Week 9 Reflection

Learning new skills and reflecting what we have learned makes one feel so good. Now it is almost time we shut down this habit we have crept into. We are almost at verge of completing our webskills course after having explored many teaching skills using interactive websites or technology. Our discussion this week was on how technology can help or address different able learners.

Being aware of Gardner’s 8 Multiple Intelligence, we were prompt to think what particular technology can be more useful and ease to cater to different able learners. Having known that technology can do better in promoting learner styles since it can provide learners with variety of aids and sensitize their memory to stimulate to new approaches that traditional classroom can merely do. Using audio, visual, video and graphics are some prominent examples that technology can offer at hand. Well, interactive quiz, games and online activities also instigates variety of learning experiences besides providing learning at children’s pace and place.

Nevertheless, technology offers choice to cater to different learning styles, it is equally important to consider what kind of learning style a teacher possesses. I agreed when our instructor Courtney said that teachers’ trait does influence his or her approach to teaching. Therefore, it is very important to conduct survey for both teacher and students to find out what intelligence is at risk or at promise. Having known our styles we will be able to focus or should be able change our approaches to teaching and bring variety in lesson which will be beneficial to different able learners. We also know that intelligence does not remain fixed, it also tend to change as we practice doing new things and adapt to new environment.

Beside the discussion, this week was the submission of our final project. Well, I can’t say that I did best in my project but certainly would say I tried my best to bring my project a result of this course. Having done this project is just like having received certificate after the course. I am glad that I could now use many technological aspects in my classroom and being able to incorporate the acquired skills in my project made me feel full of learning.

This is really a new experience for me, I loved learning from this course.

Thank you,

With Regards…

10-2=8 ! Week 8 Reflection

I posted first draft of my project after much toil over the week.  And it was really like a draft when I looked at it again after getting sober. Many things to change and add again but in conscious now, I will have to turn into a new leaf.

It was because of the draft project submission, we did not have much to do this week, only a task that was creating a course site. And I got full satisfaction doing this task, I am proud that I created a Wiki site on Google which in fact was one of my awaited task- it just happened like I needed someone to tell me! Otherwise I knew within myself that I needed this. Creating Wiki site was a really firsthand experience, only then I realized this will be more useful than just having in mind to have one. I am going to use this for my project as a means to blend technology with my normal classes and have planned lot many for my Wiki.

Beside the task, we also had a guest on our discussion, it was Mr. Jeff Magoto, Director of the language center at UO. He is also an expert on Webskills and as well an experience in teaching ESL/EFL students across the globe. His recent development is a creation of ANVILL, a virtual language lab. This ANVILL as a tool can be great to use in language learning, especially on speaking skills. It has text, voice and video recording that can be shared among users. This will be very useful for distant or hybrid learner course to communicate or develop aural/oral skills. Jeff has much to share, his knowledge is just unimaginable for me right now. I know no better resource like a Jeff can we ever have in our course. Thanks to him so much, besides my less contribution but honestly I did not miss a single thread of discussion, I was a good reader this week.

Thank you Courtney, Jeff and all my Dear friends.

Regards,

Sanjiv

Week 7 Reflection

Week 7 comprises Learner Autonomy, One Computer Classroom, Mobile Assisted Language Learning and posting on Padlet.  Oh! and partner sign-up for final project peer review.

First of all, reading articles and participating in the discussion on learner autonomy, I came to understand that learner autonomy is the ability of learner to take charge of his/her own learning, it is also making learner independent and responsible of his action in order to acquire knowledge and skills. I also learned that teacher needs to foster and help children attain a stage where learner becomes autonomous. It takes a huge and heavy responsibility over a course of time for a good teacher to promote learner autonomy considering various factors. It was in everybody’s point or discussion that task like PBL will build learner autonomy.

Using one computer and mobile devices in classroom also looked much into providing better assistance and facilitation in language learning. And gathering as much information from the reading and from the discussion I realized that using one computer in a classroom is more better than having many because teacher can keep the lesson focused and manage the class more effectively. One computer also has equal strength to provide and promote independent learning and learner autonomous.  Likewise, mobile do have handy advantage over its portability to make learning easy and fast. The rich collection of apps for smartphones are so much suitable and appropriate for classroom language learning but one very important issue is on how teacher and parents grades ,selects and assess the uses of such devices which can sometime become problematic.

I also enjoyed designing tasks using one computer and mobile or using Padlet. Having done two activities, more ideas were emerging, I never realized that one computer would have so much to do in a class. From today I will make a resolution that I will never complain having just a computer in a class, I would rather explore more possibilities to utilize in my class for my students.  Regarding the Padlet, when Courtney introduced us and I was going through the description and at the back of my mind I was thinking about a tool called Wallwisher. Ops! It’s same, I did not know that Walwisher has become a Padlet (I am outdated). Felt nice to paste sticky notes like in Padlet. Many more uses can be explored on Padlet to use in schools and in classroom.

Lastly, I felt like in Election, giving away portfolio about our Project Topic to find peer partner to review our project. However, with my appeal on topic, I could woe someone (Thanks to Diana) to be my partner and I to her for reviewing our works.

I know everyone will be busy outlaying the project, I haven’t started yet. Have a school gathering/party tonight and hope my Sunday, tomorrow will be a start to scratch some points for my project.

Wish everyone good luck and enjoy the weekends.

Best!

Wallwisher (Padlet)

To all my Webskills participants,

Wallwisher  is changed to Padlet, a tool where we can share and information in one location. It serves like a notice board in a school.

Find it more!

Wallwisher is a Web 2.0 online collaborative tool for creating notices and information to share ideas, resources and thought on a particular topic. It is like building a wall with using various multimedia features like video, audio, text and web page links. We can also stick post and organize the wall as per the needs and requirement. It was initially designed to create wishing cards electronically, but due to so many possibilities that it has for using it in the classroom; it is now used for virtual classroom activities. One can also attach PDF documents, excel spreadsheets and power points in wallwisher.

It is free online tool and very easy to use it, does not need to create account, one can directly go to web site and start building a wall. The wall can be shared through emails, blogs and wiki and can invite friends to work on it is very collaborative in nature especially working with small groups and classmates.

The tool has its own gallery to select pictures and themes, one just need to type in topic and subtopic for discussion and has option to upload video, sound, bookmaking sites and links to other wed pages. The very prominent feature in the tool has a teacher control over the post that enables security of learners and provide friendly learning environment. It also has option for the privacy of publishing or viewing and commenting on the post. There is lots of fun and its great collaborative tool. There are so many possibilities for the classroom, and its usefulness to teachers is made even stronger based on the fact that posts can be locked so that they are only view-able once approved. At the same time, posts can be either anonymous or not, making it easy to have students’ input on issues that would normally be too difficult. Wallwisher makes it easy to post links, pictures, or audio. The only limit is that posts have to be under 160 characters, which isn't always a bad thing.

This particular tool will be best to use in classroom for brainstorming or ice breaker in the class, posting homework, assignments and discuss it next day. It is also good for writing activities but having the limit make the writing very precise, so good for summarizing, note taking, poems and memos. Using audio and video would definitely help pupil to learn grammar and vocabulary. Speaking activity can also be done by recording, students can post the debate topic and start the discussion and it is really great for posting notification, information, rules, profiles, and plans.

While reflecting on the Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy for the level of skills that Wallwisher would have impact on students or learners, this tool do fall on higher level of Bloom’s thinking skills. It involves right from Remembering, Understanding, and Analyzing to Creating stages of thinking process. As students respond to the prompt in wallwisher and the information they acquire from the post helps remember and understand the concept posted. When a student posts their topic or a statement, it must be in line with what has been posted earlier and giving rational for the concepts requires analyzing skills and finally when they decide to create their own wall, add appropriate information, links and videos and respond to the post will involve in creating skills of the student.

Let’s look at the some of the affordances it has on using it for classroom learning.

Features	Affordances
Privacy for publishing, viewing and commenting posts	Enables security for learners and provide safe environment to learn.
Ability for teacher to approve the post before posting it in the wall.	Provide authentic and appropriate materials only. Chance for correction and screening.
Flexibility to move or arrange the post on the wall but only the author has the authority to do so.	Makes the wall organized and gives sequences of the post. Helps in ordering the ideas and thoughts.
Multimedia features and uploading or sharing web links	Helps develop LSRW skills, makes student creative and affords collaborative learning.
Galleries and graphics like selecting themes.	Develops creative thinking. Student can customize their wall for appropriate content and there is fun learning.
Word limit	Only 160 character allowed in writing cuts chances for overcrowding the wall. It affords focused writing.
Wallwisher can be shared (collaborative)	Of course general affordance. It promotes high level of learning through collaboration.

Week Six Reflection

Week 6 is so far so best, very interesting project to do and loved the discussion on Nicenet. The discussion particularly came from lots of reading and navigating so many hyperlinks. The discussion was on the teaching large classes and using technology to teach large classes. I will try to give a gist of teaching and using technology in large classes here.

There are ways, methods, strategies and skills that teacher can use or implement in a large classroom to engage learners effectively. Role-plays, group activities, and giving/asking questions that are usually interactive and cooperative in nature are very effective in large classroom. No doubt that technology can easily facilitate and tackle better to large classroom. Especially, online website like Wiki, blog, WebQuest, Blackboard and many online tools are effective handling large classes to engage and motivate learners.

The very best was as I stated in the beginning, the task of creating interactive Power Point. Power Point has always been a great name in terms of technology in our school. We all use PowerPoint but creating a Jeopardy Game was something new. I made one and tried with the students, the response was very good and they often want such break-up activities like this. It was wonderful!

This week I am very hard on thoughts about implementing new technology to the issues that I have described to bring a change. I am in the horns of dilemma what I should do as my school and students are very busy preparing for the upcoming final/annual examination that starts from 24^th Nov. And on top of that I was also little confused of the final project but I learned clearly from our instructor that I can prepare a project plan that can be implemented later on. 

So, I decided to prepare project plan for my final project and this week I was hovering over many websites and tools besides the tool I decided to use. I glad that Courtney gave me two tools that can be really useful for me to help my students overcome problems of pronunciation. Right now I am going in details of “Voki” which is my primary tool that I will be using to help student with pronunciation problem. I am also looking at its more functions and affordance.

This is it for the week and lots more to do for the final project.

All the best to everyone,

Happy working!

Reflection: Week 5

What a great week this was!
Learned something very new and fantastic but challenging as always. Now no anticipation anymore of becoming our task lighter, ready to shift the gear once again.

Assignments in week 5 were the discussion, task, a project step task and the extra credit task. Of all these task I enjoyed the extra credit task (creating Webquest) most because I learned more about the PBL which was also the new thing but not the concept and in the task itself  I discovered the kernel of learning online.
And as always, our discussion is so incredible. This time it was on assessment, rubrics and PBL. PBL was of course a new term for me but not the concept. I found out that conducting task in PBL is more systematic and synchronized. Well, the assessment becomes a part of the PBL and then rubrics remain within the assessment. A carefully designed PBL and the Webquest will automate learner where by the learner become independent, cooperative and contributing member in a group or a community of learning. Another interesting thing was creating a rubrics. Well, everyone expressed excitement over creating rubrics online but rather it was more of learning to be specific and accurate in evaluating task.  

The project task was taking further shape; I was of course contended with what Courtney recommended me about choosing a new tool to bring a potential change for the issue(s) identified earlier but found myself browsing for more. Though I found similar tools but weighing its advantages and its strength to cope the issue, I came to the final placement to choose the same tool that was recommended.

I hope now that my selection of a tool, planning further and implementing it will help solve the issue. I look forward for the next week assignment which will further take me to my destination.
  

Week 4 Reflection

Every week is taking us ahead but with very less notice that we are approaching the gate to our final destination. Connection and the flow of task is  progressing so swiftly that we hardly feel a pinch of boredom, instead full of new experiences and knowledge but yes keeps us intact.

Week 4 has been different for us because of a person who despite of her own scheduled joined us as a  guest moderator in our discussion. I thank  Andrea Banickius for joining the group this week and for especially liking my line in Nicenet.

The first task of week was to read articles and search other websites that will be useful or can be integrated in classroom to help students acquire skills in English language. I browsed two websites "Lauris ESL Website" and "Interesting Things for ESL Student", and both got so many stuffs that are unimaginable worthy for students and teachers practicing different skills to learn in English language. Activities in both the websites caters to different level of learners but nevertheless the core concept of the websites is to provide a bountiful resources through games, puzzles, quizzes, audio & video, questions and pictures making a self-assessed activities and motivating learners. The first task also carried forward on developing and enhancing our knowledge on framing ABCD objectives which was of course worth practicing.

Second task was completely new to me but  did make a lasting impression. Though it went tough on me to make a technology enhanced lesson plan but it was well deserving to make one. Without the additional resources and references given for the technology enhanced lesson plan it would not have been  possible for me to  make such lesson plan. What I learned is that any interactive websites (techonology) in lesson should be incorporated to help in learning but not  to get the essence of technology itself. It was  also interesting to find out the alternative of the lesson/activity if the technology fails in class. All the components of the lesson plan are well furnished to tack are of a classroom teaching with or without technology. 

The last one, was ideally leading us to our final project. It was very important to identify the problem that we have in our present classroom and how and what are the means to overcome the problem. Its not only about the using technology to the issues but  it should be leading us  to make use of new technology to address the issue.  I  also learned that our class situation, types of learners and particularly the issues has to be clearly mentioned to find, create and collaborate technology to overcome many problems with our students.

No the least, this reflection itself is so much witty that makes us think, reflect and  rags us at the end to combine a whole week learning. 

Good Bye Week 4!