Week 3 Reflections

This week has been great! The materials we read and the tasks we had to do were very motivating for me.


Aural and speaking skills are essential for communication. In the past, education did not take them into consideration. Traditional education involved learning how to read and write and we still have some influence of it in our educational model at secondary schools in Uruguay. In general, students are not taught how to listen and how to speak in public in their mother tongue. In general, their class participation is limited to words or phrases when answering a question made by a teacher. I have experienced it myself both as a student and as a visiting teacher.


I have found useful websites for building listening and speaking skills with interesting material. From my point of view, BBC Learning English is a good educational website with adequate material for intermediate and advanced students, especially for exam preparations 


When it comes to practicality, Randall´s Lab is my number one choice since it comprises pre-listening, listening and post-listening activities and the material is well-organized according to level of difficulty with different topics.


By using Delicious, I have learned how to bookmark the material I have selected as a way to access links and share them easily with my colleagues and students anytime anyplace on line. Tagging is a good way to organize links by content, purpose or author. Creating stacks help you categorize and group links in a personal unique way. The fact that you can follow a user and be followed by users makes it work as a social network, connecting people and information in noodles. Indeed, it makes the difference! You can easily integrate reading, listening and writing by means of Delicious.

Reading a final project made me realize the importance of identifying a problem or defining an issue when writing it down. I think the project for Teens by Camelia Pagila from Romania  is down-to-earth and relevant since it takes into consideration students´needs, learning styles and the context in which it takes place. It also fosters integration of skills. The fact that it is a Teen project called my attention and made me select it. What seems to be self-evident is not necessarily so when planning: students learn differently according to their learning syles and those differences should be taken into consideration when teaching and using technology.


How was your week?

Week 2 Reflections

Hi everybody!

Week 2 has been very challenging and extremely rewarding as well.
I have learned about different search engines, which has changed the way I see websearches and webquests.

Exploring Twurdy Search Engine has been fun and very interactive. I learned how to search for texts according to their readability level just by searching for the novel "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens! I had never imagined a search engine like that! It is free, visual-friendly and easy to use but unfortunately, it has some annoying ads which have nothing to do with education.

Indeed, NoodleTools is the best website with a list of Search Engines! Just by clicking on NoodleTools you can see how well the information is organized. It has helped me accomplish the first learning task on Nicenet: Discussion on Search Engines. Thinking of search engines as a whole with no distinction whatsoever, is not very practical or pedagogical. Choosing the best search engines takes critical thinking skills and informed decision-making.

Describing one of my group was simple, at first glance. However, in a detailed analysis, simplicity shows its complexity. Even though I know my students pretty well, when I had to go into a deeper analysis taking into account the general background and experiences, the knowledge factors and other factors it was a horse of a different color!

Planning for Instruction by using the ABCD Model has been difficult for me. I never use this model to plan my classes but I have to admit it is very useful and inspiring. Taking into consideration Bloom´s Taxonomy has been essential for me to visualize the cognitive domain and the corresponding verbs that go with each level: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating and creating. Both the psychomotor and the affective domain are also necessary to do with students´learning styles and preferences in education.

All in all, I believe I have made some significant progress this week, thanks to Janine and to all my colleagues.
I really appreciate your comments and suggestions. Your questions have help me improve my work.
Thanks again.

Roxana

Week 1 Reflections

While creating a reflective blog I have learned how blogs can be used with a metacognitive purpose.


So far, I have learned how to personalize blogs, with different backgrounds, fonts and layouts. I think there are useful gadgets we can add such as blog lists and labels.
It is a great idea to have a list of the blogs we have recently visited so that we can keep in touch.
Please, feel free to make comments and share your viewpoints with me.


I have already used a blog, an English class blog with students' work and blog lists for a teaching purpose. Therefore, I already have a google account and I just had to create a new blog. 


This is the first time I use Nicenet. I had not even heard of it before but I think it is a good 2.0 tool for communication. Thank you for this opportunity.

A Brand New Course

Building Teacher Skills Through the Interactive Web: a brand new course! 


Nowadays, webskills are essential for any English teacher and student. I believe they can make a difference when it comes to the integration of skills in the digital era. There is so much to explore and discover! I feel like Alice in Wonderland, eager to explore and discover a brand new land. There are many doors to open and many paths to walk in ten weeks.

I would like to share knowledge and experiences with my partners and tutors by interacting in group discussions and making comments in the blogs. Indeed, the readings and resources will be the essential food for thought and this blog will help me add ideas to be adapted to my local setting in a technology-enhanced project.
In this course, I expect to learn how to use and improve my webskills and reflect on my learning process in this blog. To me, it is a new beginning in this never-ending learning process.
Feel free to make comments and suggestions. They are valuable contributions.
Thank you for this great learning opportunity!