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!

End of Another Week's Excitment

Week four dawned with same enthusiasm and curiosity to know what is NEW on this week. How much to read, what to add to Delicious, any new Web tools to develop etc. From the first glance I realised the that Donna had put us at ease in reading when compared to the previous week. Out of all the reading material, I prefer the article on Lesson Plan instructions. All the important items in a lesson is clearly described in there. It gives a clear idea for anybody to end up in writing good lesson plans. Reading Activities through E-books and Using Internet in Writing are the other articles which got my attention most. I enjoyed reading them as well as exploring Multi-skill websites.

Though some links didn't get open and not the latest versions, I still found things new to me. As always, I felt the novelty in following this course. There's often  new things to explore, new discoveries to be made and more than anything, there's new concepts to think about. I enjoy this atmosphere and would like to thanks our dear teacher and my dear colleagues who keep us all on the move all the time.

Lets Gear Up for the Week 5!

Chandy

What a Week? Where Did It Go? - Week 3

As Monday dawned here in Sri Lanka, I was logging into the home page of our’s several times to see if this week's material are available. After trying several impatient attempts here they are!!! I was enthusiastic to have them all, but when I went down the page I felt bit suffocative to see a load of reading materials piled up together. When I read Donn's instructions for the week I knew she expected us to comment on one thing, out of many. But to select the one thing I had to read the whole lot. As I love my reading I was not to miss any. Therefore, I thought of going from the very first reading material.

All of a sudden a thought stuck me. Why should I start with reading first, why can't I make my Delicious Pages? This led me to be the first person to create Delicious Pages. I was quite happy with my achievement and read again Donna's post to realize that I should add links as well. While trying to add links something went wrong and I immediately deleted my Delicious Pages. That's why most of you might have not seen my name on the top of the list! Then I added my links and did well, but still I was having problems in logging from my URL. I was medalling with this Delicious 'food' for so long and forgotten my other duties to fulfil.

I was stressed in remembering my pile of reading to do. On top of it, I was compelled to sacrifice two days due to a personal matter. After losing those valuable hours plus my Delicious pages not opening to my colleagues and Donna, I was at a loss. I knew that I've got the weekend too, but I'm not a last minute person who rushes through to do things. My style is to start early and finish almost everything by Friday and to relax until the next thing start. But this week it didn't happen in the normal way and I'm still at work on Saturday night instead of reading my novel by the bedside! All in all, hopefully I'm at the end of submitting all the assignments due for week 3.

When I look back, I'm quite satisfied with the material we acquainted, the new techniques we discovered etc. I was quite amazed to discover my Delicious pages. My favourite sites are just a click away from any online computer either at home or at work, which is very convenient. I'd love to do more exploration in adding things to make it better. A BIG thank you always goes to our Dear teacher for piling up all these attractive stuff for us to get amazed by.

I felt sad for not reading and digesting all the reading stuff provided. Time constrain prevented me from analysing and digesting the contents well. But as we got the links and the reading intact with us, we could leisurely go through them to discover more wonders.

At the same time I'm very grateful to Donna for exposing us to the Project Reports written by the past participants. It gave a rough idea on what type of studies we have to think and plan. If we go back and read again these reports carefully, I'm sure we could learn and add more things to our future endeavours.

As one more day is left for me from this week, I think still I'm ahead of my work. I'm sure I'll have time to read my novel, do some Sunday cooking for the family and get ready to face the Week 4!

Thanks everybody who helped me in sending posts and comments my way. Donna, thanks in million for the correct guidance and kind concern extended towards us. Anticipate more challenging stuff for the coming week!

Have A fantastic Weekend My Dear Friends!

Dawning of Week 2

Hello My Friends,

After learning many new things during the first week of our Web Skills course, I was looking forward to week 2. Before I began my very first Online course I was bit worried whether I'll find time to get on with it after meeting all the deadlines as well. But when I reached the first week without breaking into halves, I anticipated the second week to be the same. 

When I saw Donna's email informing us now things for the second week is officially on, I rushed to open my email. I was bit taken aback after seeing all the reading I have to do. Bloom's taxonomy, ABCD model of writing Objectives, First step in writing the project..... all these new ideas started to entangle in my mind. But slowly it started to untangle when I started to read the material and started to do the tasks one by one. As we have the total freedom to reach Donna anytime to clarify everything, it has become a great help to run the things smoothly.

What impressed me mostly were the ABCD method of writing the objectives and the stack of search engines which enabled me to go into many resourceful sites. I'm sure my students will benefit after knowing some of these search engines too.

Though its just two week which had passed, I feel like being in this course for a month or so!!!! I think its to do with the new things we learn every day. It keeps us busy and exciting throughout the week. I have a naval feeling that I'm seeing and thinking about matters deeply and in a different way. I like that feeling and hope to get exposed to many more new things and face the challenge well.

Making of My Blog - Week 1

Making a Blog was quite a new thing to me as I have not done it before. But as I already have a Gmail account I could skip few steps and continue from step 3. As the instructions given in the paper was very clear I didn't have any problem in making the Blog. In fact I enjoyed achieving each step and seeing something new. After making the Blog of mine, I started to do experiments like, inserting a picture of me, changing the appearance, putting different designs etc. Its not very frustrating so far, as I achieve things well.

I'm thinking about how to incorporate Blogs in my writing classes. At the same time, I browse Internet to find out the ways of teaching English using Blogs.

Hope to find more ways on designing the Blog as well as how to incorporate it in teaching the language. If you got more ideas, please let me know.

Thanks

Chandy

Week 1- My First Blog Creation

Hi Everyone,

This is the very first time I created a Blog of my own. As I've already got a G mail address, I started my journey from Step 3 in the instruction sheet. It was plain sailing for me as the instructions were very clear in the paper.Once I created it I wanted to do some designing. But I was not able to succeed well in it. I think we have to get involved in lots of experimenting, to achieve things. Therefore I kept it aside for the time being.. 

Now I'm thinking of how I could use this tool to develop the students' writing skill in the class. As I'm dealing with young adults they are inquisitive about new techniques in learning. Blogs give total freedom for anybody to experiment and comment their ideas, not only for the teacher to read but also to the classmates and to the whole world. I think Blogs could develop learner independence that way. As I mentioned earlier, the biggest draw back in learning English is caused by lack of motivation. These new technological tools like Blogs will increase the students' interest and motivation to use the language. Because, its not  only the teacher's feedback they get, but friends', classmates' and outer world's. As a result, they will take extra precautions in doing something right with correct spelling and grammar as they don't like to get exposed with wrong English mostly. On the other hand, I think, Blogs pave a path to the learners to reflect, comment, question, as well as to communicate with each other. When consider on using Blogs in the classroom as teachers, a Blog can be used  as an authentic, interesting and a communicative teaching tool.

With all this new realizations and excitement of finding a new tool for teaching, I look forward to grab many opportunities to know the interesting ways of incorporating Blogs in language classes.