Week 7. New experience followed by unexpected difficulties...

http://blogs.brandeis.edu/gps/

The week has started with so many new articles for reading, new discussions. We have met a new person on our Nicenet discussion, Rachel and I am really happy about this, since not only books, articles or discussions help us grow as better teachers but also people like Rachel, Sean and my groupmates. Yet, the week finished in a very upsetting mood..I fell ill yesterday night and have spent the whole night and day in bed..I am writing this post on my blog while experiencing huge pain, therefore please forgive me for my short overview and reflection of this week.

There have been two topics offered for us this week, i.e. learner autonomy and one-computer classroom. I have always been interested in learner autonomy therefore have opted for this particular topic and have been so happy to find out that teachers should always foster this particular way of learning. The teacher's role has altered and he/she is the one who guides his/her students, who shows them ways how to do certain things but leaves lots of space for the learners to discover, make mistakes, learn from mistakes and enjoy their learning process.

http://alternativelearningprocesses.blogspot.com/2010/10/autonomous-learning_03.html

I was also happy to think of my students as autonomous learners. They are very creative young people who take responsibility for their learning process, who support each other when performing a variety of activities, who collaborate together with their groupmates and the teacher. I will definitely continue working this way so my learners would be self-confident people and eager to study for all their life.

http://badinertech.blogspot.com/2013/05/tech-tip-padlet-new-wallwisher.html

The task of the week was to post some links, articles or videos on our class padlet. I am happy Sean has introduced us to this great online tool, which can successfully be utilized in our teaching context. I have already started thinking of how and then to use Padlet in my classes and I am sure the students will simply love it, since the tool itself is so versatile and so appealing.

http://childbirtheducation.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html

Finally, we are all approaching the stage of implementing our projects or the stage of carefully planning the project itself. I have no studnets at the moment therefore I am thinking a lot over my plan. I have created a class blog, staretd thinking of the tools and activities I will use there and I am happy to have such a great partner as Lupita for my peer review week. Thank you Lupita and I hope we will be a great team together! :)

It seems that Week 8 is already knocking on the door. Let's see what exciting things it will bring and I hope that I will recover soon.

Best wishes,

Jurga.

Week 6. Something new + something known = everything engaging and interesting!

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/244883298458648712/

I would like to start the reflection of this week with this wonderful poster, since I do believe it not only represents our work done in this Webskills course but it very nicely pictures us as teachers and inspires our students to believe that everything is possible if only you have a strong wish and  work hard. :)

I need to say that Week 6 is really interesting, since I have found a lot of things I had known before the week started, yet at the same time, I have looked at these issues from a new, refreshed, different perspective. I have learnt a lot from the reading articles, from my groupmates and their productive results. Moreover, I was able to recall the techniques I have used and to think it over what worked and what failed in certain situations in the past.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9yOOwGYYfU

The discussion on Nicenet has been divided into two topics and I have chosen the one on how to engage students in big classes. This is a very actual topic for me, since our groups have been increased this year from 8 to 16 students and I have been waiting a lot for this week to come. However, I have been pleasantly surprised when I found out that I am using all the different techniques that have been described in the reading articles. And I will tell you sincerely, I have been using them not only because I have bigger groups but because I want my students to learn in a very active way, to use their creativity, to teach them responsibility and independence, to let them feel that they can learn a lot as a team. I will never stop and will definitely proceed with a variety of activities that engage students, since this is a great tool, which makes them self-confident learners, active learners, always interested learners, the ones who do not need to be encouraged but rather involved in the process of language learning.

http://themetapicture.com/powerpoint-death/

Are you fond of PowerPoint? I am sorry to say this, but my answer would be "not that much". I do think this is a wonderful tool to be used when teaching languages (of course if it is interactive and absorbing), yet I have noticed my students dislike this tool and are constantly looking for other ways of presenting, Prezi for instance. Therefore, my aim is to be on the same level with them and I am afraid that my interactive PowerPoint presentation will be engaging and at the same time pretty "old-fashioned" according to them. Nevertheless, we have learnt a lot this week how to create wonderful PowerPoint presentations so that people would be constantly involved and performing a bunch of activities, rather than simply looking at the screen and eventually getting bored or even sleeping. I am happy we have been reminded that the slides must not be overloaded with text, that we need to take into consideration the size of the fonts and many other essential aspects. Hence, I will definitely give a try for the presentation I have created and hope my students will love a bit different approach to language learning. :)

http://cursivecontent.com/10-dos-and-donts-for-the-personal-blogger/

Blogging....and my Project planning....The ending -ING, which means active! :) As you already know, I have decided to use a Class Blog as my Writing problem solution. "To blog or not to blog?" Definitely BLOG! :) I have started creating my class blog and you can take a look at it here: learnenglishadvanced.blogspot.com. It is just the beginning of its creation, yet I am so excited and I hope you will see a more advanced result next week. I have started looking for activities, resources, references, etc. that I will include as part of the blog. I do want to be innovative and interactive, and I will involve my students in the creation or modification process of our blog as soon as they come back after their holidays. I do want to start this project with them and to let them practice writing in a different way, in a creative and collaborative way, in a way that teaches them language and independence.

Week 7 is approaching and I am waiting again to learn something new and something, which would suprise me and my students! :)

Warm wishes from Vilnius! :)

Jurga.

Week 5. A few addittional thoughts on the challenges of this week.

http://kuanyugeoportfolio.wikispaces.com/Webquest

You are right! It's a WebQuest! I would like to add a smile here, yet I cannot...I feel tired, absolutely exhausted and this time I cannot deny this fact and cannot even deceive myself. :) Hey, here it comes back...:) I guess such feelings have visited me after I have completed the most difficult assignment I have ever had. I don't know if it says something about me as a teacher, but I am not complaining here, I am admitting the difficulties I face with. I did my best to complete an assignment given to us by Sean and I did that not because he encouraged us to do that, but to give it a try to a Web tool, which has been so much praised by a bunch of teachers worldwide and by the majority, if not all, of my groupmates here on the Webskills course. 

I will definitely add that WebQuest is an amazing tool that develops students' creativity, critical thinking, analytical mind, reading, listening, speaking and writing skills. It teaches students how important it is to collaborate if you want to attain your goals. It makes students use the target language, English in my case. It teaches them a sense of responsibility for their choices, ideas and the result. It makes them look for solutions rather than give up when facing with a problem. It makes them self-confident and independent learners who believe that authentic language and materials are ways to learn and use the language in real-life situations. I see WebQuest as a tool for bigger or smaller projects, as a way to apply Rubrics in a very creative and constructive way, as a way to be one of many technology related changes in my future plan.

However, I would also like to share some ideas with you over the difficulties I have faced with while creating my first WebQuest. It took me 2 days to look for all the material I needed for the topic I had selected to work on. I should also add here that I have droped the idea on my innitial topic due to the fact that I did not manage to find enough information. You might smile and wonder now...how can this be, the Internet is full of information. Maybe? I always think of my students first of all and then the topic, skills, ideas, syllabus...I want my students to enjoy the learning process, to fall in love with English, to leave the class and want to learn outside of it as well as come back inside to share all the ideas and emotions! When I found all the necessary information, videos, pictures, etc. I needed to describe the stages in my WebQuest and well, this is not easy. It has to be clear not for you as a teacher but for your students. You need to think of their interest, motivation and engagement, hence your words mean a lot there. I have spent one more day for that and I am still thinking there is a lot to improve there. Therefore, what I want to say here is that we, teachers, should not only be excited over the WebQuest as a tool but take it seriously to a certain extent and be responsible for the content we choose. This is a wonderful, creative and promissing tool, but also time-consuming and requiring lots of efforts on the side of a teacher.

Nonetheless, this has been an unforgettable and invaluable indeed experience which has made me grow as a teacher once again. :)

Jurga.

http://beekman1802.com/5-beautiful-things-81/

Week 5. Thought-provoking reading, challenges, new assignments and activities.

What a strange feeling lives in my soul when we have reached the middle of the course. I still feel happy, still feel interested and excited, yet as all students feel in the middle of the course, I feel a bit tired...I do think this is a normal feeling, since our lives have become much more intensive, and much more pleasant emotions appear when I start thinking over the rewarding results we will all achieve at the end of the course, i.e. lots of knowledge, experience, discussions and even created lessons, lesson plans, WebQuests, etc.

The week has started with a bunch of activities. I could say "like always", yet they all seemed very different again and attractive indeed at the same time. This makes the course even more appealing and unpredictable to some extent.

http://www.imostateblog.com/

The broad topic of the week was named "Alternative Assessment". I am sure all teachers who are motivated and seeking for changes in their classrooms, aim at looking for other means of assement in addittion to the traditional one. Hence, we have had a chance this week to get acquainted with or analyse deeper such forms of Alternative assessment as Rubrics, Checklists, K-W-L Charts or even Portfolios. We have had an assignment to create a rubric for some specific task assigned to the students, however my attention has especially been attracted towards K-W-L Charts and Portfolios. The former, deeply involves the students in the lesson starting with the introduction of the topic and throughout it. Moreover, these charts let the teachers know their students more, since we can get information over their backgound knowledge and present needs as well. I am sure students will feel satisfied at the end of the class to find out and record themselves over the results they have achieved in this/that particular lesson. I have known about Portfolios before and had one myself when I was a student during the teacher training course in Canada. This is a great tool to observe the students' development for both the teachers and especially the students themselves. Rubrics as a method of alterative assessment is a great tool that helps teachers evaluate their students objectively especially when working with such subjective tasks as Writing or Presentations. It is essential to remember that your created rubric must always be shared with your students, since teachers always collaborate witht heir students and they must let them know what they can or need to do to achieve the required or desired result. I will definitely implement various types of alternative assessment, since I can foresee now that it could work as an addittional tool of motivation when learning the language. All of the teachers should only bear in mind that alternative assessment must be introduced to students step-by-step not to make them scared or demotivated.

http://www.cheme.utm.my/cheme/index.php/cl

I have chosen this picture on the right to share with you my thoughts over the Project-Based Learning (PBL). We have discussed a lot over this approach towards teaching on Nicenet therefore I would not like to repeat myself here. However, I should say that PBL is an amazing tool to teach students learn independently, to teach them how important it is to collaborate to achieve certain aims. PBL is a way for the teacher to be a facilitator rather than a teacher who simply tells what is good or bad, right or wrong.  It is also a means to teach the students that any problem has a way out and that they always have a great chance to look for this way, learn from mistakes and attain the wanted result. Project-based learning gives a chance to feel the language, work with it, analyse, create and even share the results of it with others, for instance their school/university community. I will definitely give a go for this, no matter that I am confined by the course syllabus. Projects can be smaller or bigger, shorter or longer but they will surely give lots of joy, experience and knowledge to our students.

http://pls3rdlearning.com/blog/steve-barkley/creativity-and-critical-thinking/

I would summarise my thoughts with the selected picture. I want my students to be inquisitive learners, who are able to think critically, who are able to look at the problems from a creative and analytical perspective. I want them to fall in love with the language they study and most importantly, I do want them to "think outside the box". Project-based learning combined with all other interactive tools will definitely help them be self-confident and creative people whose language skills will enhance via real life assignments or situations.

One more week of learning, which makes me feel happy that I have this opportunity to be here with you, Sean and my groupmates. :)

Thank you!

Jurga.