Week 8: Seeing things in a "fresh eye"

This week was really dense for me, I suppose so it was for all of us taking part in web skill course. I was engaged in my schoolwork including the county language competitions, parent-teacher meeting and school project on “Month of Health”. 

I was still working with my 8th grade group involved in the project. I wanted to get some feedback from them about the technology enhanced project in terms of their experience, impressions and self-peer evaluation relating their collaboration during the project.

Some of my students were making attempt to use Anymeeting for virtual discussions, which is the optional final phase of the project.

Being a real beginner at technology usage, I was pleased to read Robert’s compliments about our having made progress in the web course. It was a direct hit on his side to want us to concentrate on making a good first draft of projects, therefore the midweek deadline post to the discussion was not required this week giving us a chance to do as fine a job as possible on the draft. I have been led to the right track throughout the project: the framework and the standard guidelines for previous weeks’ project tasks, the suggestions and the checklist forms for peer reading made it easier to complete my project report draft paper. As it was expected, after reviewing Diana’s and Hye Yeon’s project drafts I could see my project in a fresh eye. On the basis of the checklist template and my peers’ feedback I will be able to improve my final paper.

As usual, week 8 has brought new challenges, hard moments and in the end the satisfying outcome for me. There were some very nice resources listed as part of the readings and topics for week 8. Our job was to try something new and think about how I might use it with my class. 
I have created a class survey with Google docs during the implementation of the course project on my own. After reading the instructional sheet provided this week I went back to it. I could explore the Google docs survey in more depth. 

As we were asked to try something which we had not tried before, I turned to survey monkey and used the question types with more confidence. It was really useful to read the tutorial of survey monkey which Google docs does not have. I especially liked reading about how to avoid being biased with putting questions. I had created a class wiki during the implementation of my project. I could make use of it to motivate my children and manage the project work. Similarly to the surveys, with the help of week 8 instructional handouts I managed to expand its pages and make the homepage more appealing. 

I am still not able to exploit totally all the techniques – I know that it is not the week’s requirement nor that of the web course -. It requires more time and trials from me. But it is satisfying to know that I am getting armed with the opportunity and the knowledge which enable me to do so in the future. 

Catching the thread, experience and looking further

I finished my reflections about the 6th week’s experience in implementation of my project with the hopeful thought which I got from Robert. 

I must keep in mind that the main consideration of the project for me should be to try something new or at least new for children, and then evaluate what was successful and what wasn't, my ability to reflect on what happened when I tried the technology change. If something doesn't work out the way I had hoped, I should see if I can make some educated guesses as to what happened. I regard these words as guidelines in working and reflecting the happenings throughout the implementation of changes. 

The topic of this week about learner autonomy has also contributed to my positive attitude to the whole process of the project check. 

After I had submitted my post on the previous week, I got the first e-mails with my students’ voice. It was a fascinating feeling. I looked at this step on the path which we can keep on walking in terms of further practicing, giving to and getting feedback from each other, application of techniques to keep children engaged, interested and so on. 

I had to do some changes in the content of the task after we had carried the practicing back into the classroom. The failure of performing the conversation they taped and sent to me was the indication of not appropriate preparedness and the possible explanations and reasons behind that shortcomings. I assigned going through the tasks with ‘small talks’ individually setting deadline and giving guidelines for evaluation of the task. It worked much more better. Children took more attention of the quality of the material they sent to me, they experienced how they can rely on themselves while practicing and using technique on their on, moreover they asked for help from me and from others. 

The implementation of changes for this week included teaching techniques for giving assignments, feedback as well as getting personal and being in touch in general. 

Creating a Wiki class seems to be a suitable way for this. I would highlight the assessment feature of managing the group with wiki. Children are extremely eager to find the feedback next to their names. They ask me for explanation, compare their scores with those of their fellows, which gives further stimulus for their learning. 

All in all I was capable to experience those features of working on a learning issue which I expected and I supposed my students to experience and we can build into our regular learning practice for a longer period of time. 

The proof of the pudding is in the eating

To go on with the picture of the rolling stone, it has been rolling on a rather bumpy road relating the implementation of the technology related changes. The bumps were represented by time restriction and by the characteristic problems of the instruction in general: lack of preparedness, inappropriate learning techniques, reluctance, unexpected happenings and so on.

Although Robert had reinforced me that my project is going on a well established path as for the defined problem and the possible solutions that address the original needs, I faced some problems occurred during this week.

I have already introduced some technology solutions in my target group since I started the course, so I have gained experience about my students’ reaction, attitude to the, new way of learning. They do not hesitate to express their aversion towards the unfamiliar tasks, arise questions relating technology which are in some case real, acceptable and reasonable arguments but sometimes they are not meaningful complaints and objections rooted in unwillingness for itself.

I always discuss the main objectives as well as the sub aims of the particular phase of the learning process with my students. This project was no exception. I asked them about what language skill they think needs to be developed using a bit new way of learning. Their  answers reflected my own thoughts in terms of  students need, namely to develop speaking skills, fluency in particular.

I had in mind four steps of intensive practicing to take this week: exploring the particular website, going through the listening tasks together, getting the students to continue the intensive practicing of the assigned dialogue at home and to get familiar with the website in general, making pairs and practicing the dialogue via the Internet. suggesting some ways of taping the conversation. I have started to try out the website to be the host of the discourse to avoid ‘It is the case of blind leading the blind’ situation.

I had to realize that some of my students are struggling with the same comprehensive problems which they have in the ordinary textbook-based tasks too, they seem not to understand that the technology enhanced tasks should be considered important similarly to any other assignments. Luckily some of them enjoyed practicing on web and they told me it was like talking to real partner. They liked the features of immediate feedback and the chance for repetition of any phase of practicing, which is satisfying indeed.

To overcome the problems I have to be more specific in planning and organizing each phase and element of the implementation of changes. I have created rubrics for evaluating children’s  including criteria for submitting different tasks and their reliability as a partner. I want to ensure my students that they are not expected to do a perfect job but to try to do their best to take advantage of the technology enhanced practicing for their own sake.

Robert’s words about how shortcomings, success and failures of the projects should affect us are awesome and encouraging for me. I must keep them in mind and apply them in the implementation of my project.

'Rolling stones gather no moss'           Week 5

At the beginning of the week my stone had been rolling in snow as we woke up to see the ground covered by snow. 

I have gathered no moss but a lot of brilliant things to be armed with in teaching this week. 

After reading the suggested articles about PBL, alternative assessment, creating rubrics I was able to take part in discussions being stimulated by Jenine, Robert and my dear colleagues.

We all shared our beliefs that the possibilities of designing and implementing projects are open from linguistic as well as cross curriculum points of view. PBL involves numerous beneficial features but for me the most important to keep in mind is that it helps students to be more confident and responsible to their work.

WebQuest was the icing on the cake relating PBL. I was fascinated to see how rich the resources on it are to make it easy to incorporate tech tools in the project work as it has a built in structure.

Although I have never heard about rubrics I cannot do anything but see that rubrics have the potential to help students develop understanding and skill, as well as make dependable judgments about the quality of their own work. Rubrics must be 'the part and parcel' of the learning and teaching process.

I have been so amazed by Rubistar that this time I did not want my classmates to be my cat’s paw to create rubrics and post about it that I started right away to create it. I could hardly recognize myself because I got to exploring the tech tool with ease and confidence moreover uploading my rubrics also was satisfying. I created my rubrics for assessing my target group in the final project which gave a more meaningful sense for submitting this challenging task. Thanks to Robert for eliciting such self-experience.

Considering a technology change to address my students’ needs was the most difficult thing for me. I have read some useful articles and the meaningful posts my colleagues wrote relating improving oral skills, and fluency, in particular. I found so many wonderful ideas that I could hardly decide on the possible solution.

I hope my plans will prove to be workable and successful and I truly hope that my students will enjoy the new technology enhanced tasks.

Actually, discussions have held enrichment for me each week. This week I could devote more time to taking part in exchanging ideas and it is useless to say I have taken the distinctive merits of it. Therefore I would highlight discussions among the whole awesome ammunition I was lucky to gain this week.