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.