Sunday 2 December 2012

Webskills Course - Week Nine Reflections


Introduction

This week was relatively less hectic for me primarily because I made it so. The final projects were due and I must say that the thoughtful breaking down of the projects into steps across the weeks really helped. Also the template that UO had published with lot of scaffolding questions helped to organise thoughts in the right way. The peer review exercise was also very helpful in looking at others as well as own projects in a very objective manner. 

Apart from the the project this week focused on learning styles.

What I did and learned?

I don't think anybody will challenge me if I say 'each one of us are unique'. I think due to this uniqueness we like to learn in ways we want rather than learning or doing things the same way as somebody else does. We might have aped others for a while when we were young; however, when we realised that what worked for somebody else is not working for you then that might have made us to think of our own individuality and the way in which that dictates how we like to learn and do things.

The readings suggested for this week were all useful as always.

I started my reading by visiting Technology and Multiple Intelligences website. This page has a collection of resources for teachers to read and think.

There I first read Howard Gardner's speech 'Multiple Intelligences After Twenty Years' where towards the end he raises his own apprehension over the application of the MI theory to aid language learning. He felt happy that language teachers reported back to him that the theory worked for them and their students. However, he was yet to buy that argument and I too was put under his influence and wondered what could be done that caters to the different intelligences that are there in our classrooms with a view to help them learn a language too.

As soon as I logged on to the nicenet classroom and read Ashish's post on how to use technology to cater to various intelligences and at the same not losing focus on the language learning side of it this apprehension was put to rest.

In case you are now tempted to have a look at something similar to what Ashish had posted, click here.

Going through the diverse posts that my classmates had generated I felt very happy. I was tempted to test my learning style online and bought Courtney's suggestion. I took Edutopia's Online Quiz which you too can try here.

My own results can be found here.

Classroom Application

Learning styles is something that I'd been introduced already. However, this week's readings refreshed my memory and most importantly showed me ways to use technology to support various learning styles.

My future plan

This is an interesting strand for this week's blog. Over the course of nine weeks I'd been introduced to innumerable resources which I'm yet to explore fully. So that's high up on agenda. Another thing is to try my level best to be in touch with the wonderful educators I'd the fortune to study along. Whatever I'd learned in this course happened out of collective effort and I know my classmates will continue to discover new things and will never be reluctant to share that online. This course had opened up many vistas like the concept of writing good objective, using templates and rubrics, supporting learners, building learning communities etc. to name just a few that I'd love to revisit again.


Monday 26 November 2012

Webskills Course - Week Eight Reflections

Introduction

This week was relatively less hectic in the sense there were not many readings related to the course. The topic of this week was 'Teacher Resources Online'. So far I had seen how online resources are being used by the University of Oregon in this course and this week it was my turn to think of how I will use the same and more in my class settings. Along with this there was the task of preparing the draft report of the final project to be sent for peer review and also to review the peer's draft using the rubrics.


What I did and learned?

The wake up call for this week came in the form of Ivana uploading her draft report to the Class Wiki. Since both of us did not sign up for any peers Courtney took it on her shoulders to tie us up together. By Wednesday I had to upload mine and by Sunday I had to review hers. The framework that UO provided was very helpful in scaffolding and arranging the thoughts related to the project. This is something that I think even I can use with my learners as well as for my personal writing - use questions to provoke thought and take the writing forward.

The next thing was to try out any of the 'teacher resources' that were listed in the Course Wiki and report back to the class the experience through Nicenet. I chose Google Docs to create a form which I thought I could use to collect information about the internet accessibility and use of my students. My rationale for choosing this tool over the other was practical - my own final project relates to using the internet to support classroom teaching/learning and before I could pilot that I need to think of these issues.

Then there was the discussion on the 'teacher resources' listed.


Classroom Application

The experience of doing the project was insightful especially the use of questions in the template. In my experience I have seen my learners struggling to write or do not know what to write; a template is a boon to them as well as anybody who might be experiencing writer's block at any time. The 'teacher resources' listed with exercise creator and rest also will help the teachers in adding value to the learners' learning experience.

Monday 19 November 2012

Webskills Course - Week Seven Reflections

Introduction

Week seven of the webskills course took up two topics for discussion and reflection - learner autonomy and one-computer classroom. Autonomy is a buzz word in education circles these days and learner autonomy occupies a sizeable portion of many autonomy discussions. Computers, on the other hand, are spreading rapidly and are even entering the classroom teaching/learning scenario NOT as another 'fancy' item to be imposed from outside BUT as a 'desirable and essential' component. In the right hands computer - be it one or many - can promote learner autonomy. In this backdrop it was just right to take up a week to brood on these two concepts.

What I did and learned?

Learner Autonomy

Though I had already heard and read on autonomy and the dimensions it has in the form of teacher autonomy and learner autonomy the suggested readings were something I had never read before. The first article I read Thanasoulas' What is Learner Autonomy and How Can It Be Fostered had a very good definition of autonomy that is as 'the ability to take charge of one's own learning'. In order to do so many conditions are to be met beforehand. First and foremost is the clarity that the learner needs in his/her mind about where s/he wants to learn. The teacher can assist the learner in this process. Many a times the learner might not be aware of the larger picture whereas the teacher will be. The next condition is the willingness of the learner to be autonomous. Learners are generally happy to follow and seek instruction rather than lead or construct knowledge. There is this mindset in the learner to seek approval and support from the teacher who is supposedly an authority. In a way it is easy for the learner to do so because teacher will do all the thinking and many teachers too are happy doing it for the students to hold on tight to that power that is vested upon them by the virtue of being a teacher and nothing more. It is only when the teachers loosen themselves and let the students go that real autonomy - both teachers as well as learners - can become a reality.

My classmate Mr Dey has talked at length about the challenges that confront the autonomy issue and you can read his insightful and very articulate comments by clicking here.

Hole in the Wall and Future Learning

Internet can take you in many directions on any topic provided you are willing to be taken and in my cases this happens most of the time. When I read about learner autonomy and one-computer classroom a thought that came to my mind was about a TED talk that I watched sometime back where Sugata Mitra talks about how through his project 'Hole in the Wall' kids taught computers themselves.


Watching this video took me further and I bumped into  another video that talked about the future of learning.

In all these and more people talk about how when teachers move to the background technology steps in and brings forth with it learning to the front. However, in order to do so teacher autonomy has to be in place. Teachers have to rethink of their roles and stop being 'sages on the stage' which, as Mr Dey puts up in his blog, is a long way to go.

One-Computer Classroom

Another issue that was there in week seven was the one-computer classroom. Computer as a gadget is dumped into many schools and classrooms in India and teachers (read principals, authorities, etc.) closely guard them away from the learners so as not to 'damage' the 'expensive' equipments. Most often it is used when some school inspection takes place and that too as a tool to present rather than anything that students can use. I wish many teachers and administrators who do so read 7 Categories of Classroom Computer Use where the possibilities of what a computer can do to the teaching/learning are listed.

Project

The course had already taken us through several steps of the final project and to my astonishment as I look back I know I need to pool them all together and look where am I heading to. I think the experienced faculty at UO had already anticipated such a situation and had already put up a Project Page in the wiki which I found really useful in taking a stock of the situation at hand.

Classroom Application

Teaching anywhere in the world has many challenges that are more or less the same. It remains as one of the scariest as well as the loneliest professions in the world. However, the human element in teaching and its transformational power is something any teacher can be proud of and using technology an effort can be made in the direction of making autonomy a reality. Through the readings and the discussions I now know even one-computer classroom can be used to make a difference in the lives of the learners.

Some Useful Links:

Tuesday 13 November 2012

Webskills Course - Week Six Reflections

Introduction

This week had been quite challenging in terms of finding time for the Webskills course as we, at my university The English and Foreign Languages University, were trying to host a celebratory seminar on National Education Day where the Research Scholars of the School of ELE were presenting papers.

You can see the programme and the abstracts by clicking here.

However, that does not take away the joy of all that we had to do in the online course on Week Six.

What I did and learned?

The theme of week six was 'creating student-centred classes and interactive powerpoint'. The objectives as always had the ABCD (Audience, Behaviour, Condition, and Degree) structure which, for me especially, reinforces what I'd learned in my week two of the online course.

Student-centred Classes

Due to the lack of time I could not go through all the links that were posted online. However, I managed to read on 'Interactive Lectures' and 'Just in Time Teaching' both of which I found thought-provoking.

Large classes is a reality in my part of the world and teachers often resort to lecture method to tackle this issue. Through these articles I learned how to make the archaic lecture method innovative and more importantly interactive. I believe that complements the objective of this week called 'student-centred' class, an important theme that takes away much attention these days.

The Just in Time Teaching is another interesting way of providing the learner a meaningful, immediate, and extended learning experience. Most of the time the actual teaching/learning scenario gets limited to the actual classroom contact hours and with that everybody knows nothing much can be learned. Learners as well as teachers might have more to tell and share and technology enables this. Moreover, finding out of the students what they want and how much they know about the topics to be taken up in the class before the class hours is an important step in the right direction of building 'student-centred' classrooms.

There are lot more resources on Teaching Large Classes and Using Technology in Teaching Large Classes available. You can access them all by following the links.

Digital Distraction

Another thing that I'd noticed out of my experience on the online course on week six is the struggle that an online learner has to make to remain focused. Generally my online life starts with checking my mail and facebook accounts, following links from that and very soon I find myself lost in a maze from which I find quite difficult to wriggle out. To my dismay I generally find the time flying and if I sit and reflect on the productive work I managed to do by being online sometimes I feel disappointed.

In my second post on Week 6 Discussion I have raised similar issues. There I used 'digital distraction' a phrase I thought will capture the spirit of my problem. Through a search I came across similar concerns being shared by novelists and their efforts to fight it back. You can read it here.

Interactive PowerPoint

Another interesting thing that I learned is about 'Interactive PowerPoint'.

PowerPoints are great way of engaging the audience during presentation. However, the same can be boring too if not used wisely. Through the readings in the course I learned about how to make my PPTs interactive rather than static.

I was particularly impressed by a very interactive use of PPT by Aashish Pandey where he used it to teach Wordsworth's 'Daffodils' to literature students. You can find his presentation here. (To see how interactive it is you need to download and view).

Doing this task made me think about my own PPTs and also how interactive they are. To my dismay I think many of them are information transmitters than interactive.

In order to see my PPT for this course click here. (You cannot view it online; but can download it).

I also refreshed my memories about Prezi, an alternative to PPT, through some of my classmates who ventured out and made some Prezi presentations.

Project

This term I do not teach; but, based on my experience of teaching before I understand my students need lot more language input and teacher support and I intent to take the help of the technology. However, the project steps being broken over a period of time need a pause from my part where I should sit and see how it'd evolved so far and in what direction I need to take it further.

Classroom Application

The issues raised in the sixth week are all pertinent to the immediate classroom scenario I have. Large classes or use of PowerPoint are all quite relevant because they are all part of the lived reality around.

The PPT bit is particularly useful for me as well as my students because we make use of PPT at some point or the other and this sort of input is really helpful in making our PPT interactive, if needed.

Largely, I think taking up this course is enabling me to reflect on me as an online learner and think of challenges that I come across and how I resolve them and I think this is an important take away that will equip me to understand online learning and learner in a better way.

Tuesday 6 November 2012

Webskills Course - Week Five Reflections

Introduction

Week Five too is over and voices were heard from all around about how the course is taking its toll on the relations in the real world.

If you didn't understand what I mean then watch this short film made by my virtual classroom mate - Rustam - by clicking here.

(My attempts to embed the video didn't work - can anybody help?).

However, nothing is going to dampen the spirits of the participants as most of us, though complained about how the course is slowly turning out to be demanding, is, at the same time, making more sense of the whole thing than in the starting.

What I did and learned?

This week focused largely on alternate assessments (AA), rubrics and project-based learning (PBL). The NCLRC article on AA was quite insightful. (You can read about AA by clicking here.)

The RubiStar website that enables anyone in creating a rubrics in a jiffy is another find of the week. A quick reflection on the use of rubrics raised this concern in my mind that at times an extensive rubric can make a teacher's life more difficult than easier. It is in deed good to have extensive rubrics; however, the more extensive it becomes the more difficult the life of the teacher will be in the sense there will be more things to keep in mind while assessing the students.

However, the third item - PBL - for putting learner at its heart won mine too. We were asked to read Susan Gaer's article 'Less Teaching and More Learning'. Through this article I learned about the importance of making PBL immediate, relevant, and meaningful for the learners. Moreover, in order to keep the students interested in the project there needs to be a check on time too where feedback is provided at constant intervals.

Though this is the fifth week of the course I sometimes find the multiple platforms that one has to visit to access the resources as well as post about the progress and thoughts a bit confusing. Now and then I get lost in the maze and have to find my way out.

Also though technology is a handy tool in the hands of a capable teacher the support system that the technology requires in the form of electricity, equipment, etc. can at times fail pulling down the very edifice one wanted to build up. This happened with me today when I was all set to post the weekly blog. Right then the power failure that had been away till last week suddenly made its reappearance.

A nice thing that I chanced upon last week is the accidental discovery that Nicenet and blog can be accessed through the mobile device that I have with me. In a way that relieved my tension of accessing the resources on the move.

Also I opted for summary view in the Nicenet so that I can get a clear picture of who's post and what before deciding to choose and explore one.

Classroom Application 

The immediate application of this week's learning is in the form of PBL. The many misconceptions about it that it's very easy and puts little pressure on the teacher were shattered. However, the final project that aims at finding suitable material that will keep the learners of mixed ability motivated is taking shape and PBL is going to shape it in a big way than before thought of.

Furthermore, now I know the importance of being 'adventurous' and exploring the technology realm so that things that would have been otherwise missed could be found out like the way by which I stumbled upon the fact that I could actually access the ICA and blogger via the mobile device. I'm reminded of the same (i.e. being adventurous helps) turning true for language learning as well.

Sunday 28 October 2012

Webskills Course - Week Four Reflections

Introduction

How fast time flies and nobody has any control over that! However, one can always think of ways in which how the time is spent. Guess the weekly reflection is an endeavour in that direction too.


What I did and learned

This weeks Webskills course focused on Reading and Writing using technology. Like always there were four different assignments to do. There were couple of readings to do too.

Out of the readings I liked Three Extensive Reading Activities for ESL/EFL Students Using E-books by Ling. As part of the Nicenet discussion I posted how I'll make use of ideas mentioned in this article to develop a lesson of my own.

Then there was a distinct strand on corpora. I don't make use of corpus much in my teaching and was surprised to see so much of enthusiasm from my classmates on how to integrate this into language teaching, especially vocabulary teaching. My curiosity to know more about corpus took me to a post on Onestopenglish website titled Introduction to corpora.

The second task was to come up with a technology enhanced lesson plan. I took a while to do this. I went through couple of my classmates' lesson plans before garnering the confidence to do one of my own. I thought of using technology and the internet to raise learners' awareness on current affairs and in the process work on their language and study skills. Learners of our era are fortunate to have access to a variety of resources - print as well as digital - around to enhance their learning. Sadly, many students don't make use of this either because they don't know about them or don't know how to make use of them. Classrooms in such contexts can introduce the resources as well as show learners how to make use of these resources.

My lesson plan which is open for comments can be accessed by clicking here.

There's a final project task that is left now and I know there's a step that I'm lagging behind and can now sense how that has to be taken care in order to do this.

Apart from all these I learned how to spice up my blog by adding blog roll (that can be seen on the right side) which in a way will help me to keep a track of the latest posts from my classmates.

Classroom application

The sites that I got exposed to in this week can in deed help me in integrating technology in the classroom. I knew technology or the internet is just a tool in my hands to enhance learning experience of my students and nothing more.

Sunday 21 October 2012

Webskills Course - Week Three Reflections

Introduction

What a learning week this had been especially for the online learner in me!

Week two had been lull for various reasons - personal largely - the proof of which is the missing blog post (this does not mean that I didn't do anything or learned anything that week; but that is yet to be reflected and recorded). I was drifting away I know and somehow I couldn't do anything about that feeling. However, through the timely intervention of my course tutor Courtney I believe I am a better online learner now. As the course is unfolding I can sense the learning curve getting slightly steeper (may be this is purely subjective) and know for sure that unless one has a plan and that too a solid s/he cannot survive.

What I did and learned

It took me a while to understand that the weekly course requirements have four distinct strands. These are namely:

  1. I've to participate twice in a weekly discussion. 
  2. Do a weekly task and post reflections on that. 
  3. Update on a step of the final project. 
  4. Finally update the blog. 
The four seems simple on paper (blog here); but for a learner like me who wanted to do all in one go they posed a big challenge and made me run away and hide. However, through a series of mails with Courtney I think I know better the nature of the beast I'm dealing with.

So what's the plan that I'd learned about doing an online course well?

First and foremost never try to do everything in one go.

Break it. Time it. Space it.

All are important. A learner has seven days a week to complete the four items. Even if one decides to do one per day there will be three more days left which when thought that way is a great relief. Also focusing on one task out of the four can help in quality and better assimilation of the concepts.

Second is finding your way around. This is very important since the course may have many links to visit and might be spread out across online topography; but, activities happening in one or two places might only be evaluated. This one has to keep in mind. This does not mean that one shouldn't/needn't visit the other places; but, should make sure that s/he be where the activities count too.

The third thing is to ask for help if you think you need instead of running or drifting away. I luckily had an instructor who was kind enough to get in touch and enquire whether I need help. But this might not be possible all the time in all cases. The learner need to keep this in mind and should be bold enough to reach out to people who could help.

Apart from learning how to be a good online learner I learned about websites for developing aural/oral skills and social bookmarking websites. Through my classmates I came across many useful websites for developing skills and now have a delicious account which you can see by clicking here. In addition I read two articles - one related to teaching listening and the other on teaching pronunciation.

Classroom Application

My own learning experience as an online learner and the way in which Courtney reached out to me will be of use to me when I conduct online learning programmes for my students. The articles on listening and pronunciation provided me opportunities to understand the history, the need and the theory behind the teaching of listening and pronunciation. Furthermore, I now know a handful of sites that can be used for teaching aural/oral skills. Moreover, through the social bookmarking site delicious.com I can now arrange my links in a jiffy and can share them as public or private.