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.