Week 3. Deliciousss...the week of sweet knowledge! :)

http://scls.typepad.com/techbits/2011/03/the-demise-of-delicious.html

What an intensive and productive week is approaching to the end! Am I happy? Yes... I am happy not that it has flown away so fast but I am so delighted when I think of what I have learnt and experienced so far.

The week has been full of reading, researching, sharing, commenting, etc. All this makes the learning process pretty complicated, yet so rewarding. I have found out things I had known before we started the course but at the same time I have learnt a lot of new things. I have started with this amazing word "Delicious", since I have been so much in love with Delicious.com for the last 3 or 4 days. I have never used any sites like this and as an old lady, I used to write down all the addresses of my favourite sites in my notebook. :) Then I used to lose some of them and it seemd to be a vicious circle. However, Delicious.com is a tool which helps us to add the links of all you favourite sites so you would easily find what you need. You can add tags, which will also make your search swift, since you will know that these links are for Listening, the others are for News, Vocabulary, etc. I love the idea that I can follow what my friends or groupmates like and in addittion to all this, you can use the "Discover" link to search for people who have the same interests as you do. I have been telling all my friends, colleagues and students about this site and we will definitely use it with my students in future. It's a great tool to encourage students' independence and resourcefulness.

http://www.keystage2literacy.co.uk/speaking-and-listening.html

The first assignment of Week 3 was based on research, reading, critical thinking and analysis. The week was aimed at analysing Aural/Oral Skill-building websites as well as getting acquainted with some researchers and their viewpoints connected with this domain. The most interesting article for me was "Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Material" by Lindsey Miller. I especially liked her idea that we, teachers should not forget the student's autonomy, independence and the factor of pleasure. Students should never be afraid when learning languages and we sometimes forget how stressed they are when they need to both complete the tasks and at the same time hear what people say when they speak. Therefore, I will definitely use the idea offered by L. Miller where while-listening activities might not only be specifically conten based but rather open-ended, where the students can discuss and debate over what they have or haven't heard. I really like Randall's Cyber Listening Lab as the majority of my groupmates and I would not like to repeat myself here while mentioning the same ideas over it. I would rather add that this particular listening site is great not only for listening activities. These activities are a wonderful tool for further discussion, which is a means to practice speaking. Isn't this great? This again proves that these two highly significant skills always go together! You cannot be a good speaker if you are a bad listener! :) Hence, do your best to achieve proficiency in both aspects of the language. I don't agree with the teachers who give preference to one skill over the other. I am convinced that all skills are important to master and students should try to do their best to master them so they would feel at ease in their future life when using the language in real life situations. Randall's Listening Lab is also a great tool for teachers to express themselves. I mean here that all the lessons can be easily adapted to the needs of your learner, to the topic you are dealing with, to the level of students you are teaching. Creativity should be promoted among both students and teachers! :)

http://www.projectteaching.com/projectteaching.aspx

The third task of Week 3 was the most difficult for me, since I needed to select one past sample project, analyse it and introduce it to my groupmates on Nicenent. It was difficult to choose the project, then I really needed time to carefully look through it, find out the essence of it, its strengths and weaknesses, etc. I have chosen the project of Aleyda Linares from Honduras, since her students and her teaching settings reminded me a little bit of my group and my university. Aleyda's focus on Grammar has attracted my attention too and I have immediately thought of my advanced level students who are good at speaking but who still make so many grammar mistakes and the problem is that we have no time for grammar during our face-to-face classes, therefore Aleyda's idea of using a class blog for addittional grammar exercises (interactive games, videos, power point presentations, etc.) was great indeed! I liked her idea of assessing students' participation rather than their quality of assignments done. This just reminds us, teachers, again that we should not always intimidate students by reminding them over their marks. The knowledge is much more important than the grade itself and we should motivate our students to practice, since practice makes perfect! :) Aleyda gave lots of practice for her students, moreover she has involved students in creating the class blog and asked them to look for online resources too. This way, the blog turned out to be a real class blog rather than a teacher's possession. :) Having taken a look at that blog, I felt how motivated they all were and I hope Aleyda has achieved her aim!? :)

This Webskills course is such an invaluable experience for me! It makes me grow as a teacher, as a professional in my field. I feel how much I have changed my attitude towards online tools. I like the fact that the articles given to read, the sites provided for us to explore, the ideas of my groupmates make me think, rethink, ask questions, doubt, look for the answers to the questions. It is difficult, I am not going to deny this but at the same time I know the course will bring sweet and delicious fruit, i.e. knowledge and skills that will help me to implement online tools in my teaching environment.

Will be waiting for the 4th week to come, for one more week of pleasure, anxiety, stress and happiness! :)

Smiles and wishes to all of you! :)

Jurga.