I was very busy almost this whole week working on my project paper. After submitting my paper, I felt greatly relieved. It seemed that I did a lot of reading and brainstorming to prepare the project paper. I felt also sorry when I found greetings from Robert reminding me that the course is coming to an end by the next week. The fusion of ideas of teachers from different parts of the world will turn into a sweet memory soon. But the lessons we all learnt will keep alive among us if we try to implement changes in our teaching with the help of these online techniques. I think the blogs and delicious sites will be floating in the web for all of us where we can continue our discussions over and over again.
This week I have gone through some articles on Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences. They have shown that teachers should consider students’ multiple intelligences and accordingly adjust their teaching styles. The learning styles of different learners are different due to their multiple intelligences and we as teachers must be careful to take individual learning style into account before applying technology in teaching them. There is much to learn from these articles. I will carefully go through each and every article that I have found this week. Terry O'Connor’s article on “Using Learning Styles to Adapt Technology for Higher Education” has changed my outlook about my learners. I never thought much of students’ learning styles and multiple intelligences but from now on I’ll take these issues more carefully.
I would like to extend my sincere thanks and greetings to my instructor Robert and all my dear fellow course mates. I will miss you all so much.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Week -8: Reflections
This week has shown all the guidelines and directions for creating a Nicenet class, a class blog on Blogger, a class survey using Google docs and a class website or wiki on Google Sites. Not only that it has taught me how to make exercises online to print out, make exercises to use online or offline on a computer or to print out and make exercises online to use online. ANVILL is a free Course Management System (CMS) which is really wonderful to work as a teacher. All these will definitely bring new dimensions in my teaching. I've never used all of them in my teaching career but from now on I think they will not only benefit me and my students but also my colleagues and other teachers whom I'll help about these techniques of webskills.
This has been a very hectic week as I had to work hard on my project draft. The project draft template has been of great help. I'm still exploring many of the techniques I've mentioned above and I'll keep making exercises to use online or offline on a computer or to print out using the sites given.
Overall this has been an excellent week for me as I learnt many new things. If I can apply many of these in my teaching it'll be superb teaching experience no doubt.
This has been a very hectic week as I had to work hard on my project draft. The project draft template has been of great help. I'm still exploring many of the techniques I've mentioned above and I'll keep making exercises to use online or offline on a computer or to print out using the sites given.
Overall this has been an excellent week for me as I learnt many new things. If I can apply many of these in my teaching it'll be superb teaching experience no doubt.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Week 7: Reflections on Learner Autonomy and the One-computer Classroom
Avery hectic week for me. Not only the pressure of course work but also the biggest religious festival Eid-ul-Azha has brought a lot of religious and social responsibilities on me. Unfortunately, I missed the deadline for my mid-week post on nicenet for the first time. It was due to the technological impediment as my internet modem failed to perform in my village home even though there was complete network. This has upset me and spoiled the mirth and merriment of the festival. However, I'm now back again in the active zone. Thank God I could read some articles on 'Learner autonomy' and strategies on 'one computer class' which has drawn my attention a lot.
In this age of global communication, we as teachers are no longer in the role of a dominant sage in the class. Rather we tend to be guides and facilitators for our learners. So, giving freedom to them is one of our biggest concerns. In this regard articles on learner autonomy this week have once again disclosed the facts related to the present teaching environment. But the new concept for me this week is the one computer classroom. It is really interesting to read about the techniques of one computer class. I've been using a computer in my class quite often since 2008 but never ever I've used it for other purposes except for powerpoint presentation. This time I've got some new ideas of using computer in manifold ways. Recently, I've used a computer with internet connection in my class. This computer was connected with a multimedia projector which has made it much more visible to all. In one of my presentation classes, I've been able to show my students a model presentation and a presentation with many faults. Learners found it of interest and there were discussion sessions on the videos. The plus points of it were many. For example, students felt motivated and clearly saw what they should not do during presentation. They also visualized correct gesture, posture, voice quality, standing position, pronunciation etc. The minus point I found was that using internet takes a lot of time sometimes. So, instead of going live on internet, we should download materials and use them in a pre-planned way. Another problem is the frequent load shedding that completely stops the action. If it is a laptop, there is back-up energy, but what about the multimedia? That is why, it sometimes can spoil the whole plan. In this case, teacher should have some back-up plans on the same topic.
Finally, I'd like to say that I'm still finding it difficult to sign up for a partner as the link does not open in my computer. Hope to hear from Robert, my course teacher, about it.
In this age of global communication, we as teachers are no longer in the role of a dominant sage in the class. Rather we tend to be guides and facilitators for our learners. So, giving freedom to them is one of our biggest concerns. In this regard articles on learner autonomy this week have once again disclosed the facts related to the present teaching environment. But the new concept for me this week is the one computer classroom. It is really interesting to read about the techniques of one computer class. I've been using a computer in my class quite often since 2008 but never ever I've used it for other purposes except for powerpoint presentation. This time I've got some new ideas of using computer in manifold ways. Recently, I've used a computer with internet connection in my class. This computer was connected with a multimedia projector which has made it much more visible to all. In one of my presentation classes, I've been able to show my students a model presentation and a presentation with many faults. Learners found it of interest and there were discussion sessions on the videos. The plus points of it were many. For example, students felt motivated and clearly saw what they should not do during presentation. They also visualized correct gesture, posture, voice quality, standing position, pronunciation etc. The minus point I found was that using internet takes a lot of time sometimes. So, instead of going live on internet, we should download materials and use them in a pre-planned way. Another problem is the frequent load shedding that completely stops the action. If it is a laptop, there is back-up energy, but what about the multimedia? That is why, it sometimes can spoil the whole plan. In this case, teacher should have some back-up plans on the same topic.
Finally, I'd like to say that I'm still finding it difficult to sign up for a partner as the link does not open in my computer. Hope to hear from Robert, my course teacher, about it.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Week-6:Project task -4 reflections
I had only two classes before my university went on a long vacation from November 2, 2011, for the holy 'Eid-ul-azha',the happiest and biggest sacrificing day for the Muslims. The courses are ENG 105: Business English and ENG 101:English reading and composition. As most of the technological changes I suggested so far are for Business English, I've also implemented one change in the last Business English class. As I mentioned earlier, I gave my students a topic 'importance of brand, logo and color in business: special focus on mineral water in Bangladesh' for presentation. I have prepared a rubric for this with the help of rubistar.com. I told students to visit "http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=ShowRubric&rubric_id=2111550" and get clear-cut ideas about the presentation to obtain maximum points. Secondly, I told them to send at least two problem questions through emails regarding the preparation of their paper and poster presentation during the vacation, which they already have started to do. Thirdly, I told them to mention the links of websites that they found useful to prepare their presentation in the reference section of their project paper. Finally, I've given them two deadlines for submitting their project paper (For hard copy - November 26 & for soft copy - November 30, 2011). Many of my students liked the idea of sending soft copies through emails as this will save their paper and printing cost and also their time to meet me personally. This time I think they are going to meet the deadline, otherwise they will lose points (-0.5 points per day late). I look forward to seeing their seriousness this time.
In my 2nd class of ENG 101, I've used the interactive powerpoint slide show that I've added in the 'powerpoints' section in the course wiki. The topics are most common ones but they are presented through interesting passages that you can collect from anywhere and give the students in the class. That means the slides give clear vision about what the learners need to do and there is nothing to be dependent on them. They were given handouts with passages and exercises. Students liked this class very much as they saw the instructions on the slides with animation and performed the activities sometimes individually and sometimes in pairs and groups. This was a class where learners had complete concentration on what they did for long 80 minutes. Do not forget that all these learners' level of language proficiency varies from secondary to intermediate.
In my 2nd class of ENG 101, I've used the interactive powerpoint slide show that I've added in the 'powerpoints' section in the course wiki. The topics are most common ones but they are presented through interesting passages that you can collect from anywhere and give the students in the class. That means the slides give clear vision about what the learners need to do and there is nothing to be dependent on them. They were given handouts with passages and exercises. Students liked this class very much as they saw the instructions on the slides with animation and performed the activities sometimes individually and sometimes in pairs and groups. This was a class where learners had complete concentration on what they did for long 80 minutes. Do not forget that all these learners' level of language proficiency varies from secondary to intermediate.
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