Week 10: The Beginning of the Journey   

       I can’t describe my feeling, we are already on the last day of the course. It is very sad feeling because this course made me feel like I’ll never get enough and that I don’t want to finish it cause each day I was learning more and more.  This course  doesn’t only teach how to use technology, it also teaches how to communicate with other people (teachers) from all around the world. Teaches how to organize your information in effective way, critical thinking, and to be more confidant and comfortable to express you opinion and experience. Moreover,  this course teaches how to think and imply technology in your career. The friendly environment that I found in nicenet discussions motivated me  to be better and better each time.

       I really learned a lot and achieved a lot as well. Making blogs, google drive, nicenet, rubrics, padlet and many other things helped me to teach more effectively. I started to make a rubric for students to evaluate themselves this way I will develop their authentic learning. Moreover, nicenet was affective as well students started to like it and get used to it. Nicenet can sound easy and not very attractive because of the colors but it works very well with students. They can post and learn a lot from it. One thing I am planning to do is to make Wiki class.

        I have done blog in 2011 it was in Oregon State, Corvallis there was a teacher called Stefani she was very helpful. It was an exchange program called Accesses Micro Scholar Ship. There were teachers from different countries and we had different subjects and one of them was how to make blogs. Which remind me a little with this course.  I am saying that because blogs was a way to keep in touch with other participate but we didn’t. So, I say please let us all keep in touch.

      

      

        I will conclude week 10 by saying we had ten weeks to study technology but we have our entire life to benefit from what we learned and develop it with the time. So I guess we all will keep this working team and still work together as group.

      Note:  Lets all thanks Courtney for every effort she has done for us, by showing her how this course can develop teachers’ methodology and  make our teaching more effectively. I hope this will make her proud of us as we are honored to have her. So, we can still post in nicenet our useful work and share ideas.

Wish you all the best and all to succeed in your life.

Awsan



                             Week 9 Learning Styles and Technology

I can’t believe we have only one week left I wish we could have even one week more. I felt I learned a lot from this useful course, I can’t imagine myself that there will be a day were I won’t see all those wonderful suggestions and ideas also posting comment to each other so sad.

This week we had a quiz to know more about our Learning Styles this online quiz  helped me a lot to know about myself.  I was satisfied with  My Result

To know that I am intrapersonal is great I really enjoyed the course a lot and the way I learn those website and ways of technology is great. Moreover, In LEARNING STYLES AND STRATEGIES  there is explanation about  how can different learners help themselves. Therefore. I am planning to make or get  a quiz for my students to know their own learning style and be able to be authentic learners. 

I learned a lot from this course and each day I am learning more and more finding new website and new material. It is amazing how my searching way changed now I search in more effective way.  Lately, I discovered a lot of useful websites and I am planning to add them to my final project.

Learn English with subtitles

BITS

Listening and Reading

I selected these websites because they are very helpful for my students to improve their listening and reading skills.

Regards,

Awsan

 

Teacher Resources Online

        This week has been very busy week knowing a lot of new things and start practicing online classes with our   students.

         First I would like to thanks Jeff Magoto for sharing all this useful tools with us all. However, I faced some difficulties using ANVILL I think for me one week is not enough to know a lot about it. However I am sure with the time I will know more about it and use those tools more effectively, because each week I am learning more and more which helped me to be more familiar with using those tools. Besides those tools motivated  me a lot because from now and then  my work will be more organized.

         Using nicenet class was a useful idea I was surprised  that my student that my students liked it. I know it will be difficult for me as well as for the students because it is all new methodology and always the internet worry people in my country due to the bad internet connection. However, I am sure that all this is a matter of time.

         I have tried to make poster,  it is here http://poster.4teachers.org/search/result.php but it didn’t work. I felt little bit disappointed but when I see my classmates work I feel better I tell my self as long as they could do it I can do it too.

Regards,

Awsan

Week 7: Leaner Autonomy/One-Computer Classroom

    

               Unfortunately, week 7 was the hardest week since I started this course because it was Aden - Second Anniversary of the Beginning of the Revolution in my country.  Therefore, I couldn’t access the internet and I was totally disappointed, things were really unbelievable gun shooting outside 13 people died in the same area that I live. So, I could barely follow the assignments and discussion.

These are some pictures and topics about that  

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2013/02/21/267555.html 

http://earthquake-report.com/2013/02/23/moderate-earthquake-eastern-gulf-of-aden-on-february-23-2013/

                Even through all these negative things happened to me, I learned from  Courtney how to deal with my students if they are facing the same situation. It is essential especially in counties like mine to be able to know how to deal with students in different situations. So, thanks a lot for Courtney because she was so friendly and appreciated me as well. Therefore, I was motivated again and inspired by her. So thanks Courtney.

              I made a nicenet class for my students, I decided to put only one assignment in a week till my students get used to such a website. This class will help a lot to improve the learning autonomy which in my opinion is significant. I say “Students should learn how to learn” so they need to be more independent and they should believe in themselves. So the teacher should build a nice environment in the class e.g pair work, group work and individual students should feel comfortable in class to overcome their fear or low self-esteem. Another strategy,for autonomy learners is that they need to know their weak and strong points to make their own plans and ways to improve their weakness and their problems.

                In the end,  I am so satisfied that even through all those unbelievable circumstances I could learn something so never give up even if you have some bad days.

Challenge Yourself

         

   This week proved that even teaching large classes can be fun. I am so satisfied this week cause all I wanted I got it. Teaching large class I never thought that it will be fun, now I have week off first time I can’t wait to start teaching in college my (66 students) again, teaching this huge number in such a difficult environment must be challenge for me this is why I named my title Challenge Yourself. Due to all  ideas I got from reading  and my colleagues as well, helped me to realized that there will never be something impossible.

       From "Teaching Large Classes" and "Enhancing Learning by Engaging Students" I learned a lot of ideas such us how to group students effectively and what activities can be given. Variety, Individualization, Setting Up Routines and Speaking Style are very significant points teachers should take in consideration because the impression that teacher gives the students from the beginning is very important. This way teacher will be able to engage students successfully and won’t be worry all the time. In addition to that, PowerPoint Presentations are very useful for the teacher especially teaching EFL students. Teacher can avoid mother tongue by showing some pictures in the PowerPoint slides. Moreover grammar, games vocabulary and writing exercises can be all used by PowerPoint to motivate students and build their critical thinking as well.

         From these two points I realized that teaching can be with use of technology as well as without technology. Teacher should be aware of WHAT is he / she using ,HOW and WHY? So I am going to print paper for each week showing my students the assignment needed besides, I will group them each week to make those assignments in groups . That will help students to cooperate with each other and make a better environment between them as long as the environment in the class is very difficult, due to the old classes and broken windows and the door is broken too. There is noise from outside so it is difficult to listen and to concentrate as well. But hopefully things will change and I will go early to be able to talk with some students more personally. Another think I will do is that I will give them sheet about interviews then let them do their own interviews and recording each other from thier cellphones this is an idea I got from my classmate  Hulya. In my opinion this idea will be very attentive for my class.


         To sum up, successful teachers always like to learn new things and challenge themseves to    be better. They should always tell themselves there is nothing impossible they should be motivated and patient as well.

Rubric and Alternative Assessment

As a teacher we are always worried about, how to motivate students? How to grade them? Do we give each student what he/she deserve. And usually grades are the most students concern. Why I got this mark or how much will I get or receive. So the rubric was my hero. Rubrics is very important for teachers to be reasonable about the marks and it is important how to write the rubric too. Such as :What things to focus on according to the subject and students level you teach. Therefore, this week I have learned a lot. Assessing Learning (Alternative Assessment) helped me to concentrate more about students strength and encourage them in  a good way but that doesn’t have to make me engorge students mistakes no. It means to tell the students in a good way that doesn’t give them negative impression.  So these ways I hope students will be more comfortable and more organized

And I keep telling myself to be relax  : As long as  I could do this course, my students can do it as well..

           There we go with week 4 it means we have finished a month studying this course so things become more organized becouse I am following everything in a good way. However, I am still concern and worried because the day for the final project is closer now.

            Week 3 we studied about listening and speaking skill, now in week 4 we study about other skills like reading and writing. So, it is great how step by step we are learning to connect the teaching with internet. For me that was challenge to learn and teach reading, writing and vocabulary with technology. In addition to that writing my students usually get bored from writing exercises, therefore wordle.net helped me to overcome this problem and students were ready to write and find out how their writing will look after they put it in wordle and compare it with others they were very motivated and they enjoyed it. I have also found many other useful sites that my classmates recommended such us: http://stickyball.net/  and  http://www.bookrags.com/ than I can use with my students.  

Making a lesson plan was my concern I was quite lost at the beginning because it is new for me writing it in that way.  So, always new things are quite hard but it doesn't mean we should give up.

Day by day, week by week I get rid of my fieriness . I have realized many interesting things recently and useful methods. All these methodologies motivate me more and more.

To study about Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials by Lindsay Miller opened my eyes and it  proves the essential of listening skills which I totally agree. Listening skills is very important but unfortunately. Moreover delicious.com was easy and useful

In week two, I have been exposed to different information and learned a lot. I learned that when I want to search there are other searching engines not only yahoo, google and youtube. In addition to that, I think ABCD method is very useful and helpful to organize and focus on one idea at a time. At the beginning I was confused how to write my objectives but with more reading and with thebhelp of my classmates I could understand more about ABCD method. Another impressive thing  was how my classmates shared their ideas in a very useful way.  

Hi, I am so excited though I faced some difficulties making this blog. That’s why I believe it will be a useful course for all of us.