http://www.imagui.com/a/numero-8-TeKaxk6zj

Week 8. Active, busy, full of unexplored online fields for teaching and with an amazing task for peer review!

Week 8 of our wonderful Webskills course is approaching to the end. I don't feel sad actually, since I know that another great week is coming, which will bring so much fun, excitement, worry, hard work, but most importantly, new knowledge and experience to us! And I am waiting for it a lot, since I never want to cease learning, learning to be a better teacher, learning to alter my attitudes to certain methods of teaching, learning how to help my students attain their goals and be self-confident, and independent in their learning process.

The week started with a usual task, i.e. to look through the given resources and get ready for the discussion on Nicenet. Even if I have just used the word usual, I would immediately add the word unusual, since we have been positively "flooded" with such a huge ammount of information connected with online tools that help teachers to get ready for their classes as well as make them active, interactive, appealing and technology based at the same time.

http://allthingslearning.wordpress.com/tag/teacher-education/ 

The picture I have chosen to reflect the discussion of this week speaks for itself, I guess. The 21st century teachers are supposed to be brave, versatile, interested in what they do, curious and especially technology-savvy. The latter expression makes a lot of teachers freeze, since either they don't have a clue over it or are against it. The resources of this week just confirm once again how important it is to have a yearning for something new, to have a desire to learn the thing that makes you scared, to overcome the bias that you have and simply accept the reality that the teaching-learning process is changing and we, teachers, have to know as much about technology as our students do, so that their learning process would be both enjoyable and efficient. Moreover, the resources of this week just indicated that the preparation process for the classes might even be made easier if you use certain web tools that can help you to create tests faster, to come up with colourful and attractive images, posters or even exercises. These things do not only make the preparatory teaching process quicker but also help the teacher be a versatile trainer, e.g. you can print the created activites and use them as handouts or you can export them and upload on your class blogs, wikis or websites.  This is true, the load of information is huge, yet it gives you a choice and helps you to surprise your students every time you enter the classroom. Hence, I will definitely give a try to the majority online tools or resources that our teacher Sean has introduced to us. I have used only HotPotatoes, therefore others are my priorities and I am waiting for my students to come back to university so I could again see their smiles when I tell them "We are going to play a game or use a new online tool today". :) 

We had a task to do this week and it was to create an exercise, a test, a blog, a Padlet wall, etc. that could be used with the students. I have seen so many  great activities designed by my coursemates and I am so happy that there are such a big amount of teachers who love their work and who are eager to change their teaching style to the better. All my coursemates will definitely make their students love English even more with the help of the activities they have created while using web tools of the week. I have also used a few of them and like a lot of my coursemates I simply adore Padlet, which is a wonderful tool for interaction, collaboration, planning, project based learning, etc. I will for sure use it in my classes and I do hope my students will like it as much as I do. A blog is also a tool that can give students freedom of creativity and that can actually make them fall in love with the skill they are all afraid of, i.e. writing, since writing on the blog is different, is quite modern and most importantly open, which means it is not only the teacher who reads, but we all do, we - the team! :)

http://www.g21.com.au/g21-regional-growth-plan-2013 

A very important part of this week was definitely the project/plan drafts. I am sure that all of us really worked hard to provide our results to our partners for peer review. In my case, I prepared a project plan, since I have no students at the moment and I could not implement the project while we are still here in the Webskills course. However, I have tried to do my best to create a detailed plan and to describe my future steps so that my peer review partner could visualise the future project itself. It was quite tough though to finish the draft, since all the tiny details had to be taken into consideration, i.e. the expectations, the constraints, the resources and the step by step stages. Nonetheless, it was a wonderful opportunity to think it over how essential it is to describe the plan in such a way so that your partner would understand what you mean and how you are going to implement it. I do hope, Lupita succeeded in that?! :)

http://blog.aicpa.org/peer-review/

Finally, it's peer review. Teachers always stress the importance of it and we have had an opportunity this week to try this out. I am sure we have all understood how important it is and how beneficial it is. Lupita is my partner for plan peer review this week and I am really happy over this. We have both shared our results (Lupita shared her project and I shared my plan) on the Webskills wiki. I have analysed Lupita's project and posted the checklist with my comments on the wiki. I do hope that these comments will help Lupita however I must add that she did a great job and her project is very well-organized, thought-over and appealing. I could feel myself part of the project and could clearly visualise myself in her classes, being a student who carries out the research and adds the results to the final result of the project, in  her case, a WebQuest. It was also nice to feel Lupita's worries and to finally find out how her emotions towards the project changed, and how happy she felt that her students got engaged, interested, how they turned into autonomous learners who collaborate and help each other! :) I am sure Lupita and her students have great time throughout their project and will eventually have the best results! :)

To finish my reflctions of the week, I would like to thank Sean and my coursemates for the opportunity to learn not only from the articles and resources but most importantly from each other! I am so happy that I have received such a huge amount of knowledge and experience which I will be able to spread in the institution I teach and to share with other teachers at university who could  flavour their teaching content and make their students happy and more successful! :)

Best wishes,

Jurga.