Week 10: 'The final countdown' Reflection:)

Hello all,
I have really mixed feeling about this one. The course was a great learning experience for me. One, I learnt about a large number of tools that I have not used before (though had heard of them) and therefore can use them later. Tools like ANVILL, Nicenet, WebQuest, or even PowerPoint (how to use it interactively) would be invaluable for me for my teaching and professional activities. In that sense, the course equipped me with a lot of ideas for using the web creatively. Two, I also revised a large number of tools that I knew of and had used before - HotPotatoes, Google Sites,Social Bookmarking to take a few examples. I think some of the skills of using these tools had atrophied a bit and the course provided me with the spark needed to go back to them. Three, I also read a lot as a part of the course and updated my learning base by referring to the latest in language learning technology and I am sure that this is going to help me further in my professional development. Four, the discussions on Nicenet were engaging and the sharing of ideas and issues made it more engrossing for me. I can now think of a varied number of teaching and learning contexts across the world. It also made me feel that as teachers we more or less share the same predicament whether it be Portugal or Romania or Azerbaijan or Korea or Spain or the US and the issues that we have are common at times though the differing contexts may throw up different challenges at times. And it is precisely because of this that I have a 'mixed' feeling.

I am really going to miss the discussions that we had on Nicenet and the fact that this is the last week and the intensity and regularity of all that is going to go away is bothering me. I think the best thing that I learnt from the course was the ability to listen to a varied number of socio-cultural voices from across the globe:)

I don't think that any of the topics were redundant for me. As I had already mentioned that I am quite a voracious reader (if I have nothing to read or can't lay my hands on a book or something then I read the newspaper wrappers that are found abundantly when you buy something in India), I enjoyed every bit of it. I never ever felt that something is not relevant to my context as it is my firm belief that nothing is really relevant to your particular context until and unless you tweak and transform the idea to suit it to your context:) So, in that sense,, everything that I did during the course was relevant.

I thought that one of the things that we could have done is using freeware that relates to podcast/vodcast (since we have been using it with our students and it is pretty successful since the students have access to a large number of audio/video recordings whenever they want to access it). Another thing that I thought of (and this maybe because that I am made a part of committees which evaluate multimedia materials willingly or unwillingly) is if we could have done something on developing a rubric or descriptor for evaluating multimedia materials. Though Ken Beatty in his book Teaching and Research CALL does have a rubric for this, it would have been fun if we had actually evaluated some multimedia materials available on the web and then discussed it on Nicenet keeping our context and teaching-learning situation in mind. But I guess, you can't do everything in a ten-week course which was so well organised and there was already so much happening for these ten weeks:)

Will miss you all but do meet me on Facebook and we will surely keep in touch. The world is truly a small place thanks to technology:)
Atanu

Week 9: Reflection

This week has been a productive week for me. Unlike other weeks, this week there was less of reading and discussion and more of transforming what we have done till now in the course to actual practice in the form of the project report. I, however, enjoyed the discussion on the learning styles and multiple intelligences. As teachers, I strongly believe, if we are not aware of the students' learning style, then it can turn out to be a serious handicap. Moreover, the students that I especially have come from a varied educational and social background. This leads to a variety of learning styles within the class. As a teacher, if I am not aware of the intelligences that the students possess, then it would definitely lead to very boring and one-dimensional classes. Unfortunately, that is what happens in most of the classes in India. The belief stems from, I think, the attitude of the teachers that what THEY are teaching is right and it is the duty of the students to make that extra effort. This often leads to some of the students understanding the linguistic input but students who have a different kind of intelligence as predominant find it difficult to cope with the classes.

Also finally completed the project report. Hopefully would be able to try it out soon when the students come back from the mid-term break (that is next week). Am planning to add a few more activities on the coursesite so that the students can explore the site as they come back.

A special thanks to Pradheep and Omar for their comments on my project and to all my friends on this course who have been great with their comments and help throughout.
Atanu

Week 8: Reflection

Whoops! What a week! Was late for everything! My discussion post, my project plan, my peer comments!
Participated in a discussion on the usefulness of some web tools. I liked the Google Sites and the Nicenet as well as the Easy Test Maker. Also liked the ANVILL toll though could not start a class on it since there seems to be a problem. The 'Create a Course' tab does not appear on my browser at all (I use Google Chrome). I really don't know whether it was a technical error or my system does not support it. However, all the tools (and there have been plenty throughout the course), I felt, were quite useful for all levels of students. For my students, I thought the ANVILL, Easy Test Maker and the Nicenet could be a valuable resource.

I also thought that creating a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) also depends on the context of use and is guided by the Actual Learning Environment (ALE). Therefore, though there are immense amount of tools available on the web, we, as teachers, need to be judicious in their use and examine the context and the students' needs before actually taking a decision.

The best part of the week was to create a course site for my students. I created a Google site (https://sites.google.com/site/mymaeltlearningclub/) for my students where they will practice their academic reading skills. I used the Interactive PowerPoint, Hot Potato, and the Nicenet Discussion thread to create the course. Till now, I have just added 'reading introductions' to research articles but intend to add some more activities in the coming week. It was time-consuming but great fun! Finally, got back to doing what I like doing best - tweaking the web to meet my students' needs.

Also read two great projects by Pradheep and Omar. Was late on commenting on their projects (and still waiting for their comments) but I think the partners I have have done a great deal of thinking on their projects. My project is based on the Google Sites course that I talked about earlier. However, the problem is that we have a mid-term break till the 27th and the students aren't here. So am sure that I will not actually be able to try it out. However, I intend to show them to my students and get their feedback on it so that I can make changes and try it out once they get back after the break.

However, we do not have a break (it is only meant for students) and are working. So hope to do some more work on the course site next week.

Also looking forward to writing my final report by August 19.
Atanu

Week 7: Reflection

Sorry! Late for this one! Computer trouble!
This week has been productive and satisfying for me both professionally and in terms of the webskills course. As a part of professional practice, this week my students made 20-minute presentations on a poetry project that they were working on. It never stops amazing me how creative students can be if you can motivate them to do something interesting. As a part of their course on ‘Literature and Language Teaching’, they had a unit on ‘Teaching poetry’. The technophile that I am I thought of asking them to go out and interview poets that are there on the campus. We developed a semi-structured interview after a lot of discussions. This is what it finally looked like:
Interview Questions (Please translate the questions into Gujarati):
a) When did you start writing poetry?
b) Which were the magazines/ journals in which you were published? Which are the books you have published?
c) What are the awards that you have got?
d) Which form/ genre of poetry do you like the most?
e) Do you think poetry should be taught in the classroom?
f) How do you think poetry should be taught in the classroom?
g) If you teach poetry, how do you do it? (This question is to be asked to poets who actually teach)
h) Do you think technology should be used in the teaching of poetry?
i) Could you please recite a poem that is one of your favourites?
Most of these poets write in the local language Gujarati. So the interviews were in Gujarati, they were video-recorded, transcribed, translated into English and then a short presentation was the outcome. Some of the students were amazing since they put in pieces of the interview with sub-titles during the presentation, added visuals, researched the web on whether some of the views of the poets matched with other poets (and quoted them), translated some of the pieces that the poets recited etc. A good satisfying week for a teacher, I guess
For the webskills course, I read the articles by Thanasoulas, Sheu and Smith and posted my comments on the Discussion forum. I was surprised that none of the authors discussed technology as a part of learner autonomy. I personally believe that it can be liberating if used judiciously. Also the activities for the one-computer classroom took me back memory lane when we did not have the resources that we have now. I talked about two experiences that I had while computers were still a novelty in pedagogy in India.

Also found a partner in Pradheep and Omar for the next week and since we are working on the same topic, I think this is going to be exciting.
Looking forward to the next week when we start working on our Project Plans:)
Atanu

Week 6: Reflection

I think everything that I did during this week had relevance to my immediate context. The first thing that we did during this week was discuss issues of large classes and how technology can solve some of the problems that teachers typically face in large classes. It was good to know that conditions sort of are more or less the same across countries and the problems that Indian teachers face have resonances across continents. I think one needs to incorporate technology within the teacher education programmes more and more so that it trickled down as practice in the classromm. However, at the same time, I am aware, that sometimes teachers' attitudes may not align with their actual behaviour. This is especially true of Indian conditions when the initial enthusiasm and high of being a part of an exciting teacher-education programme gives way to going back to the traditional modes of teaching practices once they get back to their classrooms. A related problem is that the infrastructural support is so minimal that teachers who are willing to implement some technological change find it difficult to do so.

The next thing that I did was to create an interactive PowerPoint which I posted on the class wiki. This time I worked on a poem by Robert Frost 'The Road Not Taken' and created an interactive lesson so that the poem could be used for focusing on the language of the poem. I used videos, images, as well as quizzes as a part of the presentation. I could not include a Jeopardy Game this time but hope to do it in one of the Project tasks. However, thoroughly enjoyed the task. I think the discussion on interactive PowerPoint since I learned so many things from my colleagues. Have found a renewed interest in PowerPoint now:)

Looking forward to the next week though it is a busy week for me since we have seminar presentations for the course that I am teaching. Hope to be as active as I have been till now:)

Week 5: Reflection

Did quite a few things this week. On the discussion thread this week discussed about alternative assessment, WebQuest and PBL. In a sense, I felt that the three are related. While PBL can make learning more meaningful since it leads to learning by doing, the WebQuest carries within itself the possibilities of PBL since it ends in the learning of a particular learning item. It is in this context that I think alternative assessment comes in handy. Since PBL (or WebQuest) does not follow a traditional 'teaching' pattern, rubrics can come in handy to evaluate such tasks. This is not to say that traditional teaching should not use alternative assessment methods. They should all the more since it opens up possibilities of collaborative learning

It is in this context, I thought , that the articles 'Assessing Learning: Alternative Assessment" and Gaer's 'Less Teaching and More Learning' were interesting. Also looked at various WebQuests.

The most interesting part for me during the week was creating the rubric for writing research reports. Though we do use rubrics in the MA programme, they were not as detailed as the one I created for this course. I thought that the more detailed the rubric was, the more easy for us to evaluate. And since the individual profiles take care of a particular area, the students too find it easy to combine the different profiles in their writing. And of course, there is the collaborative aspect of it since the rubrics are shared with the students so the students know exactly what to expect if they want a particular grade.

Also thought of a technological solution to the problem of academic reading that I posted on Week 4. Thought of creating a website that could be linked to a blog and also integrating WebQuest so that my students can start reading research articles. I think it sounds a bit ambitious for now but hopefully in the coming weeks I will be able to prune it so that it becomes achievable for this course.

Busy week but interesting. Also did not help to have contracted a viral fever on Friday:) But looking forward to the next week.

Week 4: Reflection

This week has been equally 'dense', if not more, as the last week. As a part of this week's assignments, we read a few articles on reading, writing and vocabulary skills. I read the articles by Krajka and Liang. I especially liked the way Krajka combines online and offline tasks in his article since within the Indian context I thought this is pretty relevant where online dependency can lead to chaos. Liang's useful tips on how to use e-books in the classroom, I think were very interesting. I especially liked the way she structures the tasks to create an interactive classroom atmosphere.

The next thing that I worked on was the technology-enhanced lesson plan which was on using blog for enhancing writing skills. I think I have been a tad ambitious here (as Donna's comment mentioned). However, writing is a serious problem in India and as the newer students pour in, I think it is getting more and more difficult. I think we need to rethink our concept of 'writing' as such in a more and more digitized world. Most of the time, for example, I find students 'texting' than writing. Do we need to redefine writing altogether? And what felicity do my students have in 'texting'- they can type out a whole thesis in 140 characters within 2 minutes flat(: But ask them to write a 150-word write-up, they will take days if not weeks :) I thought maybe harnessing the skills that they have in technology might help in transferring those skills to more academic sort of writing.

I also described my class and discussed the issue of academic reading in my class which I thought was related to the issue of academic writing that I did for the technology lesson. This is hopefully the area that I am going to develop the class project on:)

Has been a busy week but enjoyed every bit of it.

Looking forward to the the next one.

Week 3: Reflection

First of all, I am late for this one. Has been a pretty hectic week. The classes that I teach have begun and it was difficult to keep up with all the work(: But I enjoyed every minute of it. The things that I learnt during this week were not only interesting but also opened new ways of using the web for pedagogic purposes. The week started with a discussion on Nicenet about two of the three articles on using technology with students for listening and speaking skills. I read Miller and Busa's articles and commented on them. I thought that some of the general arguments that Miller and Busa make for using technology (listening for Miller and speech analysis software for Busa) were perceptive but both the articles, I thought, were a bit culturally loaded in favour of a certain cultural variety of English. I also thought that when it comes to the teaching of pronunciation, the ideas of 'acceptability' and 'intelligibility' are so varied in their definitions that teaching of pronunciation needs to take that into account in the Indian context. I also had a very fruitful exchange of ideas with Natalya and Celeste on the use of a certain variety of pronunciation.

The second task that I did was comment on one of the project reports that were posted on the class website. For my comment I chose the project of Prem Bahadur Phyak of Tribhuvan University, Nepal. I thought that the project was well designed and the best thing that I liked about the project was the achievability of the project as well as the systematic implementation of it in a low-resource classroom. This project also gave me enough ideas to formulate my project for this course and, I think, that this activity was quite useful.

The third task that I did was bookmark the links on my Delicious pages. I thought that Delicious is a wonderful tool for keeping an organised catalogue of websites that I use regularly. Though I had used Diigo before (which is quite good as well), I think Delicious is very handy too in terms of organisation.

The week, therefore has been pretty fruitful and exciting and am looking forward to the fourth one now. And as usual, the conversations with colleagues, that have increased manifold are an added bonus(:

Reflection Week 2

I learnt quite a few things during this week:
a) I thought that the Noodletools were a revelation. The way the entire search categories were neatly arranged and the ease of access that these tools provided are assets to any educator, I hope that this tool is used more and more so that people can move out of googling.
b) The other thing that I found extremely interesting was the ABCD model of learning objectives at the Penn State site. Though I have taught students for the last 15 years, I feel that as educators (at least in India), we take a lot of things for granted. For example, I have found only a few teachers who plan their sessions beforehand since many of them just walk into a class and 'deliver' a lecture. This assumption that students need to be filled in with knowledge can be very well-challenged if the ABCD model can be introduced in the classrooms. I am definitely going to try this out in one of the teacher-education sessions. To my mind, this has two advantages: it structures the thought process of the teacher, and the students know what they are supposed to do.
c) However, the best part of this week was the greater familarity with many of my webmates who generously commented on my posts. I must admit that I learnt a great deal from them. Especially, Celeste, Luis, Natalia, and Laura's posts were both thought provoking and illuminating though I learnt from all of them.
Hope to keep up the interaction in the coming weeks as well with the same intensity (though I know that it will be tough since my coursework starts next week).

Week I reflections

As already said in the initial post, I had a bit of a technical glitch. However, all is sorted. One of the beauties of web 2.0 is that things are much simpler than they used to be lets say about 5 years back. Things have become faster and easier and more convenient and more user-friendly(:

I think blogs can be useful for a teaching-learning situation in many ways. Here are a few:

a) It can provide an interactive platform between students and teachers and between peers

b) It allows students to work at their own pace and can grant relative autonomy.

c) It allows a private space to share thoughts without the interference of an all-seeing face-to-face teacher

d) Most importantly, I think, within the Indian context, it allows students to get 'published' without bothering too much about publication houses and their tantrums(:

e) In my context, it is particularly useful since it is a low-cost and low-resource tool that does not demand a massive bandwidth or high internet speeds; the user-friendliness is an added bonus especially for students who are not very tech-savvy.

Finally, here's a video that I enjoyed watching (only tangentially related to blogs) on web 2.0.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

Cheers

Welcome to my blog

Sorry had quite a lot of trouble trying to open this blog! I already have a blog and the Google account that I use to sign in to it freaked out once I tried to open another one with the same sign in. However, the problem is solved and am all set to participate in the course discussions.