Where have you gone?

Dear All,

How are you? Hope you all are busy doing the work. Did you start to incorporate the new techniques you've learned in your classes? I'm sure you did. I thought of incorporating Blogs to my classes. But the Blog which we learnt is controlled by the author or rather the creator of the blog. 

The system I wanted to introduce needed my involvement in correcting the students' writing as well. Therefore I searched the web to find any blog types which would provide this facility for me. Then I ended up finding www. kidblog.org. 

In my academic English classes, the writing tasks were given the blog and students log in to find out the task and send there responses. Then I go through the responses and send back the feed back (corrections). This was done mainly for them to get motivated in doing their homework. I choose  a different way rather than the pen and paper. The responses are slow but progressive. I came across some technical problems as well in correcting but was able to overcome most of it. If you are interested, you could go into www.kidblog.org/AcademicEduAgri/ and see how the blog operates. 

Would love to hear your comments.

Take care

Chandy

Yes It's Much Tooooo Late For Goodbyes!

Well, well, well, we had reached the final stage of a Fabulous Journey, I would say. It was a very pleasant and sweet experience for me, as this was my very first online course. I think I have reaped my harvest well as a beginner. I never felt I was doing this for the first time, as I was totally engrossed in learning new things and  experimenting new ideas all the time. My days were filled with reading, thinking, sharing and enjoying. I just can't imagine living without this work. But all good things won't last forever, even the bad things too. I have gained everything and didn't loose any except my sleep sometimes. All these happy memories, as well as the wealth of knowledge, will linger with me for ever.

This was a relaxing week for me when compared with all the work we did during the past. I leisurely contributed in the discussion and in the task. It gave me a chance to look back and pile up all the best ways to follow, when writing the advices to the future Web Skills participants. The LoTI ratings were a very good scale to evaluate where we are in using technology, and what are the heights we have to reach in future. Almost all the material I had come across this course was high quality and advanced. The material provided was very much relevant and very effective in understanding the concepts and ideas. I'm very grateful for the dear teacher Donna, for her very kind assistance and encouragement provided for me through out.

Well my dear friends, are we saying good byes??? I don't think we could, and I don't think we have to. Becasue we had just started to know each other only. There's a long way for us to go. We need each other in sorting out the problems, getting advices, as we did all this time. Therefore, how to end this relationship, how to live without this sharing?? Do you know a way? I don't. So, please go on writing and helping each other. Let's have our common forum. If anybody's interested in making a Blog or Wiki or something, to gather any time, please let me know. I'll be around all the time for you. If you visit the sunny climes of Sri Lanka, don't forget your friend Chandy to contact. Let's find a way to keep in touch all the time. I'm sending my email again to all of you, chitrangani24@yahoo.com.

It was fabulous being with all nice people for ten weeks. The experience was amazing and heart warming. Thank you all for the very warm and loving environment provided for me. Wish to keep in touch with everyone. WARM WISHES FOR ALL YOUR FUTURE ENDEAVOURS!

With lots of love......................

Pleasant Encounters

This week was more relaxing for me when compared with the previous ones. I have done my amendments in the final draft of the project and altered some ideas after my dear partners, Sebnem's & Dragana's comments. Therefore, it was just arranging and submitting the work.

I was really fascinated by the topic we have to cover this week. Learning styles was not a new concept for me, but Multiple Intelligence theory is quite new as I came across it few months back. When I did the test myself for the first time, I was surprised to know how true it was for me. That's the moment I started my research on MI and came across many details. But as I said in my Nicenet discussion, I had not tried it in any of my classes so far. That was a BIG mistake, I suppose. When we get used to the old ways of teaching, sometimes we forget the needful. After reading the articles provided for this week, I got a clear idea on how to associate the tool in teaching. By this way I hope we will be able to solve many problems the students face in learning languages.

Gradually, we are reaching the end of this fabulous, knowledgeable course. Will we ever meet?? I doubt it. But still we had built up a good rapport with each other sharing information, knowledge and friendship. I think that is a very BIG achievement for all of us. Also, I treasure meeting our Donna, the resource person who had organized and implemented this fantastic course with very innovative tools. 

In fact, I treasure meeting you all!

Lost Online?

My 8th week started with the same enthusiasm. But I couldn't go through the content as I was busy with my project draft, and on giving feedback on my two colleagues' work. After submitting and commenting about the reports before the deadline, I had time to have a look at the week 8 content.

I was amazed the same way, I should say more this week as I came across many sites which I had never knew before. I didn't go to make any Class Blogs or Nicenet class at that time but was very inquisitive over making exercises online. I was truly amazed by this as I used to do online exercises before. I never knew that we will learn the techniques behind the making. I tried from one to the other, starting with 'Tools for Educators' up to 'SMILE'. I was engrossed in the experimenting part for too long and didn't realise that the time had gone and I didn't submit any of my work. Then, the panic started and everything started to go wrong. Thanks to Rashid who came to help me in a very generous way!

When I started with ANVILL, many had experimented and commented about it. It was easy to read through the Nicenet post and Jeff's very clear explanations in understanding what is happening there. On week 7 I was asking from Donna whether we could experience the BlackBoard and I never thought we will end up getting a Webinar using Blackboard Collaborate. As I faced too many delays this week, I was late for the Webinar too! I never thought it will take time to download all the necessary tools to start the Webinar. Anyway, I was able to join the rest after sometime. But missed the opportunity of meeting my dear friends and hearing, seeing them. 

Well friends, we are slowly coming to the end of this course. I can't imagine living without these sharing, thinking about teaching, experiencing all the new inventions etc. I think we all gained a lot in this course. I was quite dumb on computer tools earlier, but I think I'm much ahead than the others around me!!! I'm proud and happy about it. Though we will be getting isolated in our own worlds after another two weeks, I think we can keep these conversations going through emails. Therefore, if you don't mind please share the emails with me. Mine is chitrangani24@yahoo.com.

We should not only be the life long learners, but also the life long friends!

After a Storm Comes a Calm

I geared up to start week 7 the same way thinking I'll be snowed under. But, I was relived to see this week was bit lighter than the previous week. Out of all the readings I had to do, I most enjoyed the Learner autonomy. I've heard about it here and there, but this was the first time I got a proper idea about the whole concept. To know about teacher autonomy really fascinated me. I wish we all get some more teacher autonomy in our jobs!

One computer classes are known to me, but varied type of activities we could get involved in, is very interesting. As this situation (one computer classes) will be a common phenomena in my teaching, all these strategies  will be immensely useful.

My biggest challenge is to plan the project well and submit it by next Wednesday. These days I'm concentrating on it mostly. I've got Dragana and Sebnem, who are well versed in the subject and hope to get their precious ideas to improve my work.

All the best for all of you in project work. May we all meet the deadline successfully!

What an Interactive Week!

Dear All,

Are you all aware that we have already passed the half mark of our course. I never felt that we are at the latter part, as we always are busy with the work and look forward to the next. I wonder what we will be doing after the end of this course. One thing I plan to do is, to go through all the readings leisurely and digest the material much more. We have to start practicing all these great methods with our students. I know some of you are doing it already, but for me, when I started the course it was the end of the semester and I'll have a chance to try them after the students return in December for the new Semester.

I was amazed by the concepts, methods and tools I came across during this week. I personally don't like to teach large classes as it's very tiring and you just don't get convinced, if you have done a genuine job with them, at the end of the day. But after seeing all the very interactive, innovative and thought provoking material we came across, my fear and negative thoughts vanished. I would love to take hold of a large class and practice some of these techniques to see how they work on large numbers.

The other BIGGEST challenge I had was the PowerPoint slides. As I've mentioned in my post, I normally don't use them in teaching, but students do it all the time, mainly in their academic presentations. First I never felt the challenge as I thought the instructions will lead me where I have to go. But unfortunately, my PP version is 2011 and the instruction sheet is for a older version. As soon as I realized that, I panicked as I didn't have anybody to get help at that time. Once I rang a friend, he asked me to follow the Help and I'll be fine. As he said, I referred to PP Help and ended up enjoying every moment being there. I'm happy for what I've done for the first time, but there's lot more to learn on PP. I'm thinking of all possibilities in incorporating this technique together with some interesting YouTube videos to the lessons, to make them more fun filled for the learners.

As always, I'm very grateful to Donna in exposing us to these tools like PP which are not new to most of us.  But, the beauty of this learning is/was and always will be the new way of looking at the known/unknown resources and use them in a quite remarkable manner. Donna, what could we do without your kind guidance and encouragement!

Inquisitively waiting for Week 7!

Assesments Driven me Nuts!

My week started with all pleasant things. I was happy to open the week 5 content as there were rubrics and the extra work as well. I'm bit familiar with rubrics as I had done it few times before. I love this new way of evaluating the students. All these alternative assessments keep the students relaxed in their studies. If not almost all of them get stressed due to the semester end assessment which determines the entire future of the learner. It was a thing I deadened once as a student. Also by having assessed many skills separately, we as teachers get to know about our students' capabilities well. Therefore, this  system works well with languages too. 

I am familiar with Problem Based Learning, which is quite the same. It does wonders on students and they never understand that they are learning the language. Also, this task improves learner's thinking line and decision making skills. According to my experience with these young learners, they  love to face challenges and achieve things out of the hard way. 

Webquest is the ideal tool which stressed me out this time. It gave me enormous trouble as I was struggling with a poor Internet connection due to heavy downpours.  I never waited this long to complete my work, but things are getting delayed due to some reason.

With all these obstacles coming to put me down, I never gave up. I read all the material provided, digested what I need for the week's task (Because, I believe there's more attentive reading to be done on these subject areas) and ended up doing well. I'm happy about it and looking forward to week 6!