Week 10: Wrap-up

Goodbye Poems for Friends

The hardest part of any friendship is when it's time to say goodbye. As much as we might like things to stay the same, change is an inevitable part of life. The universe may seem huge and the rift between friends on opposite side of the world may seem a great distance. There are many tools available with which we can communicate, but even without these tools there is a secret that only rea -l friends know, and it is this. All the mountains and valleys in the world cannot separate friends whose hearts are as one.

Anonymous During all this time we learned many things and one of the most important was to be friends and work as a team. We had the opportunity to learned a lot and the most important to share the knowledge with the students, so I believe that this on- line course help us a lot. 


THANKS ROBERT FOR ALL


GOOD BYE MY VIRTUAL FRIENDS AND I HOPE TO SEE YOU ONCE IN MY LIFE.

Nori
Ecuador

Week 9: Learning styles - technology connections

 Well week 9

At this time I believe that we are tired, the course is very interesting but at the same time is exhausting, and the of  nine weeks I begin to feel tired, but fortunatly we are on week 10 and this week we finish, I have mixed feelings because I know that  at the end of this week we can rest but I know too that our  opportunity to continue learning will stop. 


During this week we had a discussion in which we had comment about the way that we teach in our classes and more than this how the students have an effective learning process. Teens and adults teens love to use technology and in some cases they know more technology than us so the technology in not part of the future is the present so we have to work using real material using techniques that like them and make the class as a real lab. 


I read an article based in  

Ian J. McCoog, MEd, is the technology
integration specialist for Southern Columbia
High School in Catawissa, Pennsylvania. . copyright © 2007 Heldref Publications


The article says:


 Technology has changed the appearance and operation of modern society. Our world has become digital, and our classrooms are steadily following suit. The teacher remains the focal point, but new resources are adapting how instruction occurs. For example, a liquid crystal display (LCD) projector was once an unheard-of expense for schools. The power of the projector has now evolved from simple presentation device to the heartbeat of interactive whiteboards, which bring content to life for all learners. Technology integration is not only changing the way we think but also the way we teach. 




We had to send the final project too taking into consideration all the recommendations made by our patner. 


So the week was nice and interesting. 




See you 


Nori 
Ecuador 

WEEK 8 : FILMING A VIDEO

Well I'm very happy this week because my students went on friday to film the practice class, during all the last week we work on the interactive power point with the grammar learned and related with the video which they filmed and we were writing the essay but friday was the great day because my dear students put in practice all that they learned so until today I received the video of two groups and These are very interesting so I fell so exciting and these kind of activities make to feel proud of be teacher.
I attach  a video for all my friends.
Nori Morales

Teacher

WEEK 7: Learner Autonomy and the One-computer Classroom

Hello everybody


This week was fantastic and special for me because I'm working with my project and on friday we made the interactive power points and the presentations are very nice, so this monday they are going to present and post in the blog. 
Another files that we analizes  was  what "autonomous learning" is. According to Holec, "autonomy" is defined as "the ability to take charge of one's own learning". Furthermore, Dickinson accepts the definition of autonomy as a "situation in which the learner is totally for all of the decisions concerned with his or her learning and implementation of those decisions." From these two definitions, we can see that the learners must be independent thinkers, and should have a clear view of the whole learning process, including the purpose of learning, the aim of learning, the way of learning, the choice of materials in learning, etc. In another words, it includes everything concerned with learning.
In this process, the teacher's role has changed. We have to admit that the teachers' privileged and centered position in teaching is being challenged. Yes, teachers are no longer the only experts in imparting knowledge, but just organizers in classroom teaching activities.

Secondly we made a plan with ine computer into the class and my plan was about The students will write an essay according with the topic that they chose so they have to read the essay I'm going to give to each group an essay in order that they analyze it. When they finish to read it I present power point slides showing them the main parts in an essay and how to write it, with them to I write at that moment an essay so they have the example. 

 The students have to interchange each other discusse every topic , they choose one according with their likes and make a brainstorm, with all the ideas about the topic they write an essay with minimum 250 and maximum 300 words.

Well this week was fantastic but I'm a little tired because I'm taking a post grade program every saturday and sunday It's about Linguistic but the curriculum is to hard so I'm worried but at the same time too excited because I want to learn a lot. 

Nori 

Ecuador

MID WEEK 7: MY PROJECT

I want to tell you my friends the develop of my project. Well I began yesterday that I plan with my class the time for each step.

Tuesday 17: I divide the class in groups as I have 41 students I have 8 groups the fice students each one and 1 the six students.

Wednesday 18 and Thursday 19: All the group including me we will develope the content, the idea is to develop first the cognitive part, using the web quest that I send yesterday to each leader, durong this two weeks I'm going to apply the power points made during the week 6, and  the touchstone book, because it's a unit in my book for this level.

Friday  20: The students are going to work in groups preparing their own material, in this part the students will prapare interactive power points with the knowledge learned in the previous days.

Monday 23: This day the students will write the essay in which they have to tell the experience that they had preparing the interactive power point and what they learned , and they will relate about the film that that they have to do, the idea to make a film it is because they have to apply all they learned in real situations, so they are going to choose a place in Quito an make a roleplay simulating that they are asking and givivng directions.
In order to show our beautiful Ecuador each group choose a touristic place.

Tuesday 24: They post in a blog the essay and the interactive power points.

Wednesday 25: They comment their jobs in the blog.

Thusrday 26: All the groups are going to go to different  places to make the film.

Friday 27: Holiday in ecuador but the groups have to edit the videos.

Monday 28: Evaluate the project.


I'm to excited for this project and the students are motivated so please wish me luck.............


Nori
Ecuador

Week 6: Creating Student-centered Classes and Interactive PowerPoint

Hello everybody

This week was nice and I fell a little more relax, well I believe that all the teachers must created power points once in their lifes so this time we had to interact with technology so it was so nice. 

I 'm going to apply my project with my students during this week so I send them to prepare material just as a brainstorm of the new topic. so I'm finishing on tuesday a unit that I began so since wednesday I'll be working with my webquest and my blog. 

I will post my video so I hope you enjoy it. 

Nori. 

Ecuador 

WEEK 5: Project-based Learning, WebQuests, and rubrics

早上好(zao shang hao) (Good morning)

Another week that finished and as every week I feel to amazing when i notice how much information and how many tool we can find in the web. 

Well during this week I learned all about Rubrics and Alternative Assessment , I used http://rubistar.4teachers.org/ and !gosh!!!!!!!! this tool surprised me because a time before when I had to prepare and assessment I always had to prepare a word or exel table in which I used to write some aspects that according with my opinion I had to evaluate or them most of the time I used some assessment that all the books have, but hardly ever  they have all the aspects that I needed, but with the use of rubistar.4teachers, I con prepare  my assessment in just five munutes and taking into consideration the aspects that I need. 

In the discussion we talked about Assessment, rubric and project bases learning in which I wrote about how I involved my students with the assessment in this form they participate and enjoy been evaluated. 

We had an extra task for this week and this consisted in prepare a webquest in which we develop the project presented on week 4, this took me extra time for extra points ja ja ja ja ja, but it was a very nice tool because we can assembling a project step by step and in a simple form to undestand for them. My address webquest is 

http://www.zunal.com/webquest.php?w=99654  VISIT IT. 

And the last task was about: describe a potential change. It was about how to use a technology in the process in order to change a reallity, so I 'm plannig to make a virtual class in order to use with my students. 

In my opinion this week was exausted but very interesting because I learned a lot. 

Nori 
Ecuador

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

Week 4: Skill-building Websites for Reading/Writing Skills and Technology-enhanced Lesson Plans

SURFING BY THE WEB

This week I learned a lot, I had visited the web-pages that our teacher sent us while I was surfing by the net the time passed and passed because all of them were very interesting and I want to use with my students as soon as possible. Some of these pages are: 

• Lauri's ESL Website - grammar, vocabulary, listening exercises. The Flash ones are especially interesting.
  http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried/ 
  
• ESL Independent Study Lab - Michael Krauss
  http://www.lclark.edu/~krauss/toppicks/toppicks.html 
  
• Activities for Students (be selective about what you choose)
  http://a4esl.org/
  
• Many Interesting Things for ESL Students
  http://www.manythings.org/

Despite I checked all the pages that Robert post for us in the Discussion I talked about Lauri's ESL Website - grammar, vocabulary, listening exercises. Into this page we have lot of tools as for example. I found it new and cool for them, at the moment that the students open the web page they feel that this page is for teens for the colors and the presentation, every topic written into motivate the students and the reading are graduated according with their necessities, we can find grammar, esl classes, students writing, reading and listening, and to complete all this information we have extra material. 

Other activity that we have to checked and did, It was a class plan based taking in count these files 

• "Lesson plans" from the Innovative Technology Center at the University of Tennessee:
  http://edtech.tennessee.edu/~bobannon/lesson_plan.html
  
• Lesson Plan with Technology Template (Word .doc file)

 In these web pages I had the opportunity to know exactly How to make a class plan It's very long and I believe that we can use this form when we want to make a project, if we follow this steps we know that, when, where, why, to who, the class is going to be given. so I LEARNED A LOT AND IT'S VERY 

USEFUL.Thanks Robert. 

On the other hand in the task project 3 we had to describe some Issues, it was about we had to remember  class and students that you described in Week 2, and how technology might help us in the class,

As you can read we had a hard job but very educative so while the time is running I feel that I learn more and more Issues that I want to use with my pupils. 

Let's wait the week 5 

Hugs and Kisses . 

Nori

Ecuador 

WEEK 3: Skill-building Websites for Oral/Aural Skills and Saving Bookmarks with Delicious

Hello penpals:

Too hard this week, but to  productive. During this week we have learn how to have all our webpages or better our directory organized using the fantastic tool DELICIOUS.

I add  my delicious to my blog so can you observe it clicking on the FLYING BOOKS. 

In the discussion that was about ORAL AND AURAL SKILL BUILDING,  we've  learned so much about many interesting pages that or friends recommend us to use in the classroom,all the adress that they posted are amazing and too useful. I post some of my address as for example:

http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Listening/

http://www.mansioningles.com/listening00.htm

http://www.esl-lab.com/

http://www.edufind.com/english/grammar/grammar_topics.php

http://a4esl.org/q/h/grammar.html

http://managementhelp.org/trng_dev/lrn_objs.htm

http://managementhelp.org/trng_dev/lrn_objs.htm

http://managementhelp.org/trng_dev/lrn_objs.htm

http://managementhelp.org/trng_dev/lrn_objs.htm

http://www.bestresumewriting.com/http://kimberlychapman.com/essay/essay.html. 

Another interesting information was the links that gave us Maria del Carmen as for example:

Http://www.sai200.org

http:www.helping.com , http://esl.about.com , www.englishcom.com

www.mansionenglesh.com www.aprender ingles.com www.helping-you-learn-english.com

Well we were learning all the time during this week, a lot of material that we can use with our students in order to motivate our students and have signicants knowledge. 

Adding and complementing our process we had to review some of the project that Robert post for us, It was really complicated but so interesting this project and more because I imagine that we are going to make one similar to them, so I choose one that was written by  Camelia Pagila, School with Classes I-VIII, Academician Marin Voiceless, Giurgiu, Romania.

The mail goal of the project is "Plan and implement a change related to technology use in your classroom." This project was applied with 30 students (18 girls and 12 boys).

Something that really impressed me was how technified are the classrooms on that institution, because she said that there is a laptop with an Internet connection, a projector, speakers, a multifunctional printer, a screen, a whiteboard and 2 CD-players (one is used in the other English class which takes place simultaneously). There are also two cabinets with English literature, tapes, CDs, DVDs, English literature, dictionaries, posters, flashcards and other additional materials. They have posters about culture and civilization in England and the USA as well as the maps of these countries.

In adittion they focus their main objectives using the A B C D method so It's how they organize their plans: The teacher (A) will address to all learning styles (B) given technology (with focus on class blog) and web tools help (C) within the first semester of the coming school year, for a period of 13 weeks (D). On the other hand in order to know the students needs , she decided to create an analyze about them focusing on the SWOT analysis. It is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture.

Well If you are interested in this  project visit

 http://umbc.uoregon.edu/eteacher/projects/200904_E-Teacher_Pagila_Romania.pdf.

To conclude I would like to say that this week was full of knowledge, but too interesting, we had to read a lot; however we learn too, so let's continue tomorrow we begin with the 4 week. 

Good bless you. 


Nori 
Quito- Ecuador

PSD: I post a video in which we can observe the wonderful classrooms at the University. I dream with this technology in my country in all the Universities specially in mine UNIVERSIDAD CENTRAL DEL ECUADOR. 

How important is to use technology into the classroom

Hello everybody teacher and penpals, then of read all your post I conclude saying that how important is to use technology into cle classes and the reason are very consistents and reals so I'm going to explain it. 


Computer and presentation technologies are becoming an important tool for teachers to use to effectively communicate to their students. 


Research is the number one reason to use the internet in education. Students have a wealth of information open to them. Often, when they are researching they don't use any book or magazine, they find everything in internet so it makes to use it 90% more than than a common book.


In my opinion the teacher has to look for new strategies in order use the information that they use, they generally copy and paste buy depend of the teacher make usuful the information; we can use graphic organizer or slides or mind map, this kind of techniques help us to make more effective the knowlegde.

NORI

Quito-Ecuador

WEEK 2: ABCD METHOD

Hello everybody it’s for me a pleasure finish the second week of a hard job. During all this time we have learned how to write objective; for me it’s a good way to have clear to whom, what and why we want to make a project.

Now I have clear that The A.B.C.D is an excellent starting point for writing objectives (Heinich, et al., 1996). In this system, "A" is for audience; "B" is for behavior, "C" for conditions and "D" for degree of mastery needed.

1. Audience – Who? Who are your learners?
2. Behavior – What? What do you expect them to be able to do? This should be an overt, observable behavior, even if the actual behavior is covert or mental in nature. If you can't see it, hear it, touch it, taste it, or smell it, you can't be sure your audience really learned it.
3. Condition – How? Under what circumstances or context will the learning occur? What will the student be given or already be expected to know to accomplish the learning?
4. Degree – How much? How much will be accomplished, how well will the behavior need to be performed, and to what level? Do you want total mastery (100%), do you want them to respond correctly 80% of the time, etc. A common (and totally non-scientific) setting is 80% of the time.

Another interesting thing that we have learned during this week was about noodletools which is a researcher I believe that this research engine is a very useful tool that all the teachers needs to know about it because with the use of this tool we can do a lot of things as for example:

§  Teaches evaluation and analysis; not simply a "machine" that automates the process.

§  Extensive help for each citation element at the point of need.

§  Guides learner through difficult decisions about the source material.

§  Fast, personal responses to individual citation questions.

§  Generates parenthetical reference for each citation, with additional advanced help.

§  Checks for mistakes in punctuation, abbreviations, and more.

Well all this kind of knowledge acquired during this process has been magnificent in many aspects first at all we can develop the human part it’s because with people who with we are taking this course the friendship is coming to evidence  and increase, despite of the time that we don’t have because the reality in our country it’s very difficult economically, the most of the teachers have to work into 2 job so we have a complicated life about our time however we are learning a lot .  

Nora Morales 

Quito - Ecuador 

WEEK 1 Why is important to use Technology into de classroom ???????

In my opinion the most important reasons are the fallowing :

1. Improve understanding as different technologies can be used to make one understand concepts better.
2. Bring real life examples using media related technologies into the classroom to make learning more relevant and meaningful
3. Attract attention of students
4. Encourage participation and invovlement in lessons
5. Save time and effort
6. make lessons interesting, motivating and fun.