0 Interesting Things in ***Week 7



Week 7 is devoted to two main issues: learning autonomy and creating a one-computer lesson. Learning autonomy  is a crucial element in the process of effective learning. Language classes should promote it through using a variety of techniques. Possible activities are Diaries, self report….Teaching could not be described as effective if it doesn't enhance autonomy. Learners need to know and reflect on their learning so as they can improve themselves. One thing I would like to try with my students is to work more on their personal strategies to be in control of their own learning. Students could start to gain a new perspective on how they can best be responsible for their learning and be encouraged to change some of their attitudes about education. WE are the one who should start making a difference in their lives.

Following tips the reading materials provide, I managed to create a sample lesson for one-computer class.
The work with the project is getting forward successfully ,but I waited to NUR replay to be my partner and exchange the draft of the report and give feedback to each other very soon.

1 Interactive teaching***Week 6

 I'm struggling to get as much time to follow the tasks for week 6. I was having great difficulties of getting connected to the internet because we are facing some weather problem in my country Oman^^

During this week, I learned many new things about powerpoint.
There are steps to follow and tips to take in consideration. It was very useful.
After reading it, I made 2 powerpoints shows for animals and I tried to make it interactive one, so it can be more useful.

Also, I read articles about how to handle the large classes in any institution of any level is a big challenge for many teachers. I think teaching large number classes is never easy. I agree that large classes are challenging. It needs a powerful strategy to overcome the obstacles but I think I have more than one powerful strategy which I can use based on the course. Small group, think-Pair-Share, etc... are several techniques which are available to be used. Teachers will find that there will be a number of students that will feel ignored due to the teacher unable to engage them all. Teacher at this point should be able to grab their interest of learning while in the classroom and should be able to open the opportunity for the students to have additional discussion outside of the class...Also, materials presented by the teacher should also design carefully and should have the 'hook' to make all students interested to find out more. That is why creating and presenting really engaging materials will boost the students' motivation to find out more about the lesson.

I`m having InDesign course for 3 weeks. It's still a busy week.

0 Hi again***Week 5

Weather Channel

Since 31 oct. 2011, we are facing weather problems in the south-east of Oman. In these circumstances, floods begin to assemble in front of houses, which hinder our movement to work and other places. The electricity is interrupted and the internet service is very bad. In the previous days, there are 4 children and 1 man died affected by what happened from the changes in the weather. Also, today we have heavy rains with winds! And I think will continue through to the end of the week or may be next week. I am afraid, confused, stressed, not confident, and uncomfortable. I started late in doing my tasks. I need more time in completing all the tasks...

In week 5, we have web quest and rubrics this week. These two assignments made me think of how many our students can benefit from technology-enhanced projects in language learning and in particular, web quests Likewise, how powerful this can be to promote learner autonomy. One major thing this week is PBL and research showing the results in students' engagement and motivation, and the development of building skills, communication, critical thinking and collaborative skills.  In my opinion, PBL surely can change the way of teaching with more attractive ways. I think this week we are on the verge of getting perfect ideas on PBL and Web Quest.

Please, check these links:

http://www.zunal.com/webquest.php?w=119978

http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=ShowRubric&rubric_id=2111111

Thanks for the course we are learning a lot of new information which are useful and we are gaining experience.

Regards,,Maryam

3 Readings,Discussion,lesson plan & some issues *** Week 4

Dear colleagues,

During this week, I read the articles by Krajka and Liang. Krajka tries to explore the issue of the use of the Internet as a teaching aid, or as a teaching medium, through which students are taught how to write different writing genres. I especially liked the way Krajka combines online and offline tasks in his article. I enjoyed the articles of Liang as they were easy to follow and understand. She also gave us many web sites which contained much more activities, videos, games, stories. These activities can be used in and outside of the class. I think that very interesting. I especially liked the way she structures the tasks to create an interactive classroom atmosphere. The articles we read and discuss this week, give very good ideas on how to use the web for reading and writing. I think that I can adapt some or most of the activities for my classes.
First of all is http: http://www.manythings.org/songs/.This web site is for students studying English as (ESL) or (EFL). There are quizzes, word games, word puzzles, proverbs, slang expressions, vocabulary study, pronunciation practice, listening practice and many other things. Also, I checked the: http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/ I recommend it because it has complete lesson plans to develop reading skills by checking some updated and interesting topics. Some of the lessons also include listening exercises. And teachers can easily copy and paste the parts of the lessons they want to use. 

The second task, I describe my class and I talked about my class issue and how I could manage to use technology with them to solve this situation. Finally we designed a lesson plan according to the model taken from http://edtech.tennessee.edu/%7Ebobannon/lesson_plan.html

 to consider technology when planning. It was a very productive week filled with attractive material and interesting tasks. 

     

Finally, I would like to thank Robert and our guest Rachel Drummond Sardell, this week for sharing all those good websites and the feedback she gave us in our comments on the forum.

4 My class

2 I´m just a little fish swimming in it

LearnEnglish Kids is the British Council's website for kids around the world who are learning English as a second or foreign language. This site has free resources for children to use at home, or with family and friends. I can use activities from this site to children to do for homework, or during school holidays. Many of the stories, games and songs have worksheets that we can download and use in the classroom. Especially It has videos, and online activities designed to practise listening skills.And more in 

http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/ 

0 Delicious Course *** Week 3

For this week :

I read Aleyda Linares "Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web Project ' The projects goals are develop students' grammar skills, involve them to be better in using English by motivation and work in group.
The project was designed to support the various types of interaction that occur during the web-based learning process. The purpose of the project was to design and develop a web-based program and to examine the effects of interaction on problem solving and participation of students in the web-based learning process.
For the type of interaction, students showed different patterns of participation in the web-based learning process.Regarding the results for students' participation in the learning process, the differential effects were found.
I really liked this project , Aleyda expresses how the use of technology can change the mentality of the students about the foreign language helping them to acquire new important knowledge and have fun at the same time.

Another activity was to start using Delicious. com, a site to store your favorite web pages online. It is very helpful because you can access to your favorite website trough any computer with Internet connection. It was great to know that you can start a network with other teachers to explore their favorites and to get use of them in order to get more resources for class. You can visit and check my bookmarks on http://delicious.com/mariamalfarisia/

For this week we had to visit some sites on https://sites.google.com/site/webskillsuo/home/assignments/week-3-1

We read about CALL in the developing of speaking and listening skills. We had an overview of the different types of software that are being developed and some results that researchers have shown in relation to these teaching points. We also read some lesson plans whose main purpose is to exercise speaking and listening skills with some links resources such as http://www.elthillside.com/up/files/article4.doc and http://www.onestopenglish.com/skills/speaking/teaching-ideas/

I had the chance to read good articles and explore interesting sites in order to have more resources to employ in class.

I´m ready for another week of great learning and new experiences.