session 8

In this lesson I learned about festivals and traditions in uk. I'm interested in this topic.
I used ven diagram to write different and similar things here and in uk. I highlight important information.
My role was to read about supersitions in Egypt and uk.
The only difficult thing is I have to contact my group before Tuesday and in that day I have an exam :( We must prepare our brochure on the same day.
The teacher is helpful and I contact her when having a problem.
Group work sometimes helpful but I don't like when we don't work hard to do teh presentation on time. My group give good ideas and help in reading online and answer worksheets.

I like WQ. It's the best :)

The final destination...

We reached week 10, who believes? I flashbacked on the first week and how we were confused and excited. We introduced ourselves, discussed class rubric and guidelines, created our reflective blogs and initiated Nicenet discussions. Week 2 was more relaxing as we learned beneficial websearching engines and discovered new techniques for online surfing.  I bookmarked most of these engines on my delicious account in week 3. This week introduced techniques and sites for teaching oral skills like English Central, NPR Podcast and Vacaroo. In week 4, I created a technology-enhanced lesson plan to teach writing and vocabulary. Wonderful sites like http://a4esl.org and www.manythings.org will be my top sites for getting materials and resources for teaching vocabulary, grammar, writing, reading and pronunciation. Project-based learning and Webquest were my favorite tools on which I build my project. I also created my first rubric on RubiStar and will use and recommend this site to create different e-rubrics. I was also interested in creating an interactive PP for interactive large classes. Week 6 introduced learner autonomy and its applications and principles. Creating a class padlet was impressive and adding to Donna’s padlet was productive. One-computer classroom and m-learning were the focus of week 7. My colleagues’ experiences and intension to use m-learning together with the webinar were very insightful. In week 8, we learned to create quizzes and exercises using different programs and sites like hotpotatoes and EasytestMaker, ANVIL was also a good addition. Week 9’s LS and MI were crucial and using technology to meet all learners’ styles was helpful. Finally, week 10 is full of advices, tips, last reflective blog ,farewells and goodbyes. Working in our plans and projects accompany this long journey as we put a block on the other to make use of what we have learned in the course and our own experiences to build these scientific and pedagogical masterpieces. Behind the scenes were a lot of hard work, effort, sleepless nights, thoughts and reflections. Weekly discussions on Nicenet energize and motivate our spirits to work and create. Million thanks to UO and its moderators for offering these high quality courses. Donna was the Maestro for this beautiful and harmonious orchestra and we owe her a lot and grateful to her for the continuous help and endless support. My colleagues……. thanks for your effort, time, support, thoughts, shared experiences and comments. Please keep in touch after the course. I wish you all good luck.

Greetings from Egypt,

Amira

The week before the last….

Is it the time to say farewell? I can't believe the course is about to finish, no more discussions, no more overloaded Mondays, no longer blogs or assignments. Sure, I will miss these days and my colleagues a lot. This short week started by readings about multiple intelligences and learning styles and how using technology can help meet different learning styles. Although the topic is interesting and important, I found that the readings for this week didn't cover the topic thoroughly and there were many broken links in the first article. The discussion was interesting as usual and I learned from my colleagues' experiences and suggestions. In fact, LS and MI were my topics of interest years ago and I searched and read many articles and models. However, I found it was difficult to apply some techniques to meet all students' learning styles for many reasons. The large number of students in the class was the main obstacle, sometimes the difficulty to use technology or to find traditional activities that match all learning styles.

Finally, I finished the plan and tried to be detailed and specific. I hope to accomplish it as soon as possible and I wish I can inform you with the results but I don't know how? The evaluation of the course was an excellent chance to assess not only the course and its materials but also our participation and learning. One of the suggestions I gave was the importance of conducting follow-up workshops and seminars for the course participants whether this class or past and future classes. I think we have to meet regularly and discuss the improvements we have achieved.  It was my first time to know eteacher ning and I think this social network will serve the purpose of continual professional development where most UO courses' participants can meet and share their experiences. Unfortunately, my approval is pending and I don't know why. I advise my colleagues to join eteacher and keep in touch after the course. 

A letter of thanks is due to the UO committee for such high quality courses. Special thanks for Donna, the role model for encouragement, commitment and dedication. Love and appreciation for my colleagues for their excellent participation, valuable time and supportive feedback and without you the course won't be successful and enjoyable.

Greetings,

Amira

Week 8

Week 8
Unlike last weeks, I started this week by exploring rather than reading the amazing links and I was confused which to use. I created my Padlet or Wallwasher and named it "Future Makers" to beginners and young learners http://padlet.com/wall/2wgnito655 and collected in this basket different online and active exercises. First, I used http://www.toolsforeducators.com to create a crossword exercise about weather. Then I created a listening quiz worksheet about action verbs where students have to listen then match the pictures to numbers and write the verbs on the blanks. Unfortunately, when I attached it to Padlet, something went wrong and only the exercise homepage appeared. I will try to fix it and reattach it again. Moving to SMILE http://clear.msu.edu/teaching/online/mimea/smile/v2/index.php, a web page activity-generator, I created an account and created three items of multiple choice, drag and drop and true/false. Creating the questions was easy but you can only create one item per file. You can view them on my Future Makers Padlet. In addition, I used Hot Potatoes, the treasure of this week, to create the body of my Padlet. I discovered that many professional sites like realenglish.com use Hot Potatoes in their exercises. I did many interactive quizzes without knowing this genius program. I created "listen and arrange activity" using JMix, gap-filling activity about "Egypt" using JCloze, reading comprehension questions using JMatch and matching exercise about relative clauses using JQuiz. I also discovered ANVIL , an excellent CMS , which I will further explore. I got you this webinar http://tinyurl.com/anvil-may-webinar and many tutorials are waiting to watch and try. I created my account on ANVIL and I am still exploring it. I used Google sites to create my webpage holding the same name as the Padlet "Future Makers" with my students https://sites.google.com/site/future2makers/. In the next days and after finishing my project, I will change the readymade template I adopted or choose an empty template to create the site from scratch.
To speak about the final project, I enjoyed reading my partner's (Yuliya) project. I found  similarities with my plan project in the problem, the suggested tool, the final tool and the students' reactions (anticipated responses in my plan). I felt as if I were applied the project using my suggested plan. Peer-review was an rewarding experience for me and I hope my mates felt the same.
Not to forget Jodi's visit and her prompts and motivating questions. I'd like to thank her for the encouraging atmosphere she has created. I am waiting for my colleagues' final projects with enthusiasm and I wish them all Good Luck.

Amira

Week 7

Few weeks remaining to reach the end of the course. I started the week by reading the material about learner autonomy, one-computer classroom and m-learning. The topics are crucial as they enhanced my learning as well as teaching experiences. One-computer classroom was my favorite because it addresses the context where I actually work. New ideas are waiting for implementing in actual classroom settings, for example, using new word processing features like AutoSummarize and Inserting comments in writing classes. I enjoyed the webinar and I will try some mobile apps and test which will work best with my students. Wallwisher was also interesting and easy to design. It is the online application of the class access center where students share ideas, links and resources. I can use Wallwisher to send students' homework and activities. Choosing a partner was the difficult part for me. I don't have my colleagues' emails and I wonder who wish to work with me or is searching for a partner. I thought it will be a good idea if I and Yuliya work together since we are both using WQ. I created a project plan, theoretical part, and she is implementing her project, ,practical part; therefore, I will learn and modify my plan based on her findings and vice versa. I think we will complete each other and our works are the two faces of the coin, I mean the project. Finally, I am about to finish my draft and I am waiting for the peer-review eagerly.

                                               

Amira

Interactive Week 6

Interactive! This is the best word to describe this week's assignments. I read the articles about using technology in teaching large classes and using interactive power points. From the first topic, I learned a lot about cooperative group work and integrating technology in large classes. From the second discussion or topic, I learned valuable tips about creating interactive power points. I created my own power point using four elements: blanking, Quickwrite, think-pair-share and jeopardy. I intend to use more interactive power points in my teaching of different skills and in assessing students' knowledge. I also learned a lot from my colleagues' power points. Frankly, I felt ashamed of my power point when I compared mine to theirs. All IPP are excellent and Zeljko's PPP about PPP is wonderful.Thumps up for all the power points.

Regarding the project task, I was confused whether to create a plan report or a project report. The second term will start next week and by that time, course participants will have been implementing their tools, writing their notes and documenting their observations. I wish I could implement my Webquest and take part in this practical part of the course. Time is passing and thus I end up with drafting my final plan, you can consider it the change I made to my project. I will use webquest to overcome students' lack of motivation in reading online. I thought of alternative assessment tools beside the rubric. I chose multiple choice question quiz, interview and reading test. I think that the best follow-up activities are some additional webquests to enhance students' reading and motivation.  The next step is to go through the project template and rubric to familiarize myself with them and be ready to start putting my plan into action. I wonder if any of my colleagues will create a project plan.  Waiting for your observations and initial field notes and peer-reviewing the drafts.

Greetings,

Amira 

Alternative assessment, PBL, WQ ... What a week!

Week 5:

Week 5, the mid of the course, is the most interesting for me. I enjoyed reading about PBL, webquest and alternative assessment, maybe because I had a background about these tools and techniques. I shared Donna her feelings of excitement and enthusiasm. I tried to find a link between these techniques and I thought that learning autonomy was the best.  Moreover, I specified my project problem and solution. I decided to use webquest to raise my students' motivation to read and work in groups and be responsible for their own learning. I will encourage students to read about a cultural aspect to raise their cultural awareness. Using RubiStar to create the rubric was very easy and simple. I designed a rubric to assess my students' brochures from the lesson plan I created the last week.  For sure, I will use RubiStar to create more advanced rubrics and ask students to create rubrics to choose the assessment criteria they think suitable for assessing their learning outcomes. All in all, I enjoyed reading and doing this week's assignments.

Greetings,

Amira