Week 7: 

"Control leads to compliance;autonomy leads to engagement." Daniel H. Pink.

Yes, I absolutely blame the traditional educational systems that we had been taught through;it will be disastrous unless we,teachers,rescue the new generation whom we are teaching.Why not to make them autonomous?why not to create a sense of independence inside them? and why not to engage them in the educational process through out the activation of technological tools such as those we have learnt as blogging,web quest,emailing,interactive PPT, PBL,and many other tools.


Through out my discussion on Nicenent regarding the one computer classroom, I asked a question in which I think the answer is hinted:what are the added values of using  one or more computers?I think unless you,the teacher,create and use interactive programs,it will be a zero usefulness gained from that computer.How about mobile phones,I liked the idea of using them inside the classroom,it never comes to my mind to use mobiles to serve the proposed outcomes, but after reading many articles and the activities provided by my colleagues I believe of the necessity to start using mobiles although it is banned  in my school to allow the students to use this great device!

       

Arriving at the smooth task which I LOVE the most;Padlet or Wall wisher, I can not wait to create one for my class,believe me I see my students grin and delight to use and share whatever they like .This tool,despite of it's simplicity  I think will launch a spark of the students'creativity.







How about my final project,I started implementing some of the intended tools to improve READING, so I informed the students about Breakingnewsenglish and they jumped very eager to read fast through it. I really felt that my students start to be autonomous as they love the idea of inserting technology into their English class ,they continued surfing the net at their homes and let me know of the new things they learnt by themselves,the thing which will facilitate and serve my project which is based on a web quest.

 

Week  6 

This week, I will start talking about the most thing I loved and learned through it at the same time which is the interactive power point, I felt the importance of this great tool to use not only as presenting information,but also inserting sound, images, effects, or hyperlinks and integrating these features to produce an interactive show you can really feel it's power... I created a very simple one for a grammar lesson about simple future and I shared it on the class wiki, and I am waiting your comments and feedback, if it is good feel free to use it in your lessons.

The other new thing I learnt is how to teach large classes, the thing that I am not accustomed to yet.  However, the number and diversity of materials I read and which talked about this subject made me some times confused and shocked, but I found interest while searching and reading about the 36 formats of techniques that can be used to manage and teach large classes.

How about my project and the matter of implementing it, I made some changes to my project which is mainly focus on solving the issue  of reading,I will only use a website to enhance the reading speed which is www.breakingnewsenglis.com and creating a professional web quest.

Week 5
                                                           

 

Week after week,we step over another mountain of information & knowledge with the aid of technology.

Really,despite the fact that the fifth week was the busiest one for me,I was interested with the new things I have learned whether was PBL ,Rubrics or Web Quest.

 PBL(Project Based Learning), the new addition that week 5 carried for us,the tool that every good teacher should use and implement to motivate students for better learning they love and being eager to fulfil. As Sylvia chard said"one of the major advantage of PBL is that it makes school more like real life."

  

To sum up what is a Webquest, I was impressed by SANJIV's comment"I think this PBL and webquest should be married to get one good student,who can own a work, collaborate his work and become independent learner." I loved wewbquest very much and felt how much it is organised and useful for both of teachers and students.

The last thing, but the very important one through which you can evaluate the effort and work is Rubrics or alternative assessment,I advise every teacher to visit www.rubistar.org to get avery simple and valuable rubric that can be edited.

Week 4 :back to blogs

  

  I was nearly coming to loose my blog and most of my work in this great course,it is refered to Ms.Courtney who guided and encouraged me to proceed by following certain tips to repair my account on nicenet and blog.

This week both of my discussions on nicenet and my project step were cocentrating on READING,I start my discussion thread by summarising what did Mei-Ya Liang say in her article"Three Extensive Reading Activities for ESL/EFL Students Using E-books.most of this article fouce on the importance of the activities that lead students to improve their reading,writing and thinking skills.I chose www.breakingnewsenglish.com as an ideal website to increase the skill of reading specially the speed of it.I notice that many of our classmates chose www.fog.cbc.org and after searching it I directly will add to my delicious page.

This important skill ,reading,was the core or the main issue also that I focuse on in the part of the project.It is so depressed for me to see the 16+ years old student read as if he is only half of that age!!! I am so eager to catch up with you,my dear classmates,to find out sollution for this problem.

Another valuable article I chose to read is Using Internet-Based Children Litereture to teach EFL by Larry J.Mikulecky,through which I felt the importance of practicing English language not only at schools, but also through motivating students to visit related websites as: www.manythings.org  or www.elt.oup.com  which I advice you all to visit and share.

How much  it is fantastic to plan the lessons as the one that we learnt this week through using a template by google.document, I tried to prepare a very simple grammar lesson for the beginner level students of the 9th grade aided by technology components as computers,software,internet....etc.