Week 10; A farewel or a New Perspective?

Coming to the last week of the most amazing,beneficial experiences of my life I think I am speechless.To describe how I feel is beyond words.What I'm most thankful and grateful to is the new perspective I have now for myself and my classes as well and the chance I'm given to see,hear and understand in a novel way.The weeks I've gone through is very limited compared to what I've learnt and I hope I will always have this thirst and power for knowledge.I consider my self lucky to have met so wonderful people,tutors and classmates,whom have made a wonderful world for me.I'm going to miss you all .Here Is a video I created using goanimate I hope you like it;
GoAnimate.com: Webskills Course2012 by dadda2012

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

I find blogs one of the most interesting tools that can be used with my students.Thier potentials of uploading image,videos..etc make it adherent to different styles.PBl is a great way of enforcing and enhancing our students critical thinking and collaborative skills.Webquests seem to be the ever-lasting friend of mine and I intend to use it frequently.learning how to use PPT Interactively has made my day.

Week 9:I hear and foret,I see and I remember,I do and I understand)

Through this week we have gone through one of the significant contributing factors to the learning process which is learning styles.We have been introduced to the multi-intellegencies theories (Gardner's)and the role technology can have in enforcing and enhancing these learning styles.e have also shared ideas and experience in how could we adapt technology to accommodate our learners' different learning styles.

Completing my final draft for the project I feel somehow relived,as I couldn't stop reading,re-reading and modifying it,to reach its final structure.Thanks to my partners(Yuliya-Nur)while helping in the first draft,with their comments and feedback.Thanks tutors(Jodi-Sheri) for your help and guidance.

approaching the end of this magnificent,wonderful journey I feel a little bit sad.Missing the long hours in front of my laptop,awaiting the start of a new week with both challenging and hard ,yet fun and amazing discussions and tasks.Realizing how useful and precious this course is I think i've gained a lot.Meeting so wonderful people(virtually) is a among the most rewarding factors of this course.Therefoer Iam thankful and grateful for this great opportunity.

Week 8: The Grief and Joy

During this week we have been exposed to different online teaching tools.Among these is Hot Potatoes,which has amazing features to enable teachers create various types of exercises.The cross puzzle games is also a great site,which I intend to use with my students.I've successfully created a match exercise in easy testmaker and I will be using it with my ICT students for the project.

We are also introduced to ANVILL,Language lab and the initiator of the project,Jeff Magonto.He enlightened us about the different,overwhelming features of the lab.Unfortunately I wasn't that luck to join the Friday webinar to see and listen to the participants(tutors and classmates),but I hope there will be a recording of the event.


One of the most painful moments for me when I realized the contradiction between my project plan time line( assumingly at the beginning of the semester,the 10th of March),and the due date for the final project( the 9th of March).So,the first thing I did early this morning was to meet the dean of the college(ICT) and explained to him that due to time constraints I may need to start few days earlier(4th of March ;Today)than the set schedule for my plan.He,again was cooperative to let me use the internet lab for the initial steps of the project,if the students won't mind coming despite thier vaccation.Being successful to contact some of them on their mobile phones,they show their pleasure and readiness to start a little bit earlier.Showing up on the lab few hours later,we were successful to create the class blog and the wiki as well.In spite of the sadness I felt at first the dean's understanding and the students' eagerness and interest to help initiate this project gave me all the joy.So thank you dean,students and lab technician(M.Siddiq) for making it possible.

Week 7: The Bane or ...Boon

One -Computer Classroom has been one of the issues we discussed this week.I think many of our classes is typical of that technology.It used to create a difficulty and a challenge for some of us .after reading the different articles I come to discover that such a class is no longer the bane....it could be a boon,depending on why and how you will make use of it.





Another significant issue during this week,which has generated a great deal of discussion, is Learner Autonomy.The so informative articles have shed light on the contributing factors that relate to this 'term',from the variety of definitions allocated to this phrase,going through the philosophies of learning , learning styles and strategies and how such learning can be promoted.Read here amazing article about Learner Autonomy.

The more knowledge I gain from this course,the more ideas I get regarding my project,the one I intend to run with my ICT students.The variety of resources,articles and amazing tools and websites I have been introduced to contributed a lot to the designing of my project.I've stared to gain insight what I'm doing and what to be done in order to write the draft which would e reviewed with my peers (Yuliya-Nur),another thing I did during this week.

Week 6 ; Dynamic and full of Magic

During this fantastic week we have gone through variety of tools and experiences.Reading the so informative articles I come to realize a lot about creating a more lively and dynamic classes using many techniques and strategies.Among these is The (THINK-PAIR-SHARE) technique which would create a collaborative environment for my students.Another example is the called Just in Time Teaching(JITT) which I will be trying with my students as well.

The use of Powerpoint,as many of my classmates has mentioned ,might not be new to most of us,but what is really new are the ways and methods that I can use to create an interactive lecture with it.The amazing sites provided,I believe would enrich our language class .I tried to use them to create PPT,however I failed due to some technical difficulties(I created a prezi,but couldn't be saved.I almost cried).I succeded to do with Google Document ,another great tool.

WRITING POWERPOINT

View more PowerPoint from Andrew Schwartz

The project I would like to initiate with my ICT students,who have some writing problems,in addition to the insufficient time in class,is creating a blog,to help investigate and devise certain strategies to overcome this problem.The ways I have come across during this week would definitely help me engage my students in the process of learning without which I think teaching wouldn't be effective.The blog would help as a platform for my students to post their writings,reviweing their peers' comments .As a teacher I would be given a greater opportunity to trace my students writings and provide the instant feedback to help them pinpoint their deficiency and let them remedy their mistakes.

I would encourage my students to keep a kind of e- journal or diary for their reflections on what they have done,what didn't really work for them and what they intend to to do during the course.This would help me diagnose more closely the cause of the problem and let them find out the good/bad habits of writing they developed ,whether consciously or subconsciously.

Week 5: The Hunt

It's been a really amazing,challenging week.I have gone through different learning experiences,starting with the most fantastic experience,which is WEBQUESTS( I'd like to call WEBHUNT),pursuing knowledge through a magnificent ,and fun search tool,exposing our students to new worlds .
Another learning experience has been PBL,a kind of projects which will enforce and enhance our students,critical thinking skills like problem -solving,collaboration,evaluation.....etc.One of the international kind of such projects is e-pal and Tandem Learning.Here I found a great slide about PBL:

Project Based Learning

View more PowerPoint from Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach

Week 4: A Real Treasure

It's true to say that we have come to the end of Week 4 ,but it's also true that it's just the beginning of a new ,amazing travel around the world. a virtual one that makes everything as much closer as I've never dreamed of.The knowledge I gained so far is really beyond words and the flow of links seems to be non-stop.I will always be thankful to this great opportunity.

I have been exposed to different reading/writing websites during this magnificent week.To be honest I know very few of them,but most of them I wasn't aware that they exist.So I'm grateful to my tutors and classmates as well.

I'd like,here to share more sites for creative writing,hoping that you all enjoy using them.One of these is Five Card Flickr: http://5card.cogdogblog.com/index.php

Another one is Writeboard (collaborative): http://writeboard.com/

Week 3: The Endless Journey

It's been another fruitful week for me(and guess for all).The more I get through this course I come to realize how ignorant am I and the more I learn the more I discover things about my self.I didn't realize the thrust I have for knowledge and the curiosity to explore new worlds and horizons.I have learned many things and yet to learn, the road is a long one and the journey seems to be endless.We are in the middle of the road to our destination,yet when I recollect what we have gone through I think I've gained a lot.

Delicious is one of the great tools to be used.I knew this tool exist some time ago but haven't tried it(don't know why??? guess I'm a (coach Potato= lazy)person,so thanks for this opportunity that made me use it.

Thanks to the great class I'm so lucky to be in,sharing lots of ideas and comments,expressing different views and experiences ,and having mutual interests as teachers and learners as well, as I believe (When one teaches,two learn).

Week 2:ABCD objectives

One of the most beneficial aspects of this week is the novel way of writing objectives(ABCD)model of course.We always speak about writing objectives,but writing it this way is much clearer.It helps us in design more effective lesson plans and help us guide our students towards the set goals, as I believe that objectives are the vehicle that brings us to the determined goals.

I believe that trying one of the different technology tools available in the new-environment classes of nowadays would definitely bring about the "inspired change" to our language classes.Though I believe pedagogy comes first,through which we can direct our classes "It's not so much the program,more what you do with it" (Jones,1986)

I have always been pursing novel ways to engage my students in my classes,to open new windows for them to enhance and to widen their minds and to equip them with tools necessary for the different learning settings.I think the projects which we are supposed to create,through the course will definitely help me reach these goals.

Creating a blog

Dear all,
I have successfully created this blog in a fulfillment of the "Teaching Web skills course".The experience is great(though not my first one to be honest),but the difference is that this one is within a more academic setting,allowing the opportunity for participation and feedback(either from tutors or colleagues,participating in the same course.I think this one(blog)is going to be a rather mature one.