WEEK 9

Teaching Styles and Technology Connections

As before it was a fruitful week . I reinforced my knowledge  about learning styles and  theories which refreshed my memory  in how to treat and teach my students respecting their individuality and  style of learning. I enjoyed watching the videos posted in this web  http://www.edutopia.org   because they gave me a clear idea on how to  take advantage of the students knowledge and interest in order to develop  an interactive, real and virtual lesson.  I also l think it is  important  how parents support and help the students in the learning process.

I plan to continue to check anew the material Donna sent us and pick out the information that I consider most important. I am also going to apply the technology by creating my own material, in this way I will be practicing both with myself and students.

This week I completed my project with the help of Daouda and Ion who supported me and gave me many suggestions on how to improve my project.

Alex.

WEEK 8 REFLECTIONS

TEACHER RESOURCES ONLINE

So far this has been an exhausting week. There was so much interesting information that I found that motivated me to continue checking the webs that was sent to us. It took me a long time to open and read all the webs and the time just flew by!

§  www.blogger.com,

§  http://www.crosswordpuzzlegames.com/create.html      

§   http://www.toolsforeducators.com/

: http://www.easytestmaker.com/default.aspx

I reviewed the web sites above and found them to be amazing because of the large variety of activities, games, cross word  puzzles, bingo, flash cards, quizzes, etc.  With all of this material I know that I can make a change in my English lessons.

In High School I work with a boring and unmotivated textbook and now that I know how to create motivated and dynamic activities according to their ages and level of knowledge of the language. One of the beneficial out come of all of this is that my students don’t have to spend their money on buying extra material to do their work.

I find it now so easy to create a blog, a nice net, bingo, puzzles, etc., that I simply select what I need and with a touch of the keys I have all the interactivities at hand. This helps the teacher tremendously to save time and effort  and I now look forward to putting all this into practice.

Another thing I learned by exploring ANVILL was the different  tools and exercises along with the activities that we can choose from  it in order to make our lessons more dynamic and motivating for the students. I can now say  that Technology is a great tool which helps both the teachers and students in their learning process.

Alex.

WEEK 7 Reflections

Learner Autonomy and One Computer Classroom

Another productive week has come to an end. During these days, I read articles about Autonomous Learners and One Computer Classroom. These articles were very informative because they both have interesting information that showed clear strategies to be followed by the students and teacher. It also showed how the students/teacher share their responsibilities during the teaching/learning process.

I think Autonomy is important for the students. For a student to be autonomous they must interact with other students that are constructing their own knowledge base of experiences.

In regards to the article One Computer classroom - I learned how to create and apply interesting and interactive PPT lessons. Where I teach we do not have access to computers or access to internet so we have to use a laptop and projector in the audiovisual room. What I plan to do is use this room and use prepaid internet to project the PPT that I like.

http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/templategallery/.

Microsoft's Design Gallery Live.

http://theeasyessay.com/?pg=reg

 Using these Webs are a good way to start with PP Lessons as I consider them to be both interactive and creative.

I will also show them a video about food groups found in the following Web site http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zt-KYP_4vg.

Alex.

WEEK 6

INTERACTIVE POWER POINT

The Power Point has proven to me to be a excellent learning tool in order to give the students the necessary technology for classes that do not have the Internet Facilities or Computers.  It gives the students the ability to interact between each other at any moment during the presentation.

It allows the student to learn quickly and effectively developing their critical thinking and not get bored as in the traditional way of learning. That is why it is important that the Teacher prepares the Templates  they must keep it simple and clear, use color but not too much. Every template should be short and clear so that they stay interested and do not get bored.

Another aspect I read  was improving class discussions so that students can integrate in a group  in order to share with each and the teacher their ideas in person or via e-mail. The Teacher should reinforce their efforts so that the student doesn’t lose hope and continues to try to do his best.

Students must become self motivated to accomplish his work and become committed to their work and efforts on their own and be responsible in order to construct their learning abilities to use what this technology is providing.

Alex.

Week 5

Project Base Learning -Web Quest and Rubrics

Dearest colleagues  I have been working hard these past weeks but I am learning a lot that is true. During this week I read the articles about Project-Base learning , the use of Rubrics and Alternative Assessment and there is no doubt that putting these aspects in practice  will help our students to become autonomous. In regard to this aspect I want to mention that they need to be aware of their responsibility in  the development   of the different activities on line  in order to succeed.       

The Project-Based Learning provides the students with the complex tasks based on challenging questions or problems in which they have investigated, reflected and came up with solutions, decisions and possible alternatives. All of this process has to be done by students themselves with the guidance of the teacher. The Assessment tasks gives the  students the chance to evaluate themselves and correct their mistakes. At the same time they are working in pairs or groups so little by little they become aware and confident about  their abilities and weaknesses and become stronger in their will to improve themselves.  

There are other ways of assessing oneself, using check lists and rubrics which is important to focus on how our students accomplish their assignments. Not forgetting as teachers we have to evaluate the whole process not just measuring their knowledge.

Rubrics is one of the keys for a student to perform well and to get to know exactly what they are going to be graded on so that they motivated to do their best in the different tasks that they are assigned.

Alex.

WEEK 4

 Reading and Writing Web Sites

This week has been one of Investigating  different web sites  especially to improve the reading, writing and vocabulary. Of the articles that I read I enjoyed the articles of Mai  Ya Liang as they were  easy to follow and understand. She also gave us many web sites which contained much more activities, videos, games, stories and didn´t focused so much on reading.  These activities can be used in and outside of the class. I hope to use these activities in the future in order to help me motivate  my students since they do not like to read and these activities by showing them drawings, all kinds of books containing interesting topics in accordance with their age and level of understanding.

 I completed the required Lesson Plan which we do as Teachers. This Plan took me a while as I  never made a Lesson Plan using  the computer  (book marks) from the web sites.  Related to my Project, what is referenced I think that the e books or blog would be  the best way to teach my students, this way they will be able to practice their reading and writing more efficiently.

I looking forward to your comments. Thank you.

Alex

Webskillls Reflection

Week 3. Knowing and Sharing Delicious

I  don’t remember spending so much time on a computer as I have this past week! I read a lot of interesting articles, checked web sites, posted on the Delicious page sent by Colleagues and Donna and it was an exhausting job  but it was well worth it because I realize how easy and fast you can get to information you need when you have this page is an energy saver. I also updated and reinforced my knowledge about pronunciation. Due to this part I would like to share a Web I consider very useful  http://animatedspeech.com  if you’re having difficulties to get into it just click on  www.teachtown.com . this is a great Web with lots of fun activities.

A month ago I didn’t have any idea about what Delicious was. This week I created my delicious site, it wasn’t as difficult to create it as it was to create a blog.

  I joined the wiki, my URL is  http://www.delicious.com/Alexcarattini I really appreciate  if you share  some good sites so that I can  apply them to my Public School and University.

I also read Aleyda’s project that coincidentally expresses the reality of my country due to the restricted areas provided with internet  and the lack of  motivation of the students to learn English.  When I start my next level at the University I would like to try to apply what I am learning overcoming the difficulties related to technology  I mention before. I think the best way to start is with a blog so my pupils and I can share different information , reflections videos, comments etc.

Anyway, My eyes hurt from the computer,   have a great weekend!

 Look forward to your comments..

Hasta la vista

Alex.