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.