donna’s feed-back. We still have one week to share our thoughts and feelings, so let’s enjoy ourselves!

WEEK 8- New web tools at everybody 's disposal

Time is running pretty fast. For so many things we were presented this week, it would have been wonderful to have more time. After so much theory, this week we had to experiment, to create, to choose materials for our students taking into consideration age  and psychlogical particularities. Whether experimenting with HotPotatoes, EasyTestMaker, Crossword Puzzl Games or Word Search Maker, we understood that they, among others are great opportunities to make our lessons more dynamic and attractive. We have to choose from the offered variety, so as to use them at their best value in our lessons. The tool I have created for my students was a blog which will offer them the possibility to post comments on it, to create their own blogs and post their reflections there. Its URL is http://learningenglishxie.blogspot.com/2011/08/welcome-you-all.html. This tool represents a step towards their increasing autonomy.

Another tool we have found out a lot of information was Anvill. It is  a tool for all the teachers and students who have a web access and by using it we can do a variety of activities from: listening to the news, watching video clips, to submitting voice or video-based assignments. ”ANVILL is quite flexible, and permits the kind of extra listening and speaking practice that language students need so much” as I read on https://anvill.uoregon.edu/anvill2/.

Another thing I found very useful is the fact that it's easy for a teacher to create and assess speech-based tasks, either synchronously using ANVILL's built in audio-video chat tool, or asynchronously, using ANVILL tools for recording voice or video. There are so many things you can do using Annvill, but though, you need a lot of time in order to get familiarised with all its tools.

Last but not least, we had to read our partners’ projects and comment upon them. It was a great experience not only because we could compare, analyse and express our opinions, but because after all this we could improve our own projects. My two colleagues, Celeste and Natalya gave me very insightful comments and I can in this way make some changes so to make a better final project. This cooperative work is really helpful since you see other perspeectives and in my case, very good ideas.

Good luck to everybody in writing wonderful projects!

Week 7- WE REALLY THRIVE AND STILL SURVIVE

At the beginning of each week I wonder what other interesting articles on the  topics presented we are going to deal with. And the surprises never stop to appear, since we find out new and interesting things or just clarify others.

This week’s articles ,”What Is Learner Autonomy and How Can It Be Fostered?”by Dimitrios Thanasoulas and ”Learner Autonomy: Bird-in-the-hand or Bird-in-the-bush?” by Samuel Sheu,presented the topic of autonomous learners which society nowadays seems to promote more and more almost everywhere. Teachers encourage the aspect of learner autonomy by helping learners to assume greater control over their own learning. The student –centred system, which seems to flourish, will insist on the fact that the autonomous learner is an active agent of his own learning process.To become autonomous means to follow a path, you don’t have to concentrate just on the end of it where you find the person who is able to use the language in the best way possible. Students should  be guided by a teacher,but they  have to undersatand that much depends on themselves.

Becoming or not an autonomous learner depends a lot on the attitude students have and also on the motivation, whether they have an external one, insisting on what is concrete and what immediate advantages they may take,  or internal which energises the whole personality to acquire the foreign language no matter what efforts have to be done. Learner autonomy is best achieved when, among other things, the teacher acts as a facilitator of learning, a counsellor, and as a resource (Voller).

First and foremost, teachers have to help students understand what an autonomous learner is. In order to become one, they have to actively involve thermselves in a process and take some risks- a process very much alike with life itself.

The article”How to Thrive - Not Just Survive - in a One-Computer Classroom”  has a very relevant title since with just one modern thing we can open endless possibilities to our students. The computer may here be compared with an open window which stirs both the teacher’s imagination concerning how to use it the most effectively and the students’ as well to accomplish the tasks in the best way possible. A  strategy which I consider very effective is to create "stations" or multiple activities, using the computer as only one of the tools necessary to complete assignments. But everybody should consider that in a one-computer classroom, it is imperative to plan carefully everything and be extremely organized.

Both on the former thread of discussion and on the latter one we were asked to think at possible solutions and activities to be implemented in the given context , thing which I really appreciate since it makes us connect theory with practice, information with real life. If we look at the previous weeks we can see that we really are autonomous teachers and that one computer in the classroom makes us thrive, usually in a context where we are let just survive.