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!