Week 5 Reflection

Hi everyone,

Week 5 is over and I hardly believe half of the way is behind. For now I have shared the information on  the e-teacher scholarship to a couple of other friends and colleagues who got inspired by my impressions of the course! I hope more people could have such an opportunity to take!
This week I have read a couple of articles on alternative assessment, practical ideas and guides how to use it. I have learnt that alternative assessment directly evaluates students' language skills and gives them a role in their own evaluation process. Project-based learning is a good way of implementing alternative assessment. I usually have hard times when I need to grade someone and then explain why I put that particular grade. So, alternative assessment seems really attractive to me.
Creating rubrics was new for me, and I think that the site we used this week (http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php) is very useful and now I feel more comfortable and can use on very well explained criteria of assessment in various areas.
I have heard about WebQuest for rather a long time and even someone showed me how to use it but for some reason, I wasn't much interested mostly because earlier I didn't see the way it could be implemented at my classes, and basically didn't really understand the way it works. Now I got some new fresh look and I definitely see it differently and I am thinking of how I can use it with the students.
Thinking and writing about a technology-related solution to problem described a week before was a good exercise as it makes you think about absolutely practical things to make your teaching easier and more enjoyable. I do think I will be introducing the things I have learnt so far at the class.
I really like that we are blogging our reflections. It makes me remember what I have done and learnt and make a summary before we move on. I feel more confident for now.
Take care,

Marina,
Moldova 

Week 4 Reflection

Hi everyone,

Week 4 is finishing and here we go with the reflection on it.
This time we had to read more articles on vocabulary, reading and writing and more sites to explore. One of the reading tasks was Jarek Krajka's article "Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instruction" (http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Krajka-WritingUsingNet.html), which seems to be interesting with curious ideas to think of and I am also planning to use his ideas for teaching writing genres with my students.
As for the sites, I would certainly use Breaking News English (http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/) as it fits very well with my teaching environment and the kind of students I can use it with. Besides, I also found Activities for Students (http://a4esl.org/) for grammar and vocabulary practice great. In fact, I have already given some tasks from it to my Pre-Intermediate students as they are getting ready to take a test in a week, and they seem to like it.
A new thing we did this week was creating a technology-enhanced lesson plan. A very good side of it was to have a template and a model when making it, which I found very helpful. It took me a bit time to think over it and fit into the scheme, and I hope I did it appropriately.
Project Task made me think over the group I described two weeks ago and what problems they (and me) encounter at the lesson and outside the classroom. I have thought about changes that would benefit both the students and me. It would be a nice idea to have access to technology in the classrooms to have things done faster and spend more time on learning more than on checking homework, for example.
I have used Delicious quite often this week and even shared the link with a few people who loved it!
Weekly checklist is of such great help. It clearly sets you the tasks for the week and you are sure you don't miss anything.
I am excited to know what Week 5 brings.
Hope you are all having great time!

Marina,
Moldova

Week 3 Reflection

Hi everyone,

Week 3 is coming to its end and I am sharing my impressions of it.
The way of working is becoming clearer. At the beginning of the week we have to read a couple of articles, then we should explore some website(s) and share our opinions on it on Nicenet, learn a new technological tool, then work on a project and finish with a reflection on what you have been doing all the week.
Readings are quite good. At the start they might seem scientific, but then you realize they are well-coordinated with what you are going to do next. The discussions at Nicenet about what you have read and explored clarify the issues, and you feel you are in the flow.
This week I have learnt about Delicious. com, which allows to save links to my favourite websites, see them from any computer, and share with anyone. The hangout done by Donna helped to make my own Delicious page fast enough and then enjoy the bookmarking. I found the site very useful! We also had to add our Delicious page to the list of other participants and see, explore, share each others' interesting links, which I found to be a great idea!
Besides, we have also read through sample final projects from the participants of earlier courses. It gave an overall idea what we are supposed to do at the end of the course and already think how to make it, what to include and how to describe it.
So, my third blog post is ready. It is a good time for me to "stop and smell the roses" as they say and reflect on what I have already done and how I can use that what I have learnt in my own job.
Wishing everyone a nice and lovely end weekend!

Best,

Marina,
Moldova

Week 2 Reflection

Hi everyone,

Week 2 is about to finish and I am here to share my reflections on it. I have to say that things have become much clearer and I like we way we work taking part in discussions, sharing ideas and comment each others posts. You learn many things from the other participants, and what is important at your own pace and your own time when you are available. Since we have people from all over the world and such various backgrounds, it is a really curious to get to know their opinions as well as read their reflections.
This week I have learnt a lot about websearching, and that there alternatives to Google as a search engine. Besides, I remembered technology tips for successful websearching which I I used to omit, but now I see that they make websearching much easier.
I have learnt what ABCD means (audience, behaviour, condition,degree), and how to write clear objectives from the readings provided. I trained writing a few ones to make sure I understand the way it is written in the right way.
Describing my own class and reading about other classes was a good exercise. It gave an overview of classes around the world and the way other professionals deal with problems that appear from time to time.
Blogging at the end of the week makes you remember what you have been doing all week, revise the basic moment of that wek and, in fact, gives you a feeling of accomplisment.

Looking forward to week 3!

Marina,
Moldova