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