Week 4: Planning a lesson and the project

By the looming of week 4, I felt that we are approaching our final project. Last week, we keep asking what are its features? How does it look like? This week carries the answer with many files drawing its frame. It was a stressful week for me as I tried to finish the tasks in 24 hours and I was the first to post in the discussion. Why? It is the International NileTESOL conference in Egypt started on Mon. and finished on Thurs. Although I was overloaded and exhausted, I tried to be accomplished. I explored the three articles related to integrating technology in teaching written language skills; reading and writing. They are rich and practical. The recommended sites were also a heavy meal. I kept reading what exactly is required. Only one site? I stated different objectives for a selected mini-lesson from Breaking English news. I discovered many excellent sites for not only integrating technology but also integrating the four skills. I intend to use these sites in implementing my final project.

The second task was the technology-enhanced lesson plan. It was demanding and I read the articles and tried to make some changes to the sample provided to include all the fantastic features I have learned from the articles. I found some aspects of similarities and differences between technology-enhanced and traditional lesson planning. Both lessons have learning objectives, but the technology-enhanced lesson specifies objectives for technology use. Using authentic material in the technology –enhanced lesson provides students with authentic information about the topic. In traditional lesson, this can be done by reading some articles about the topic. Reports in the traditional lesson will be written on papers which is time consuming and sometimes inaccurate. Whereas, in technology-enhanced lesson the use of word processor in writing and revising facilitates students' work and increases its efficiency. Moreover, the audience in technology-enhanced lesson is not always the teacher and the classmates as in the traditional lesson, but a live audience, a factor that will motivate students and create a purpose for writing.  Unlike assessment in traditional lesson plan, learning and language outcomes as well as technology use are assessed in technology-enhanced lesson. Creating technology-enhanced lesson plan was a rich experience for me.

Detecting the project problem, I think, is the first brick in building the project. I stated a number of problems which will complicate the process of choosing the X-large technique that will solve all these problems. The good news is that we can utilize more than one e-tool to solve the problem(s) by using technology. It is challenging to know that one of the problems is using technology itself. By knowing what I am trying to solve, who are the participants, and which learning context, I think the next step will be finding the appropriate technology-based strategy.

Regards,

Amira

Week 3: Aural/Oral skills, delicious, and more

It is a new and exciting week in which I learned valuable things. I read two articles about aural/oral skills development; Lindsay Miller's developing listening skills with authentic materials and Maria Busa's new perspective in teaching pronunciation. The first article discusses the three stages of listening and shares some ideas and techniques about integrating technology in teaching authentic listening like using radio, TV/video and the internet. I think the most accessible technique in a free technology context is recorded radio or TV programs and CD-ROMs played on the teacher's laptop or central computer connected with a projector. The sites I have surveyed this week provided me with endless resources about downloadable audio materials and activities for pre- and post- listening phases. Unlike the first article, the second one was quite difficult, it was about teaching pronunciation or as others called it; the Cinderella of the language. I spent hours reading, trying to check the links and download some programs but things became better when I found these sites: http://kristascott.edublogs.org/2010/03/04/vocaroo-for-the-classroom-too/, http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/03/17/the-best-sites-to-practice-speaking-english/.

I breathed a sigh of relief and felt that the theory came finally into practice. Many programs I intend to test further to check which ones I can use with my students. The overall experience was rewarding and I really liked to focus on these neglected, though crucial, skills.

"Delicious is really delicious" my impression about using this bookmarking site. Coincidentally, I searched a couple of days before about the best bookmarking tool for my students and I was comparing Diigo to delicious. I myself have a Diigo account and now I have a delicious. The advantage that makes delicious superior to Diigo is that it provides the user with the ability to check his/her bookmarks once he gets into the internet, so user can access his/her links from any computer. I still have to learn more features about Delicious and I need to know why I don't have same windows in Donna's handout. 

The third task as usual was the project. I felt it will be a difficult and hard job, but once I noticed Zlatka's project about webquest I felt safe. Being familiar with webquests facilitated my job.

I wrote a report summarizing the main features of the project so that others who haven't read the project understand what's going on. Points about what I think are effective and recommendations for some less effective aspects of the project-from my viewpoint-are also listed. 

A letter of thanks is dedicated to Donna for her guidance and feedback. When she referred to the way of creating a new post blog, I knew that this piece is for me. I hope I did it right this time. Thanks for your help.  Thanks for my colleagues for their comments and long posts, I thought my post will be the longest, but thanks God, I wasn't.

Regards,

Amira

Week 2 blog

Dear colleagues,
I hope that Week 2 was fruitful for you as it was for me. I started the week with Donna's list of tasks to be accomplished this week. First, I felt that I will spend the whole week doing these tasks and that we are approaching our final project. Unlike Week 1,  Week 2 tasks were in the form of checklist with assigned grades for each task. I started by preparing my own schedule for the tasks and I decided to start with the ABCD objective tasks. At first I thought it was an easy task since it is one of the tasks we do every class, but it wasn't that. I read the articles and discovered the digital taxonomy, it is amazing. To keep up with technology you have to be able to make e-objectives that suit the e-content and e-context. The innovation here is not in formulating the objectives, but in the simple and accurate ABCD model. Receiving the first constructive comment, it wasn't Donna, it was Gloria. Frankly speaking, when I first formulated the objective I prefer to avoid repeating "fact and opinion" and that was my reformulation of the objective after Gloria's feedback. Donna accepted the two objectives but prefer the second to the first.


The second task I did, websearching, was the most beneficial and productive. I spent the whole night searching and navigating trying to jot down what is good here and what's lacking there. I learned from this experience that we can be Google-independent. I know that as Karim said, it will be difficult to move completely to other search engines, but at least we knew now that there is a world outside google we have to explore. Most of my colleagues agree on sweetsearch, iseek and wikipedia and they added further excellent sites they use for their lesson plans and classroom activities. The discussions on this task were great. I suggest to make a list of these sites and ranked them according to their use and provide our students with helpful techniques for (SEO) Search Engine Optimization. Here are some tips:
http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Lincoln-SearchEngines/
http://primarytech.global2.vic.edu.au/2012/05/29/tentips-for-teaching-students-how-to-research-and-filter-information/

The third task was about describing a/the class where I plan to integrate technology. So, objectives then the sample, as I said, we are shaping and putting the foundation for the final project. To tell you the truth, I started with reading the descriptions of my colleagues and I felt depressed. Many if not most of them, the fortunate as Donna described them,  have a suitable environment for applying technology. Few, including me,  have poor facilities if any. But soon, I felt that it was OK as one of the course objectives is to help teachers integrate technology in such free-tech schools. It's the CHALLENGE. I aim to help my 10th grade students to read English on-line and do projects and the course will give me a hand in doing that. Donna's feedback "It is GREAT" was motivating.

The most rewarding in this week was the GRADES. Really inspiring and motivating to keep on the good work. Thanks Donna and my colleagues. I am waiting to read your blogs.

Regards,
Amira

Week 1, task 3: creating a blog and reflect

I am overwhelmed with excitement and enthusiasm for being a member of this online course, which I applied for last year and unfortunately I wasn't accepted. How lucky I to be accepted this year and be a star in this intercultural and international galaxy with other shinning stars, my online colleagues, and a moon, Donna, our instructor. I started the course few days ago by Donna'a mail with clear, direct and simple steps and tasks. Frankly, at first I felt anxious and worried to skip any of these steps or wrongly do any of the tasks, and I did. I was the first to create the blog and searched for the wiki and posted my blog URL on Nicenet instead of the course wiki. Donna deleted the post and thanked me for this quick but out of place start.  I felt relaxed that I didn't miss any thing thanked to Donna's active and purposeful efforts. I explored the course site and read the assignments for the first week. Then, I filled out the needs assessment survey and was delighted to see how can we, as teachers, tailor our material to students' needs. After that, I participated in the first discussion, self-introduction, and introduce myself and write about my experience in teaching. I would like to express my happiness and admiration with all my colleagues' experiences and intercultural backgrounds. I decided to break the ice in my online course by commenting on all  their posts and welcomed them.

The second mail from Donna initiated the first discussion commenting and reflecting on the guidelines and the rubric. I read the documents and was one of the first to comment on them sharing some links regarding using the rubric and asking two more questions to develop the discussion. I agreed on most ideas and tried to meet the standards of academic writing and the criteria in the rubric in my posts. I benefited a lot from reading and sharing experiences with some colleagues in involving in face to face academic discussions with colleagues in schools which we described as "unproductive" and felt that barriers that face teachers are nearly the same everywhere.

On reading the third mail  and knowing the sudden stop of the Nicenet, I felt irritated but I was sure it won't last for long. The next mail activated our souls and again we are now posting our first blogs and reflecting on the experience. This blog wasn't the first as a friend taught me a year ago how to create blogs using blogger.com and wordpress.com for commercial purposes. I wasn't really interested in that so I haven't used any of them. However, I felt differently when creating this blog for communicating during the course. I am really doing something and intend to start using blogs with my students for developing different skills. I think I will read more about this and I will share some links with you. I thought that after the sudden stop of the Nicenet some friends will take rest enjoying their weekends before thinking to post and share their blogs but I was wrong. I found them published their blogs and I enjoyed reading them all.

Finally, I am motivated and eager to fulfill the course requirements with the aid of Donna and the support and fruitful experiences of my new colleagues.

Have a nice weekend,
Amira