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
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
Dear Amira,
ReplyDeleteJust like you, I (have) spent hours around the websearching activity but it has really been rewarding once our learning from it will go beyond this course.
Let's see what Donna has in store for us :) and the tasks for the remaining weeks. We may not be fortunate teachers in what concerns the technology available in our classrooms, but I'm sure we will devise a great way to overcome that with Donna's expertise and guidance.
Bets of luck,
Alex
Hi Amira!
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that we have the same procedure to tackle the week's assignment. But I must appreciate the way you organized your work. I can see that you started by the things that you seem to be familiar with, the ABCD objectives for example. This is what most us think about and formulate when we are designing our lessons. I think that proceeding this way helps us move faster and well organised in our work. Although I did the same, I think that I will try to be more organised as you are. It helps us avoid mixing things and at the end we do not know what we are doing.
Thanks,
DIALLO from Burkina
Hi Amira!
ReplyDeleteI read your blog and recognized my own feelings and emotions nearly in everything you wrote. I liked your suggestion about SEO, it sounds like a really good idea which will be helpful and useful for the students. Besides, I completely agree with you that Donna's comments are very motivating and encouraging. And it's a nice feeling to be graded again after so many years after university)))
Best wishes from Ukraine,
Iryna
Hi Amira,
ReplyDeleteYour neatness and organization is really good model to me. I grabbed an idea that I would like to spend more time in web searching tech. I totally know what it means to be poorly equipped. However, we can use the sources we have and there will be more opportunity open up before us. You never know in terms of better facilitated room.
Tseegi
Nice to meet you Amira!
ReplyDeleteWhile I was reading your writings about this course in your blog, I felt that you are doing your best and participated in this course sincerely. It makes me cheer up again. I think that all of us will develope more as an English teacher after we complete this course. I will visit your blog again.