WEEK 4

" Let's prepare students for their world, not for our world"

Dear all,

Great week!!!

Multi-skills websites were fascinating; I was spending a lot of time looking for different activities and I realized they are wonderful assistants in order to enhance the four skills. Sharing some ideas with the rest of teachers I checked some suggested sites and I really grateful for the recommendations.

My students do not like to read a lot, so I am going to use these virtual activities for motivating them, in addition, it is important they know about global problems and in this sites exist good materials. I am so excited and I would like to use all tasks I found, but I am aware that big goals are divided into steps.

Talking about steps, planning needs to follow them, I enjoyed planning a new class where technology could be involved. I decided to use Google maps because it was a really impressive tool for my students in a past activity.

Finally, describing my concerns and problems with technology lets me recognize what points I have to reinforce in my students. Technology problems in my high school do not depend on me, so I must take advantage of the available resources.

Week 5…… I hope to learn much more!!!

Ale

WEEK 3

Practical tools, practical teachers!!!

Hello everybody,

Week 3, as the other weeks, has been fruitful. Learning different ways of supporting my work has made me understand I am not alone in the road, what is more it is truly encouraging to know that technology is accompanying the teaching-learning process.

Initially learning about CALL was utterly interesting because I could appreciate that there are a large number of exercises and software which can help teachers and students to enhance their language skills. The most important aspect was to take into account CALL helps students to be motivated and independent as they are going to select what they want to practice and how they are going to do it, moreover, they will use computes not only for playing games or chatting with friends, but also for reinforcing their knowledge, so this fact shows that teachers are not the owners of knowledge, teachers are facilitators of it.

The most of the time I use CALL in reading and listening activities with good results, and I will continue doing it, but trying to be more creative for developing writing and speaking skills. I mean students can do a reading or listening activity using web support, then they have to write a report or discus about the topic. It is going to take time, but I will have to plan better my activities.

Next, becoming skilled at Delicious was pretty useful. I think this is a good manner for organizing, storing and sharing valuable information and it helps people to browse some important web sites quickly. I want to share with my students this tool in order they organize their information, too.
Finally, reading the sample projects and talk about one helps me to clarify the idea about my own one. It was remarkable to know other teachers’ reality and how they planned to use technology with the purpose of motivating and helping their students to use English.

As I said before if we (teachers) learn practical tools, we will be practical teachers. In my opinion to be practical teacher means to optimize time and resources in order to achieve high-quality results in education, these resources are presented by technology so let’s go teachers!!! We must be familiar with all of them, don’t you think so?

Ale

What do you think Einstein would have discovered if he had had tech? Let's go teachers!!! I would like to read your comments.

WEEK 2 USEFUL TOOLS!!!!

Dear all,

Technology helps us to know the wide world it makes us feel we are in the scheme!!!

I am totally satisfied about this week, it has been pretty fruitful. The first week I was so nervous because I have not had enough experience with Technology, but along this second one I have been able to understand that the world is going forward much faster than I can imagine, thus I have to go with it.

Well, first it is going to sound absurd, but I always thought that Google was the most interesting search engine, when I browsed the extra resources that Donna suggested about web searching I could not believe how many information I have been ignoring. It was extraordinary when I used iSeek, Sweetsearch, Lycos, Bing, Infomine, Wikipedia, because it makes me realize that there is too much worthless information around the net, but now I am able to look for academic and trusted resources in order to increase my knowledge as a teacher and for sharing with my students.
As I had posted in one of my comments I was going to use Sweetsearch for sharing important information with my students about “The Conservancy of Nature”, I only did it with one course and it was extremely good, they did not know first that Sweetsearch exits and less that there they can find useful information for them, so they were interested and motivated during the class, I gave them the names of other search engines and I am sure they will explore them.

In second place, ABCD objectives?? In the end they were great!!! During my professional life it has been an obligation to plan my classes, the planning has been changed with the time, but I have never used ABCD objectives. The most important for me was to take into account what I have given my students before an assignment (condition) and if they know how much is it (Degree).
I used to tell them what the principal objective of the task is, I mean the grammar or the phrases they have to use, but I never used to tell them the score for each part of the task, I was only accustomed to give the final grade. The last Thursday in my last class I did a speaking activity and I explained the objective and the score clearly, immediately, I could notice the students were worried about each part of their performance. It was motivating for me, I understood ABCD works!!!

Finally, the project!!! My first step!!! It results very interesting for me to create a technology-enhanced project for my school, because it means I will use what I am learning in this course. I think it is going to give me more experience in the teaching-learning process, however, the most important thing for me is to use new methodology related to technology in order to help and motivate my students.

Every piece of knowledge I am getting in these days is pretty valuable and it is helping me to be a better teacher in this new age.

Week 3… Here I go!!!

Ale

Week 1 "A great starting"

This is a photo of my high school students. I appreciate them a lot.

I am really happy about this week, it has been extremely productive for me, and the most important thing is I am enjoying the online course so much because I am learning how to use Technology for motivating myself and my students in the wonderful learning process.

I want to share with you something special that is happening to me every night since I started the course. Well, I go bed and I am thinking and visualizing, listening and feeling the topics I studied and read during the day, suddenly I am dreaming and in my dreams I am talking to the, teachers, about our different points of view. It was strange for me in the beginning, but now it is natural and I like it because I guess this is the way how my brain processes and stores the new information. What is your opinion about this fact? I would like to read your comments.

This week I enjoyed reading my colleagues’ introductions and I realized they are smart and creative teachers. Good for their students!!! In my classes when I start a level I use to create a friendly environment making my students using positive qualities in their introductions. I think it works because it had given me good results.

It was interesting to learn how setting rules in the classroom obeys to some cultural backgrounds, anyway, everywhere the teachers have to establish clear instructions since the beginning for avoiding future problems, so let’s go teachers we have to continue being patient and understanding with our students: children, teens or adults.

The most exciting thing for me during this week was creating a blog. Now I am using it for reflecting purposes, lovely!!! I can not deny I had few problems when I tried to attach the video but clicking here and there I got it. I am going to use blogs with my students in the University for grading writing skills. I want them to create something like a week journal. I am sure it will be fun, motivating and interesting for them.

It was fantastic to learn about goggle maps as an extra tool in projects, I am going to use it with my students in high school because next unit they have to learn about countries and cultures around the world, so I think it will make the class more vivid. I know they are going to use it for looking for their houses, but I will give them extra minutes at the end of the class for enjoying the new tool. I can see their faces!!! Full of exhilaration!!!

One important new resource was Nicenet, doubtless, It lets people share their experiences and different opinions about a topic. It is an attractive tool for students, in my high school in the English lab there is a similar option that lets them share information during the class, so I have to continue using it, obviously this activity needs a lot monitoring, but it is worth doing.

To sum up, this week was fruitful and dynamic. I hope that everybody had enjoyed the new knowledge.

Ready for Week 2!!!

Ale

Motivation

Dear all,

I know this is an educative blog, but let me share with you my principal motivation, my daughter, she is Janis. I have at home my most important pupil and everything I learn is for sharing with her and my students. In this photo she was two months, now she is a beautiful teen. I post this picture because when she was a lovely baby, I decided to be a teacher, so it is my favorite one.

When I am teaching, I always think about her and I do with my students that I would like other teachers to do with my daughter.

Why we need to teach Technology