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.