Week 8: Teacher Resources Online

This week we work on our project plan ( Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web) by using the Project Report Template posted on Projects page. The overall goal of the project is to plan and implement a change related to technology use in your classroom. In my case I have a group of advanced learners who struggle getting relevant information from readings, this makes it difficult for them to learn the contents of the language curriculum course.

Therefore, I planned to create a wiki to help my students to overcome this problem by setting two objectives:

1. Provided with exercises and online resources proposed in this wiki, advanced learners will be able to strengthen reading comprehension skill by skimming and scanning articles and readings, with a 90% of mastery.
2. Provided with exercises and online resources proposed in this wiki, advanced learners will be able to strengthen the writing skill by applying strategies to summarize relevant information from readings and articles, with a 90% of mastery.

It was a challenging task because we were asked to to offer evidence as to how successful the technology experiment was in addressing the original class problem , as well as how we think this technological change well help to improve our class. Then, we were asked to share our draft project report or plan with our partner by posting it on the course wiki, in order to get feedback and advice on how to make this project successful.

Regarding the Discussion & Task I use the Crossword Puzzle Games to create a crosswrod puzzle about a list of key terms related to curriculum design. Then, I created a lesson using blendspace https://www.blendspace.com in order to gather resources for a lesson titled “Language curriculum design overview” where I put some resources. The site I created is this https://www.blendspace.com/lessons/AANEM6CgXX49Yg/edit.

The material included in this site is for advanced learners who are in the curriculum course. These tools allow to emphasize student centered pedagogy and accommodating student diversity. By having access to these resources, learners will direct their own learning in a more constructivist way because they will be the ones who will manipulate the tools and study the contents to apply them in real contexts, which will motivate them.

Week 7: Learner Autonomy, the One-computer Classroom, and Mobile Devices

“One of the primary roles teachers can play in enabling and encouraging learner autonomy in a face-to-face or online context, is to provide students with guidance on recommended online tools and services”. Godwin-Jones (2011)

By reading the different articles we were able to share specific ideas about what wecurrently do and what else we could do to encourage greater learner autonomy in our classes. Basically we checked some strategies how teachers can take advantage of one classroom computer and mobile devices to enhance autonomous learning. This way learners can increase their creativity and generate their own knowledge, something that I consider a primary skill that learners need to develop in this new age, since they have to utilize their digital sources effectively in order to attain their learning goals.

Thanks to the the emergence and evolution of networked technology the concept of autonomous learning has changed and broadened in a favourable way ascribing the great value to the students’ responsibilities since students are required not only to make decisions about their learning but also they have to construct their own self- access.

We also use an intersting online tool called Padlet where we find and post resources like ideas, images, quotes, videos, and articles about common topics: learner autonomy, the one-computer classroom, or using mobile devices. I would like to share this link which presents different ways to use this tool in class:

32 Interesting Ways to Use Padlet in the Classroom

Week 6: Creating Student-centered Classes and Interactive PowerPoint

In this week we have learned how to use Technology Tools for Creating Student-Centered Classes, including Large Classes.  I think that one of the most influencing factors that English teachers face, especially in public institutions, is the number of students, which makes teaching difficult. Within this context we have researched and analyzed how to create Student-centered classes by using technology. Of course, it is important to keep in mind that technology alone it is not likely to transform traditional learning environments into student-centered ones, both teachers and learners are required to know their roles. 

In fact, Student-centered learning implies significantly change of roles for students and teachers as it is clearly stated in this video: Student-Centered Learning (21st Century Education). 

With this new approach in mind, I designed an interactive PowerPoint presentation for teaching future tense to advanced learners. I have to tell that it was not an easy task specially when I was designing the quiz because I did not have much expertise on using the different functions like macros which are available in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 to create cool interactive presentations.

I read the article provided in the course and other resources like videos and hyperlinks. For example the following site really helped me to create a simple quiz to add in my presentation to evaluate the students’ understanding of the use of will and be going to : http://www.ellenfinkelstein.com/pptblog/easily-create-a-quiz-in-powerpoint-using-visual-basic-for-applications/ .

By doing the quiz, I learned that there are functions called macros that are useful to create quizzes in a ppt presentation format, so students can immediately get feedback, but it is necessary to assure that they are on otherwise the functions will not work.

I also checked my colleagues’ blogs and presentations which guided me to create this task.  I invite you to comment my blog.

Best,

Alba

Week 5: Project-based Learning, WebQuests, and Rubrics

Dear all,

This has been a challenging week, the task and the contents that we studied were related to Project-based learning (PBL), webquests and rubrics.

As for PBL, I learned that it is an instructional method that benefits both teachers and students. In fact, it is a method that makes students feel highly motivated because they get involved in active learning by solving problems, making decisions or investigating real problems; meanwhile teachers enhance in professionalism and collaboration with other teachers providing learners with essential life lessons in order to equip them with practical knowledge and experience to deal with real-life situations that they may encounter in their daily life.

This method is applicable in different contexts, especially in my class. I am going to apply PBL in my class in order to encourage my students to work in groups and to be creative and innovative proposing solutions about how to deal with discipline problems in an English classroom, for that they will work in groups in order to interview English teacher and propose solutions. This way, assessment is done based on what students can do, that is on how they apply knowledge and that is excellent.

Regarding WebQuests, it is the first time that I started to learn about it.WebQuests look really amazing and they are a form of PBL where the teacher creates a task, provides internet resources and ask learners to work in groups in order to do or produce something. I like this tool, but I do not feel comfortable yet to start using it in my english classes.

We also read and reflect on the way how to assess learning in an objective way by using rubrics. I created one using the tool rubistar, it was easy and fast. I created one to evaluate a task in which students were asked to read and summarize an article about environment analysis. These group of advanced learners belong to a reading and writing course.

The last activity was to step ahead on our project. I am going to address the lack of reading and writing skills on my students. I have decided to create a wiki where I will provide students some guidance and strategies for them to identify main ideas and to summarize information.

The tech resources that will help me to achieve this are:

• Recognizing the Main Idea http://www.proliteracyednet.org/downloads/44Recognize.swf. Here learners can identify a foundational part of any type of literature: the main idea.
• Understanding What You Read http://www.tv411.org/reading. where learners can find an array of video lessons that cover topics like reading newspapers, reading poems, summarizing and even reading medicine labels.

Please could you be so kind giving me advice on how to address this problem. Suggestions and comments are all welcome!!

Alba

Week 4: Skill-building Websites for Reading/Writing Skills and Technology-enhanced Lesson Plans

Dear friends,

Digital learners

After participating in the weekly tasks, I am ready to share my reflections on what I did and what I learned during this week. By reading different articles and by exploring some web sites, I had the opportunity to see examples of successful technology integration in teaching. This cause me to examine and revise my beliefs about the importance of implementing meaningful technology in my English classes.

I am happy that technology can equip teachers to address digital learners’ needs in an almost limitless number of ways. Thus, we cannot keep creating classes by using methods, strategies and materials that do not include media otherwise we kill motivation and creativity.


Students´opinions inn the video below 21sr CENTURY EDUCATION corroborate what I previously mentioned.

There were interesting assigments that allow us to create a technology-enhanced lesson plan and explain how it is similar to or different from the regular lesson plan format that we normaly have in our institutions and in our daily teaching practice.

Those assignments were:

1. One related to reading/writing skill building.
2. The creation of a technology-enhanced lesson plans.
3. Participation in discussions, and
4. A personal reflexion on how I am learning in the blog.