Week 2. Active, swift, full of events and thoughts!

It is unbelievable how fast the second week has flown away! The impression I have is that we are learning more and more, and all the assignments are getting a bit more difficult and time consuming! It also seems to me that I am either pretty slow this week or I need more time than my groupmates to carry out the research and share my ideas with you! I feel a bit ashamed that I am so slow however I have to keep in my mind the thing that qualty is highly essential for me and the speed has no connection with it actually, right? :)

I would like to go through the whole week step by step and reflect for a while on what I have done and learned. Such a process is valuable indeed, since it might help you to find out the flaws and the pluses of the work you have done.

http://www.bitba.com/search-engine-optimization/

Web search

The week started with the assignment to look at NoodleTools and search the web, especially for something which is not Google. It has taken me even three days to complete the task. I had to think over what I want to find so that it would be practical and I could tell my students and colleagues over it. I had to get acquainted with NoodleTools and most importantly, I had to look carefully at the sites and search engines that were on the NoodleTools site. There are a lot of good sites there and it is so great to know that NoodleTools help teachers to save their time and focus on a specific domain which would let them find precisely what they are looking for. I know now which site is the best for finding the necessary books, which one is great for working with vocabulary, which site is excellent for quotations and literature, which one is amazing when getting ready for presentations or debates, etc. I have also found out some sites that I would not use or would not recommend to my colleagues or students and I am convinced this also saves time, since you know that this particular site will take your time and give you no results. I will definitely include some of the sites in my blog as the ones I like so that people who follow my blog would be able to try them and enjoy their search results. I have already used some of the sites in my classes, e.g. http://www.merriam-webster.com/, http://www.quotationspage.com/search.php3, http://tenbyten.org/now.html and must admit that my students have absolutely loved them. When presenting my search results, I have tried to do my best and to share pretty detailed results with Sean and my groupmates. I have described everything in such a way, so that you would understand what the site is like even without taking a look at it! I hope I have managed to do this and you have found some useful points there. :)

http://ipttoolkit.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/mager-and-abcd-method-writing-behavioral-objectives/

  

ABCD Objective

The second very important and useful task was to get acquainted with the ABCD model for writing objectives and use this knowledge in practice, i.e. to write the objectives for your own class. We have had some required reading that have helped us a lot in the practical process. There was the article on "How To Write Clear Objectives" (http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/learningdesign/objectives/writingobjectives/) and I especially liked an online slideshow which was a nice visual tool (http://www.slideshare.net/ashleytan/writing-specific-instructionallearning-objectives-presentation). Having read the theoretical material, I have tried to write the objectives for my selected group of students and one of my classes. The class was last week, on the topic of Education and I have written the objectives for a 90 minutes class. I must admit it was not that easy and it took me a while to think over my Audience (A), the Behaviour (B) I expect from them, the Conditions (C) given for the audience to achieve the result and the Degree (D) which will indicate how well the students need to perform to achieve the behaviour. I find this model an excellent way to write objectives, clear and understandable to both the students and the teacher, any teacher actually who would take the lesson plan of that particular class. I have also shared the objectives I have written with my students before the class on Education and I was pleased to find out how successful the class was. I am not saying the lessons were not successful before that, yet everything went so smooth, fast and everybody was satisfied with the result achieved! :) I will definitely implemet the ABCD model in my future lessons and I am sure this will help me grow up as a teacher. :) I have also chosen this picture as a symbol how important every letter of the ABCD model is and that all of this together really leads to success! :)

http://bookboon.com/blog/2013/05/project-launch-stage-how-to-get-a-project-properly-running/

Project Task 1: Describe your class as it is now

The last task this week was focused on our present teaching situation, our students and technologies we use or have used so far. I have chosen the same group of students as for the task of this week. I am so proud of these students and I do believe they will benefit a lot if I share the results of Webskills course with them. I have described my students who like speaking activities, who are of a pretty advanced level in English, who are good at using technologies however they are also the ones who dislike using technologies for learning languages. I have shared the information with Sean and my groupmates over the technologies we have in the class and let them know that even if we have the Interenet access, we have no TV, projector or laptop in the class. However, we have a blended course for langauges at university and we do use technologies in the learning process (e.g. Moodle). I do hope this course will offer us more opportunities to use some interactive and attractive online tools that would motivate my students and would inspire them to use Web tools for learning English. I am thinking now that I would really love to learn more over the Webtools for Writing, Speaking, Listening and developing vocabulary. I am also deeply convinced that with the help of Sean, my groupmates and my amazing students, this project will be successful and lively! :)

All in all, I am satisfied indeed with the second week, which has been so productive, analytical and full of lively discussions. I have learnt not only about the Web search and the ABCD model for writing objectives but found out more about my groupmates, their teaching experience, their students and classes! All this will also help me in my future project and will help me develop my teaching skills. :)

Would really like now to share a great picture with you which concludes very well this week's discussions and even better represents our course itself! :)

http://www.techedknow.com/?tag=tools

Winter smiles and wishes from Lithuania! :)

Jurga.