online platforms

Moodle, D2L, Canvas

video for MOOCs

Here are some links to explore further:

1. I would say interactive videos could be created by Powerpoint as well. with narrations and converting to video
2. using many other free software  take a look at www.powtoons.com really cool to trailers.. 
3. here is a list of other sowftware you can use- 
www.wiziq.com
screencastomatic-http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/ 
http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html
http://atomisystems.com -- good one
http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html
or....
Search as screen casting software. ;)

https://unhangout.media.mit.edu/about/

structure of the course

So there are the following componenets:
- videos (short)
-forum
-office hours (using IRS or Google Hangout)
- course wiki (which is so far empty and designated for the use by students)
- emails (not more than 2 per week as the instructor promised)

No readings, but links are suggested here and there by the instructor and the peers.

Badges

This is part of gamification...

The badges I come up with:

Some useful sites on this:
 http://idstuff.blogspot.com/search/label/%23altcred 


I think badges can be useful if they are generalised somehow and linked to certain skills (soft/transferrable). This is good for self-awareness, identifying own strenghts and weakness, goal-setting. Also, and most importantly maybe, can be handy in job interviews or evaluations where we are usually asked to describe a situation where we have demonstrated certain skills, e.g. teamwork, problem-solving... So I started thinking from that:

Teamwork

-giving constructive feedback

- Encouraging others (by comments etc.)

- helping others (sharing links, answering questions, ..)

Critical thinking

-Giving insightful comments

- Asking thought-provoking questions

- Problem-solving

- Answering questions

-          …

Reflection on learning/practice

- Writing comments by reflecting on learning

-Setting own goals

-          …

Cultural awareness

-Sharing practice in own culture/context by comments

-Making contacts with others (by addressing names, commenting on someone’s comment or questions, remembering the info about others), showing the learning about different cultures/contexts through comments…

-showing empathy/respect in comments towards other cultures

MOOCs

 MOOC stands for massive online open course.
There are several websites offering MOOCs for free of charge.
www.coursera.org
www.edx.org

How MOOCs are different from online courses? I need to explore..

here is the post by janet Webster which explains it clearly
https://class.coursera.org/massiveteaching-001/forum/thread?thread_id=126
I have a lot of experience teaching online courses at my university using Moodle LMS (free open software) and more recently (past 2 years), I have been involved in the open education movement by taking and co-facilitating Moocs.
Let me try and answer your question (I probably need cutouts....)

 The boundaries are fluid with all of these categories.

•  For example, I teach online courses, but students are required to attend campus for their final exams. The scheduled campus meetups (if any) are at the discretion of each professor. The courses are marketed to students as 'online', but in reality they still require f2f contact.
• A regularly scheduled blend of f2f and online are these days called 'blended mode' courses. Again, the professor determines the 'blend' and of course there is a lot of experimentation involved-what works and what does not.
•  Other institutions (not mine) offer distance education (old term)  or online (current term) where all course requirements are met on whatever online platform has been adopted by the institution (Moodle, D2L, Canvas and others)
• You can now accomplish undergrad and even graduate designations completely online through a program of studies offered by many institutions by taking all of your courses online. Generally, the curriculum is determined by the prof for each course
• These kind of online courses are not open; you pay for the course and get  password protected access to the online course. There is a limit to the registration.

Year 2008 and along comes the Mooc- a term coined by Canadian Dave Cormier: here is Dave Cormier's You Tube video 'What is a Mooc?'

The original concept of a Mooc is that of a networked learning environment that is open on the internet (free access to knowledge, teaching / learning). The important principle of the Mooc as it was conceived by Stephen Downes is that of a network of learners-sharing resources and participating in the knowledge - building. Creative Commons licensing is very much in the spirit of the connectivist Mooc as originally conceived.
here are many educators running really open Moocs on the internet using freely available online platforms such as WordPress, Google, Twitter. Check out University of Mary Washington's (Md) Digital Storytelling 106- courses are run on campus, but are also completely open to anyone with an internet connection. Many courses and programs have played around with certain characteristics of the Mooc and discovered new ways of offering material on the internet.Debbie Morrison has a good blog here about xMoocs and cMoocs.

Starting up a MOOC

This week I started a new on-line course on Teaching goes massive: new skills required through courseera. It is my first experience of taking such courses, so I felt overwhelmed with the flow of information going from the instructor as well as the students. The number of people enrolled is quite impressive (at least for me) which is more than 6000 people all over the world. The level of experience of taking MOOC varies a lot, but there are certainly some leaders who seem to have lots of experience in this.

At first I felt I totally lost in this world of new terminology, concepts, videos, fora... My head was spinning already in the second day. Then I think I am finding my way, by not try to grasping everything, but focusing on certain things that mak sense to me at this stage of my development.

I think it would be better if I use separate posts for things that I learnt so far, and want to explore further.

Final reflections!

I can't believe it is the end of the course, but I am sure this is the beginning of our integration to the world of technology.

Now looking back at where I was at the start of the course, I think I was so wrong in thinking that I know how to use technology in the classroom and beyond. I have learnt so much! Most of the things were new to me:
- Blogs - I knew about them but have never used one and if not this course I think I would have never used it. Now I like it and even created a new one where I will write about personal things. But I still didn't understand why sometimes I cann't leave comments in some other blogs, they ask me to choose a profile which I don't have. I can only define myself by using Name/URL other options are not working for me.  I need to explore this further.
- ABCD objective - completely new to me, I think it is a very good tool which disciplines teachers;
- Delicious - completely new, early I have been using Favorites toolbar, but every time I change the laptops the links are gone. But still I didn't manage to install the Delicious symbol to the toolbar to access it easily every time I need it. I have to explore this further.
- Webquests and project work, these concepts were not new to me but I have never thought that a web-quest can be a project. I haven't tried doing web-quest during this course, but I will do it for sure.
- Interactive PowerPoint - I learnt some very interesting tasks to make the lectures more interactive, I tried to make a jeopardy so I will go on.
- RubiStar - rubrics were not a new concept but I have never tried making them myself. Rubistar saves so much time!
- Various websites for developing all four skills and language areas.
- Various technologies for creating activities, handouts (e.g. ANVILL - though it is a whole classroom, Hotpotatoes, etc.) I need to explore Quandary more, I haven't figured out yet completely how to create questionnaires by using them as I think Muhammad Rashid did.
- Nicenet - a discovery for me
- Wiki spaces - I heard of them, but have never seen or used one
- JupiterGrades - completely new! I hope I will be able to use it for my classes as well.

Wow, so many things that I learnt and so many things I need to explore further!
In this course I also liked the fact that using technology was always underpinned by learning theories (learner-centredness, learner autonomy, learning styles) which make teachers understand why they are using the technology, not just for the sake of using it or because it is fun.

I liked working with course participants from various countries, with diverse teaching contexts, with diverse experiences, opinions etc. I hope we will stay in contact and maybe even set up joint projects.

I really enjoyed working with Donna, I can't imagine how much time and effforts are put into the course! I liked that she was supportive and attentive to each and every one and tried to leave a comment on blog or posts so that we feel that our opinion is valued and appreciated.

Thank you all for making this course successfull!

Week 9

Well, this week was quieter. I had to do minor revisions on my final draft of the Project plan and submit it.
The discussion of this week was based on Learning Styles, Multiple Intelligences and Technology. I really liked the articles suggested by Donna.



I have known about H.Gardner's Multiple Intelligences theory but have never thought how technology can help to address this. I found lots of interesting ideas from the readings and the posts of my colleagues in Nicenet.First I was thinking how technology can address Bodily-kinaethetic intelligence, then after reading some articles I have discovered that asking students to make multimedia projects which would require going to fields might be a way out. I also liked Esteban's comment that Learning styles and Multiple Intelligences are different concepts.  I need to explore this further.

Ok, looking forward to the last week.

Week 8!

This week was of course was first of all devoted for the project work. But the devil turned out to be not so black as it seemed. I have finished it on time and sent it to Stasya. I have her feedback already. I liked reading Stasya's plan as well.

This week I have learnt lots of magic tools: ANVILL, Hot Potatoes, Quadrato, and many more. I have tried to create a simple cloze test using the Hot Potatoes. I have downloaded the exercises created by my coursemates, they are all wonderful!

Well, 8 weeks! The weeks have double meaning for me. I will reveal the secret, I am pregnant and the pregnancy is also 8 weeks! Just yesterday I was at the GP and he said that I have already 8 weeks!  Therefore I was suffering from nausea, vomiting, headacke and feel just very bad some days. That's why I couldn't take part in the Webinar on Friday, unfortunately.

Ok, now looking forward to the new week!

Week 7

Week 7!
I feel like we are approching the autumn of the course. It is going to end soon like a year, so as any person has mixed feelings, on the one hand glad that New Year is coming, in our case that we will get our certificates and on the other a bit sad because one more period of your life is ending.

It feels like autumn also because it is time for yielding harvest. So the date for submitting the projects is looming.

I have chosen Anastasiya to be my partner, I hope we will have a fruitful cooperation. I really hope that I will manage to finish the project plan by the deadline. I am worried because I am not feeling well, and sometimes I am more or less better, then worse.

I started working on my Project Plan but frankly speaking would prefer doing this after the course :)

This week we read about strategies of using one computer in a classroom. I liked the idea of using it as a work station so I tried to implement this in the lesson plan I have designed.
I have followed the discussion on learner autonomy and found it very interesting. People are so knowledgable in this field!

Ok, I will go and work on project plan.

Nodira

Week 6

I can't believe it is already end of Week 6!
This week, I learnt more about interactive Power Point presentations and how to make lectures with PPP more engaging. I liked the articles suggested by Donna and found Bingo, summarising, blank slide and other tricks as interesting. I have tried to make a Jeopardy Game using the PPP. I need to practice more especially in the design.

Now about the most important task! It is so soon that we need to submit the report! As I am not teaching this term, I will be focusing on the plan. But I want to create class blog where I will post the main info on the course and the tasks for the Final Portfolio.
I have created a blog on the blogger, and the name is DUET, as the name of our program - Development for Uzbekistan English teachers. But I haven't posted anything yet as I am compiling the list of entries in Word document, then I will post them.
So far I am thinking of having the following posts:
1. Introduction to the course
2. List of suggested on-line articles (links)
3. Instructions for creating own blog
4. Portfolio entry 1.
5. Portfolio entry 2.
6. Portfolio entry 3.
7. Portfolio entry 4.
8. Portfolio entry 5.
9. Assessment

For each portfolio entry I will give task specifications, links (if appropriate), deadlines. Trainees will be able to leave comments if they need any clarifications.
And they will have to create their own blog where they will post their Portfolio entries. The supervisors and others will be able to give feedback on their posts.

I hope it will work.

Nodira

Week 5!

Week 5 can really be rated with 5 stars! I liked the week tasks. As Donna promised I got magic tool this week, and more than one!

I have read articles on Alternative Assessment, types of rubrics. I liked the definition that alternative assessment focuses on students' strengths not weaknesses. I liked this way of looking at it. However I have never thought that rubrics are form of alternative assessment. They are for me quite traditional ones. Maybe the idea of self-assessment and peer-assessment can be called Alternative assessment, but if the rubrics are used by a teacher, this is quite traditional one for me.

Rubistar is an excellent tool! The teachers' life can be so much easier with this tool! Creating rubrics takes minutes.

I have also found out that Webquests can be a project! I have always thought of the webquests as the webseacrh to find answers to questions. But have never stretched it further, as asking students to summarise the info and create a booklet, or a poster etc. Unfortunately I didn't have time to create my own Webquest, but I have enjoyed looking at various ready-made ones on the Internet and the ones made by my colleagues on the course.

The last task was the project task, we are pushed forward and forward in planning our project. I hope I will manage with this, so far I have lots of questions in mind.

Nodira

Week 4 Lesson plan with technology

Uh, I hope I have survived this week as well.  It is getting harder and harder to catch up with the tasks. As I was struggling with my internet, which was just cut off for 4 days, I had to write up everything offline and then post it when I will be online. 

Ok, but I love the course and the tasks. I really liked the articles and the websites on integrating vocabulary, reading and writing. I have saved several links in my Delicious page. 

Inspired by an idea from the article I have designed a lesson plan. I don’t have a chance to teach it now, but I will forward this to my colleague and I hope she will try it out. 

I liked that this week we were asked to formulate the problem that we want to solve through the project task. I have gone back to what I have written and discovered I have already did it. But this time I think I felt more confident expressing this concern. 

Though I liked all the tasks of the week, I felt a bit disappointed not to have any technology task this week. I think I got used to that Donna is showing us some magic tools every week, so I was expecting a new one! I hope she will continue surprising me in the coming weeks! 

Nodira 

Week 3 Delicious!

Well, this week was a bit challenging as I think there were more readings, and to make my life even more difficult my internet was and still is slow.

This week I started feeling Oh my God I was so web illiterate, I thought I knew Internet possibilities and regretted that I haven't chosen 0 for all the answers in the survey which Donna gave us at the beginning of the course.

So this week I have learnt about Delicious! I have created my own, it is www.delicious.com/nodira How I have lived without it! It is great! I used to usehttp://www.openstarts.units.it/dspace/bitstream/10077/2850/1/bus%C3%A0.pdf  the Favorites tool in my Internet Explorer, but when I change the laptops I keep losing the links.

Then I have learnt about PRAAT from the article on Teaching pronunciation  It took a lot of time to figure out how it works, but I finally succeded in recording my voice, then viewing its spectogram. It is fun, it looks like the music editors I think they have.

Then I have read the project report by Aleyda Linares from Universidad Pedagogica Nacional Francisco Morazan of Tegucigalpa, Honduras 
Now I have an idea what should the project report be like, it is not that difficult as I have thought. It is well written and easy to follow. She has created a blog for her class on teaching grammar
https://alegrammarwork.wordpress.com/
I liked the idea of a class blog, I think first I learnt about a class blog from Stasya from our course. It contains lots of resources on teaching grammar.

Well, I have learnt a lot and am happy that I succeeding. We are using Jupiter for accessing our grades, it is a great tool! I have 100% for all the tasks. But last days I started thinking does Donna assess the quality of comments, posts or just gives percentage to the quantity?
At the beginning we were sent the rubrics for assessing the comments, the grades were excellent, good, poor as far as I remember. Is Donna using these rubrics to assess the comments?

That intrests me because I am thinking how I will assess my students, will I count as a completed task if someone just posts one or two sentences.

Nodira

Week 2 Search tools and ABCD objectives

This week was even more interesting than Week 1. I have learnt a lot.
Before starting the programme when I saw search tools and writing objectives in the course programme, I thought what I can learn, I know about these.
But all was totally new to me.

I have never thought that there are so many search tools.
I liked DOAJ tool and Google Scholar in particular. I am sure I will be using them a lot.

Then it was ABCD objective, it is the first time when I saw them. It took some time for me to understand how it works and having read other participants' posts, I felt relieved and came up with my own. The difference is that I am focusing on teacher training course, not an English language class. I hope it is still o.k. But I need to check with Donna to be on the safe side.

I found the model very useful as it disciplines the teacher. I will share the model with other teachers as well for sure in the teacher training courses.

There is still one question that is in my mind: it concerns the formulation of the mastery degree in the ABCD model in terms of percentages (e.g.80%, 95%). I thought how come one teacher can predict the degree in terms of percentages, we are teaching human beings, not machines. This is still a mystery for me. Can anyone explain this to me or give me link where I can read more.

Nodira

Week 1, Wow I have a blog too!

I like reading other people's blogs, discovering people's inner thoughts.  I have always admired people whose blogs attract people's attention, make people want to follow it day by day. It is just like watching a soap opera, you peep into someone's life.

But I have always thought that blogging is not for me... No, no. For several reasons: 1. A quotation I read many many years ago rings in my ears "Only fools trust their thoughts, personal lives to diaries" and well blogs are a kind of a diary. 2. I don't think I can write so creatively. 3. I don't have time to be bothered about it and etc. etc.

On the other hand I am much aware of the value of reflective writing in learning and teaching, and as a teacher trainer I always recommend it to teachers. But not to myself...

Therefore I was trying to pospone the day when I will actually create the one. Almost the whole week, I looked through  Donna's instructions, visited several blogs of the participants but did not dare to create my own. I have noted that Tariq found some themes in the Internet so I should search as well. I have also noted that Sebnem is quite an experience blogger, so I need to learn from her.

But today I decided today or never, otherwise I will fail the course.

Started following Donna's instructions first, but then the instructions on the site were self-explanotary. Good thing is that I like reading the instructions and following them! So that was very easy! Now I am looking forward to making it more attractive and will think how to motivate other teachers use blogs.

But here is a question that worries me: Who do you write your blogs? To yourself? or to others? Or to both? In each case I think the perspective, the content, the language changes.

Ok, let's try to write it to both to me (so that I can return to my notes later) and to others (this means I will have to try to organise my thoughts in a neatly way).

Reflecting on the week, I can say that I am happy that the course has started. This is my first experience of participating in an on-line course. So I am trying to adapt to the new environment. I liked several things:
1. I liked Donna sending us clear instructions and regular reminders on what should be done by when.
2. liked my course participants, they are from diverse countries, cultures, contexts. I look forward to making good friends with them.
3. I liked Nicenet, it is a simple but very handy tool for group communication. I really liked that each class can get their key to access the specific discussion. I should try that out with my class.
4. I flagged my country on the class map. Though first I couldn't find where I can write the comment and just wrote short sentence and it was saved. I couldn't delete it or edit it, so I created a new comment. Ah, one more thing, I am from Tashkent, Uzbekistan but currently in Cairo, Egypt staying with my husband. So when I visited Tariq's website it showed that someone from Cairo is visiting! I should have confused people. But I don't know how to deal with that! I think I should announce everybody that I will be accessing from Cairo.
5. I have read the ground rules and commented on the Nicenet.
6. I really liked the rubricks for the discussion comments. Actually I have never thought that we need criteria for that, but yes, that is very useful and necessary.

From my experience so far and the recommendations from the previous course participants I have noted several points:
1. I have to be more active, write more comments (of course excellent ones :)) as I have discovered they will be assessed.
2. I should try to do the tasks as soon as possible, otherwise I have to read everybody's comments! Like it happened in Nicenet introductions, I had to spend about an hour only for reading the introductions before I posted mine.
3. Everyday I will have to devote at least an hour or two and follow all the news, posts etc.
4. I should start thinking of the final project.

Ok, looking forward to the next week tasks!