Week 6: Engaging Students - Technology Aids; Teaching Large Classes; Creating Interactive PowerPoint Show; Project Task 4

When I first read the assignments for this week, I thought that it would be a little lighter, as I was familiar with PowerPoint Presentations. But, it was a real discovery for me to read about the different ways of application of this really POWERFUL tool, especially to learn about Interactive PowerPoint. The metaphor used by the Teaching Effectiveness Program – unleashing the power of PowerPoint – describes exactly its character: http:// www.uoregon.edu/~tep/technology/powerpoint/powerpoint.html/.

It offers a variety of issues, both pedagogical and technical, to employ this tool effectively in order to engage students in the learning process, especially in large classes, to incorporate classroom assessment techniques and to use methods to accommodate multiple learning styles.
Below is the list of topics, which, in my opinion, provides almost comprehensive information necessary for a teacher to make the best use of PowerPoint:

• Best Practices in Presenting with PowerPoint;
• Adding Animation to Your PowerPoint Presentation;
• Adding Interaction to Your PowerPoint Presentation;
• Incorporating Multimedia into Your Teaching;
• Understanding Digital Images.

Very interesting material for Teaching Large Classes, provided at: http:// serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/earlycareer/teaching/largeclasses.htm/.

The issues discussed are: Keeping students engaged in large lecture classes, Making technology work for you, Getting groups to work well, and many more… , endless links of valuable sources of information. In fact, for me it is a huge amount to digest. I need time to transform all this into practical things.

However, as I look back, I marvel at how many new technologies I have already learned! Though I haven’t yet created my Interactive PowerPoint show, and to tell the truth, I’m a bit scared to get down to it – still contemplating about the content and the technical side.

As for my Project Plan Task:

I intend to create an on-line course: “Using Multimedia in ELT” in the Moodle. This course covers not only using electronic media, but the focus will be , of course on using technology in teaching.

I agree with Stephen, when he says that our Delicious Bookmarks can serve as ‘a repository of ideas’. One of the links I’ve bookmarked is Onestopenglish | Methodology: using video in English teaching, http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?docid=146399, in which Scott Thornbury gives advice and suggestions on how to use video in English teaching for starter/beginner, advanced, elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper-intermediate levels.

Then There is Free Technology for Teachers written by Richard Byrne, http://www.freetech4teachers.com/, from which I can download free resources and lesson plans for teaching with technology.

I will also look at Teaching Today Web-link-ography at: http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/, a directory of web link resources. As they claim, the links were carefully selected to help teachers find free, valuable classroom resources.

And , of course, I will implement all the techniques and tools I have learned so far, and will learn in the future, including Blogs, wikis, Webquests, Rubrics, PBL, PowerPoint, etc.

Week 5: Summing up + Rubrics

Every week is bringing new experiences in building our Web skills. This week was particularly loaded with novelties and extremely productive for me, personally, in learning about more Web tools, like WebQuests and Rubrics, as well as Project-based Learning.

As I have discussed PBL and WebQuests in my previous posts, now I’ll briefly summarize what I have learned about Rubrics.

The most common assessment and evaluation tools used for collaborative learning are web-based Rubrics. A rubric simply lists a set of criteria which define and describe the important components of the work being planned or evaluated.

A good rubric will perform several functions:
• a guide for planning
• a gauge for measuring progress and maintaining focus on project goals
• an instrument for assessing the effectiveness of a project.

What is the function of assessment in PBL?

- Assessment helps teachers develop more complex relationships with their students...
- Assessment helps students answer the questions "Am I getting it?" and "How am I doing?"...
- Assessment can help make content connections clear...
- Assessment engages students directly in the evaluation of their own work...
- Assessment helps teachers plan their next steps...
- Assessment helps students plan their projects...

Reference: http:// http://www.globalschoolnet.org/Web/pbl/plan/assess.htm/.

Rubrics are great for evaluating complex performances. I would like to share the following link demonstrating a Rubric for Evaluating WebQusts: http:// http://webquest.sdsu.edu/webquestrubric.html/.

Generally speaking, despite a huge volume of information, I found this week’s assignments most challenging, but very helpful. The harder the tasks are, the more pleasurable is the sense of achievement after accomplishing this or that task.

Looking forward to more exciting novelties.

All the best
Bella

Some Thoughts About WebQuests

I have taken the title of Bernie Dodge’s article (Bernie Dodge, San Diego State University)
http:// http://webquest.sdsu.edu/about_webquests.html/ as the title for my present post, as this is the first time I have heard about WebQuests. At the beginning I was scared of this term and thought it was something intricate and complex. But having read this Article, alongside with other readings on this topic, it became absolutely clear to me what the goals and the ways of application of WebQuests were: This is exactly what we are doing at our present course with Oregon University. This is the way our weekly assignments are arranged. And due to this very thoughtful organization of the material, we can swim peacefully in the ocean of information and reach the shore safely at the end of each week.

Now, I would like to sum up what I have learned about WebQuests:

A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the internet, optionally supplemented with videoconferencing. There are at least two levels of WebQuests that should be distinguished from one another. The instructional goal of a short term WebQuest is knowledge acquisition and integration. The instructional goal of a longer term WebQuest is extending and refining knowledge.


Components of efficient Web Quests:
1. Introduction – to provides some background information.
2. A doable and interesting task.
3. Information sources to complete the task
4. A description of the clear, step-by-step process to accomplish the task.
5. A conclusion – to bring closure to the quest, reminding the learners about what they've learned

Besides these, there are also some additional ideas provided by Dodge, i.e. a) WebQuests are most likely to be group activities, b) WebQuests might be enhanced by wrapping motivational elements, c) WebQuests can be designed within a single discipline or they can be interdisciplinary.

How to design a WebQuest


1. The first stage for a teacher is to become familiar with the resources available on-line in their own content area. A very useful link is provided here: http:// http://edweb.sdsu.edu/links/index.html/.
2. The next step is to organize one's knowledge of what's out there. This task is very much similar to what we have done in Delicious Bookmarking tasks.
3. Following that, teachers should identify topics that fit in with their curriculum and for which there are appropriate materials on-line. The following links can be very helpful: http:// http://webquest.sdsu.edu/designsteps/index.html/.
http:// http://webquest.sdsu.edu/designpatterns/all.htm/.

As a conclusion to my readings and reflections on WebQuests, I can only say:

I Love Webquests!

All the best

Bella

Reflections on PBL

I found the article Project-based ESL Education: Promoting Language and Content Learning, by Yan Guo, Ph.D., University of Calgary, at: http:// http://www.atesl.ca/cmsms/home/newsletters/december-2007/project-based-esl-education /. , very interesting and would like to share some of the main points with you too.

Project-based learning aims to engage students in the investigation of real life problems and develop students’ creativity, problem-solving, and lifelong learning (Barron, 1998; Breault & Breault, 2005; Blumenfeld et al., 1991). A very clear, 10-step structure of the real-world project work is given by Alan and Stoller (2005), which I’m going to use in my project work:

1. the students and instructor agree on a theme for the project,
2. the students and instructor determine the final outcome of the project,
3. the students and instructor structure the project,
4. the instructor prepares students for the demands of information gathering,
5. the students gather information,
6. the instructor prepares students for the demands of compiling and analyzing data,
7. the students compile and analyze information,
8. the instructor prepares students for the language demands of conducting the activity,
9. the students present the final product,
10. the students evaluate the project.

Besides improving language and content knowledge, PBL can undoubtedly enhanced learners’ motivation, their critical thinking and decision-making abilities. It can improve the students’ performance in writing and communication, and initiate their active roles in learning (Gu, 2002).

According to the research, PBL offered an opportunity for learners to communicate meaningfully and increased authentic interaction and purposeful language learning (Gu, 2001). Students interacted far more often in project-based learning than they would have in other ESL courses; they had more autonomy in their learning, and they perceived that the learning process was more relevant to their lives (Fang & Warschuer, 2004).

However, there may be some kind of resistance to this method, especially in a formal, traditional classroom, where you are bound with the Curriculum objectives. Personally, I think, PBL should be integrated in the syllabus, and shouldn’t be given as a separate task beyond the curriculum. (Though, it can also work in some cases). We should all build our PBL on both the learners’ needs, as well as teachers’ objectives.

All the best

Bella

Week 4: To Bend Over Backwards

I would like to preface this week’s reflections with this idiom, which means ‘to do as much as you possibly can to get the desired results, perhaps more than what would be expected’. This video is uploaded from http:// www.manythings.org/b/e/4647/.


Why have I chosen this particular idiom?

Because :
1. It reflects exactly my efforts undertaken during this week. This week, alongside my course assignments, I started to do e- marking of the writing essays for the National Exams, which are taken annually for those who wish to continue studying at higher educational institutions. And this marking process will probably go on for several weeks. For this reason, this week was particularly hard in terms of the great amount of time spent in front of the computer.

2. It demonstrates how actively I can use the indicated links: http://www.manythings.org/ is also one of my favorites. This particular piece is a demonstration of teaching pronunciation with idioms.

3. If I succeed in uploading the video, it will also demonstrate how my web skills are developing.

This week’s assignments focused on’ Skill-building Websites for Reading/Writing Skills and Technology-enhanced Lesson Plans’. As usual, we were given four blocks of assignments:

a) We were to read some articles about using CALL in writing and reading activities:http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Krajka-WritingUsingNet.html/.
http://iteslj.org/Lessons/Liang-ExtensiveReading.html/.
and discuss our ideas in our posts on the Nicenet.

b) We were to explore several websites on reading/vocabulary, as well as some of the multi-skill websites (which I have bookmarked on my Delicious page:
http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/.
http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried/.
http://www.lclark.edu/~krauss/toppicks/toppicks.html/.
http://a4esl.org/.
Then we were to look at some technology-enhanced lesson plans: http://ledtech.tennessee.edu/~bobannon/lesson_plan.htm/.
and prepare our own lesson plan with technology.

c) In our Project task we were to think about some teacher-related and student-oriented issues that technology might help with.
d) And traditionally, our Reflective Blogs.

Thus, I had to bend over backwards to do all these assignments before the deadline, which I have managed, and now it's for Deborah to judge whether I did it successfully or not this time.

All the best

Bella

P.S. Sadly,I wasn't able to upload the video this time, but I'll keep trying and I hope, I can do it.Meanwhile, you can watch it on the link I gave above.

Week 3: More reflections on another very interesting and productive week

This week was extremely hard because of a very high temperature in Tbilisi – around 40⁰ C and even more! I felt that I had to mobilize all my strength and energy to manage to do my week assignments successfully.

As usual, I started with reading the assignments plan carefully. The first task was quite easy to do: to create my own page on www.delicious.com . It’s a social bookmarking page, which I found very practical. I used to bookmark the links I needed to refer to later on my computer. But the inconvenience of this kind of bookmarking is that you can only use it on your computer, whereas you can use Delicious bookmarking tool from any other computer. Besides, it gives us the possibility to join other people’s bookmarks too, which considerably increases our search options for the necessary topic and information. And, of course, tagging our bookmarks is very necessary – this way we can easily and quickly get access to the search point.

Having successfully completed this task, I got down to my reading materials – a sea of information (somebody used this metaphor). It took me a couple of days to digest all the information before I could start to do other required assignments. While reading the material I constantly bookmarked all the necessary and interesting links, which saved me time while working on my discussion posts. This week was dedicated to teaching aural/oral skills with CALL. We were to read at least one article out of the following three:
Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials (Word .doc file)
http://www.elthillside.com/up/files/article4.doc, New Perspectives in Teaching Pronunciation http://www.openstarts.units.it/dspace/bitstream/10077/2850/1/bus%C3%A0.pdf , The Employment of CALL in Teaching Second/Foreign Language Speaking Skills www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/research/resources/student_res/postscriptfiles/vol3/vol3_1_gong1.pdf , as well as to look at some of the lesson plans at: Speaking lesson plans at One Stop English,
Conversation lesson plans at esl.about.com, Communicative lesson plans at ESL-galaxy.com, and explain how technology could be helpful in improving our students' listening, speaking and pronunciation skills. I followed the instructions and posted my comment to the discussion forum.

There was one more discussion topic for us: to explore and share with the group the pages we thought would best meet our students needs, and the ways of using technology in our teaching. Most of my course mates (including myself) commented about Randall's Cyber Listening Lab: http://www.esl-lab.com/. It’s a real treasure for teachers and students alike. And other resources as well, provided by Deborah: Listening RealEnglish video http://www.real-english.com/reo/1/unit1.html, Pronunciation links - http://www.uoregon.edu/~dhealey/138/pronlinks.html, Pronunciation Tips from the BBC - exercises, videos, quizzes http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/, Best Sites to Practice Speaking English (Larry Ferlazzo) - high use of tech
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/03/17/the-best-sites-to-practice-speaking-english/.

This particular assignment I found extremely helpful for me: while exploring these sites, I followed the instructions to see how it worked and found that, besides being very rich in content, they were also very easy to use, even for people with minimum computer literacy skills. Surely, it’s impossible to do everything at a time, and this is not only a week’s task – I will return to them many times after I finish this course.

However, the first thing I will do when I meet my students in September is that I will tell them how to use the social bookmarking tools to their advantage. By this I will be able to share with them all the necessary information and material, that will be related to our curriculum, and many things beyond it!
That’s all I wanted to say about this week’s work. I hope it will become a bit cooler next week and my working process will become more efficient and enjoyable.

All the best
Bella

Follow up to my Class description

Within my project work I described my group of MA Students in ELT, and thanks to Arjana's helpful instruction I am able to upload the pictures.

These are my student-teachers doing observed practice at school with K-2, and K-6 pupils.

Week 2: The course is getting tough

Another week of my learning experience is ending. This week I found that it was a bit tougher compared with the previous week, and I’m sure it’ll be even tougher as we proceed. It’s natural! We had more assignments and more readings to do, so I realized that I needed to organize my work properly to do everything in time.

Thus, I started with the task – to share a behavioral objective for a class we teach using the ABCD model. At our university we are required to design our syllabuses including all the components of the ABCD model (i.e. Audience, Behavior, Condition, and Degree) but under different headings. After reading about it, what I liked most was that the focus was made on behavior – as the saying goes ‘I do and I understand’. So I decided to apply the ABCD model to my teacher training session in TKT on lesson planning, as this was fresh in my mind. Though, in the beginning, I was not quite sure whether it was the right way to do, but Deborah’s kind comment encouraged me. From now on I’m going to look at my syllabuses and lesson plans from the ABCD perspective.

Then I moved to another assignment – a discussion on Web search engines. I read all the suggested material and learned about a lot of other possibilities apart from Google. Thank Deborah again for offering such trustworthy and reliable sites as http://www.noodletools.com/, http://www.intute.ac.uk, http://hakia.com, etc. and also for disclosing some search techniques about how to limit/expand our search. Now, I’m sure, my search will be more efficient in terms of the time used as well as the topic searched.

Today I started making steps towards Planning my Project work – I described my class of MA students in ELT with whom I’m going to do a course in ‘Using Multimedia in ELT’ applying all the knowledge and techniques learned within this course.
And now I’m summing up all this for my Blog post. I find it very interesting to reflect upon the fulfilled tasks and assignments – I feel it’s becoming a habit that’s got a lot of advantages: first, you report what you have done for the week; second, you can track the progress of you work, and third, you can refer to it any time if you need to recall or use something from it.

However, I have to confess that this week all my work was self-oriented, I mean, I wasn’t very active in discussions and comments to my coursemates, which I lacked very much. But, I’m going to make it up during the week-end.

I suppose, that’s all for now.