Week 10: Reflection on the course

Hi everybody,

That’s it. We did it. It was a really great course for me because it was not full theory.
We had to read but afterwards we could put in practice what we had learned. I enjoyed creating my blog and web quest as they will not be discarded afterwards but I will continue using blogs to introduce those activities we have learned in this 10-week program.
The delicious.com account I created is something I found really useful, even though I got some problems lately to update it. Many times I found interesting and useful websites, wrote the URL down on a piece of paper and then…… lost it. Sometimes you go back easily to them but many times you can’t find them anymore. I can open it anywhere and retrieve some websites I need or I want to share with someone.
The Rubric we had to create was also something that even if I spent some time to make it up, it is something that I think most of us needed at work because the ones we were using were obsolete or to complex to be used easily.
Finally, the last part of the course were I start working with the Hot Potatoes software and the TOOLSFOREDUCATORS was the best as I found out that I could easily create a lot of extra material for my classes or even ask my students to be part of it by asking them to create some material and try it in class.
I t was a great course.
Thank you Sandra, Deborah and our guest moderators.
Raphaël

Week 9: Task: Create online course site or exercise

Hi everybody,

This was really a wonderful activity. I was really interested in knowing how to create a class as we have been using for the past 9 weeks and now I know. This was so simple that I asked Sandra if we would be able to continue using the NICENET.ORG after the course because I see many ways to use this website for my students but also for the in-training of our teachers. I thought it could replace some of our training workshops where we ask our teachers to come on their free time on Saturdays at a specific time to attend our workshops. This could be also very useful for our new teachers. We could ask them to enroll in one course we prepare only in order to train them with basic things we want them to apply in their classes as for example techniques, analyzing the learning styles, creating on-line activities, etc.
I also enjoyed last night the HOT POTATO software at http://hotpot.uvic.ca/.
I downloaded it as indicated and started creating a cloze to try the program. My fears were, after reading the instructions, how to save it so everybody could use it. I read that I could save it in HTML but I don't have any website so I just tried and save it as a *.zip file. I tried it and it worked.
I just commented some of my fellow coordinators about that software and they really want to know more about it as it is really powerful to create cloze, etc.
I will continue creating different exercises as I would like to have a full e-teaching course for my high intermediate 9.


Really great.

Raphaël

Week 9: On-line Tools for Enhancing Learning

Hi everybody,

I must say that I really enjoyed trying all those programs given in the http://www.toolsforeducators.com/. I really had fun and found some that would be really useful at least for the groups I am teaching.
I found the Free Word Search Maker at http://www.toolsforeducators.com/wordsearch/ really good for all level as you can prepare it according to the topic you are studying with your groups and I am sure most of your students will enjoy it because they will be willing to find all the words. Moreover, if you use it as a contest for a warm up or wrap up activity, it will for sure wake up the sleepy ones.
I also enjoy the Game Board Maker at http://www.toolsforeducators.com/boardgames/
as it is also useful for warm up activities to keep your students occupied, wake them up and at the same time it changes their mind.
I think the Free Crossword Maker at http://www.toolsforeducators.com/crossword/
is the best activity to make your students more autonomous as they must create the complete exercise and then they can test it with their classmates.
The Bingo Maker at http://www.toolsforeducators.com/bingo/ and the Free Maze Maker at http://www.toolsforeducators.com/mazes/ are also good activities to change your student's mind by doing something different.
The Reading and Spelling at http://www.toolsforeducators.com/spelling is really nice to review vocabulary and the Free Writing, Spelling, and Tracing worksheet at http://www.toolsforeducators.com/writing/ is okay but I would use it more for lower level as I expect my students in high level to write much more and about give topics.
The Certificate Maker at http://www.123certificates.com/ and the GUEST TOOLS at http://www.timesaversforteachers.com/ are great to improve our students' creativity.


I must really say that I enjoyed this activity and it opened my eyes on the possibilities some websites offer to teachers and students.

Thanks for reading my comments.

See you soon

Raphaël

Week 8: One computer class

Hi everybody,

I found this activity really interesting because for sure this the reality of most of us. At work we have a laboratory but it is accessible to public so during normal class hours not all the computers are available for one class. In each classroom we have one computer only. So this activity was perfect to think about new activities to use in class.
This is also something we emphasize during our monthly workshops. Teachers are shown during those workshop how to use a computer in class as our workshops are organized in small groups in the same classes.
We have also to take into account taht the computer is not only for teacher's use but students also can be given the oportunity to use it or for presentations or also by organizing activities were the students can use the computer to answer questions or quizzes.


See you soon

Raphaël

Week 8: Learner autonomy

Hi everybody,

It was again a busy week for me as we started another month session. I tried the best I could to catch up on my task, homework and project but I will have to continue late tonight and tomorrow to be on time.
For my project, I am already busy with it because I have until next week to finish it and as I am working on a one-month session I started with that on the first day of class (two days ago) and I had to dedicate most of my time to have my final project ready to test it during the few days before the end of this course in order to have real results and comments for my final project.

Making students independent and autonomous to learn is important and mostly to make them understand that it is important for them. As I mentioned in my post, many students here come to class and expect the teacher to teach them everything. They think that by just sitting in a classroom they will learn everything. This is wrong and it is our task to make them aware of that and also to show them the way to become autonomous.
You do not become an autonomous learner just because you decided it. Someone has to show the learner how to do that, and this is our job as facilitator. I think that sometimes teachers think that if they give their learners all what they need to become autonomous, they will loose their job. I saw that in my career (merchant marine). Some officers were reluctant to teach others what they knew for fear of losing their promotion or that other were promoted before them. Wrong.
There will always be a job for teacher but we have to adapt to the new techniques, technology and so on. Classes in the future will be completely different to what they were 30 or 50 years ago but a teacher will always be necessary to show the way.

Also by making our students more autonomous could be beneficial as we will get more prepared students with a better background and it will make our classes for sure more active, productive and interesting, for both the teacher and the students.

I tried many different ways to show my students how to become more independant and autonomous by visiting different websites on the net but few of them were motivated. So this activities helped me learn more techniques that I will try and see how helpful they could be for my students.

See you soon

Raphaël