Week 10: Ignited minds continue learning ... miles to go ...

Task: Levels of Technology Integration

An interesting task for this week was to participate in a survey at http://www.loticonnection.com/. The aim was to ascertain where do we stand with regards to web based teaching and learning. 

After taking the survey I find that I need to work on Student Learning and Creativity, Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments, Digital-Age Work and Learning and Digital Citizenship and Responsibility. 

At present I see my instructional system somewhere close to level three and in one year's time I would like to reach level five as per the Loti framework. The only roadblocks can be from the administrative side because things move slowly at my place. Nevertheless as a teacher and teacher trainer I will share with others what I have learnt at this web skills course and encourage them to integrate web resources to their class  room teaching. I am confident through this "cascading" of my web skills course training I will see considerable positive change in teachers' and learners' attitudes towards blended learning. 

Discussion: Advice to Future Participants

The web skills course has updated me on web tools so much that I can use them not only to enrich my teaching but also to make my learners' learning exciting and authentic. My biggest benefit from this course was that  I have been able to blend my class based teaching with web based teaching and resolve many of the problems I face while teaching my large ESL classes. And the icing on the cake was to interact with wonderful course instructor, Robert and fantastic class mates from across the world and learn from them.

What I learnt to use and found very useful in my teaching learning context:

1.Nicenet for professional discussions and for my class use.

2.various websites which offered free resources on listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary and practically every aspect of good language teaching/learning. I also created/used tech-enhanced lesson plans using some of these web resources. 

3.Google drive, Google sites, Google survey and Google docs. I practically used them to complete course tasks and have also created my first ever web site webtools4english.

4.webQuests for enhancing students' learning. In my project I used 3 webQuests to motivate my low proficiency learners in large class.

5.my own blog and reflected on what I as well as others learnt every week. I visited my class mates' blogs and commented on their blog entries.

6.wallwisher, delicious, Hot potatoes, popplet, quizlet, Youtube, interactive powerpoint, rubistar, etc.

My gains from the course:

•A web-friendly attitude to encourage my colleagues and trainees to benefit from web based learning.

•How to use Web based self assessment of large groups

•How to explore very valuable free ready- to- use web resources ... will continue exploration

•Have a clear idea how to blend my class learning with web based learning.

•How to gradually shift from teacher-centredness to learner-centredness

•Have raised motivation level of my learners who are excited to learn authentic English, not examination-oriented English 

•Went through excellent, pointed suggested readings and resources: brief, relevant and succinct

•Participated in extremely rewarding discussion and shared ideas with class mates

•Learnt from the Course Instructor Robert Elliott from what it means to be a good online teacher (facilitator, guide, troubleshooter, motivator and knowledge provider and always supportive) 

•Gained confidence that I CAN use technology to enrich my teaching and enhance learners' learning

It would be great if the following web tools could be included in the course:

1. Moodle/Blackboard
2. Webtools 2.0
3. Web authoring tools
4.  Video conferencing

Week 9 : Project Report

Another important task for the week was to write the final Report of my project. I must say doing this project was a great learning experience for me and I could actually see my learners' motivation and performance going high. Nothing can please a teacher more than watching his learners enjoying learning. Reflecting on their and my experiences while doing webQuests was really revealing and I can now see a concrete plan of integrating my classroom teaching with web based learning and I have given its outline in my report. I would also like to thank my project peer reviewer Safaa for giving valuable suggestions to improve my draft report.

Though hectic (as we were all engaged with giving final touches to Project Reports) this week has been professionally a very satisfying in the sense that it gave me insights into how I could manage ESL learning in my large classes using appropriate technology and motivate my learners to enjoy learning English. 

Week 9: My reflections

The topic for discussion this week was differences in learners' learning styles and finding appropriate fit in technology to cater to these differences.

It is true that one size does not fit all and learners have individual differences. Education research is replete with studies which highlight the importance of variations in learners' learning styles and learning strategies and suggested readings this week mention some of these research studies. In his 1983 book called Frames of Mind, Howard Gardner of Harvard University identified seven intelligences we all possess. Later many more types were added to this. The reading at http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic68.htm suggests that learners have shown the following types of learning orientations:

Verbal-Linguistic

Logical/Mathematical

Visual/Spatial

Bodily/Kinesthetic

Musical/Rhythmic

Intrapersonal

Interpersonal

Naturalist

Existentialist

Similarly, Richard M. Felder at http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSdir/styles.htm has also distinguished between different types of learners according to their predominant learning styles.

Active and reflective learners

Sensing and intuitive learners

Visual and verbal learners

Sequential and global learners

Obviously these categories cannot be "mutually exclusive" as it is difficult to say that a verbal-linguistic learner cannot be a visual-spatial learner. As teachers we know that there is a fair degree of overlapping among the above categories and the wise thing is just to pick up the "dominant" learning styles strand(s) in a class and modify teaching to accommodate these differences. For example we can diagnose a predominant learning style by administering a learning style quiz to our learners as suggested in the link http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-learning-styles-quiz , find out about dominant strands and teach accordingly.

I think apart from these "cognitive" differences learners' learning styles are also grounded in their socio-academic setting. In a way I agree with Sam when he says he is not convinced by the concept of multiple intelligences because effective learning depends on a lot of factors other than learning styles. As practicing teachers we are sensitive to such factors and we keep adjusting our teaching accordingly. So the best option seems to be to create conditions which are conducive to language learning. In my context this would mean blending my traditional "talk and chalk" teaching with multimedia-assisted teaching both online and offline. I think the web tools we have learnt in this course can help us design a variety of learning tasks and select appropriate channels to provide "different strokes for different folks" and lead learners towards their preferred way to autonomous learning.

Safaa highlighted the importance of understanding learners' style when she said: "When you understand your students' learning styles, you can choose the most appropriate activities, teaching aids and materials and vary your techniques to address these ways of learning. The cognitive, psychomotor and affective domains of Bloom's Taxonomy help us link the objectives to the learning styles activities. Here comes your use of technology to facilitate learning, increase students' motivation and raise their performance level."

Week 8 What a week ... this one!

This week gave us hands on tools to try and most of the participants were thrilled creating online exercises as is evidenced from their posts on discussion board.

With Nicenet down Robert set up discussions at Googe group and kept things going for us. We all learnt a good lesson on having "back up" plans.

Some of the web tools I have learnt to use in this class have already triggered the "winds of change" in my class. And the change seems to be quite pleasant and positive. I have felt encouraged by my learners' responses to learning from interactive PPTs, webQuests, wallwisher,and many relevant websites that I used in my class. With my constant support and facilitation they were up on the job and were enjoying doing assigned tasks. I had to be on my toes during the initial phase where I set up the tasks and was around them to assist them in their learning quest. 

So far I have tried out blog, PPT, Youtube, wallwisher, Google survey, hot potatoes and many ELT web sites with them and now I would like to try setting up my own website, blog and wiki and use them with my class. Whereas wiki serves as the class dash board and a blog is for sharing ideas and resources, it is a website with full functionalities that has the greatest "surrender value". I particulary liked Sam's Moodle lesson. Like him I would also like to use an LMS like Moodle as it provides a very convenient platform for all kinds of language learning activities with a built in assessment tool. But a full featured Moodle is an expensive proposition for now so I think I will have to make do with free online resources till we get some funds to use Moodle.

The above tools do promote learner autonomy as they allow them to learn anytime anywhere at their own pace. I feel they just have to get familiar with using them and get into the "habit" of learning from the. With support from teachers I am very sure that web tools can motivate learners to emerge as independent or less dependent learners in a big way! 

Another positive from this week was submitting my project draft and having an opportunity to peer review Safaa's project. She has done a wonderful job in applying Popplet as a very potent brain storming tool. 

She also gave me some insights into my project.

Overall this has been a great week for hands-on learning experience!

Week 7: My reflections

This week has moved at a frenetic pace. There were two discussions on leaner autonomy and one computer class room on Nicenet, a task to post a web link on learner autonomy at wallwisher, to find a partner for the peer review of the project each participant is going to submit and of course a little "report" on the project activities that each one of us has proposed to undertake. 

I participated in both discussions and felt that one computer class room fitted with an LCD projector, a good sound system and a Smart board can help a teacher make a very interesting and exciting interactive multimedia presentation on such genres as a poem, play, novel, an essay, short story, and so on. Since one computer class is usually teacher-controlled, it will be difficult to reach out to each learner and address his  individual difficulties. To reach each learner I felt web-based learning is a very effective option. Alongside PBL, webQuets, email, Googledrive,blogs and wikis,delicious we got a simple and easy to use web tool this week. It is wallwisher. As shown on the homepage of wallwisher and as pointed out by Safaa in her post this tool has so many advantages for interactive language learning. I think this is also a very handy tool for promoting learner autonomy as it is very convenient to use and is very amenable to a variety of language learning tasks along with the teacher's feed back. A lot of course mates have therefore found wallwisher an extremely useful tool for online language learning.

Another best thing was to have Safaa as my partner for the peer review of my project. She is an experienced online teacher and teacher trainer and I hope to learn a lot from her. I was also able to post a few links at wall wisher and also used it in my webQuests to enrich my students' learning. They were really happy to post their views on Macbeth's character on one of the webQuests.

Week 7 My Project work

As far as my project is concerned, I am using web tools like interactive PPTs and webQuests on Macbeth's soliloquies  and Sounds of English  to provide individualized learning experience to my learners. I demonstrated learner-centred teaching and learning by teaching through a PPT on Ode to Autumn and a webquest How to write a Persuasive Essay  to put learners at ease with technology. With my initial support and "scaffolding" they have received it very enthusiastically and I will get to know of their feed back by administering them a Learner Satisfaction questionnaire. I am happy because the new technology seems to be shifting my learners' focus from exam-based learning to learning for communication. As Robert said at Nicenet, my class 'beyond the campus class' has just begun. It feels just great to see them excited and taking some responsibility of their learning. 

Week 6: Managing large classes and Interactive PowerPoint

Discussion

This week's discussion focused on finding online and offline ways of engaging learners in large ESL classes. The topic  and suggested readings were of much relevance and interest to me as I have taught large ESL classes for almost 25 years in really difficult circumstances.

It is generally observed that as the number of students increases, the related educational problems such as mixed abilities (in English) among the students, the decibel level of the classroom, teacher's efforts to teach effectively, his use of usual methods and materials, learners' disciplinary problems, etc. reach unmanageable proportions. The large size of a class thus leads to the magnification of the 'given' problems -- the problems which could be considerably minimized had the teacher had adequate opportunities to address the individual problems of the learners. It follows that if we want to ensure learning especially in teacher-fronted classes, the class size should be such as could allow teachers to monitor learners' 'on and 'off' task classroom behavior and provide them sufficient opportunities to give productive feedback within the allotted time. 

Fortunately, online learning can help us in providing student-centered, individualized learning opportunities. As suggested in the recommended readings for Week 5, Web tools like webQuests, PBL, e-mail, discussion boards, blogs & wikis, interactive power point presentations need to be integrated judiciously to make learning effective in large ESL classes. I agree with Sam that discussion boards can help us in reaching out to every learner in our class but then it becomes extremely difficult to read and respond to hundreds of learners within the limited allotted time. Sam suggests that we can somewhat manage this problem by creating smaller work groups. But it can still be as Robert points out, a lot of work for a teacher to respond to each learner. He recommends that we should respond according to the learning focus, to take the discussion forward.

In my undergraduate literature classes of 60-80 learners, I generally use power point presentation and videos alongside my interactive lecture. Though my "presentation" is effective, I am not sure what each learner has learnt at the end of the class. I think web tools like webQuests and discussion boards can help me out and I can send quizzes, comprehension checks, and other extension tasks to my learners to understand and address their individual learning problems. 

Some important considerations to manage large ESL classes:

1.The teacher and students must be very clear about the ROUTINE of the whole class and composition class activities. This helps in quick "settling down" and getting down to business.

2.The biggest challenge is to address learners' individual learning problems and give prompt feedback on them. This involves a lot of hard work for the teacher whether one chooses to do this manually or electronically. Peer correction and group correction did not work for me with my low proficiency learners. I  got some helpful suggestions from Robert (Using Clickers) and Safaa (using Drop Box) and Jit's recommendation to use Blackboard as LMS sounds quite promising. 

Task: Interactive Power Point

Interactive PPT is yet another hands-on tool we have been suggested to help  make our teaching interesting and effective. Although I have been using PPTs for quite some time it was good to go through the suggested readings and see the sample PPT to get a fair idea about making PPTs effective. Features like conceptest, quickwrite and blank slide make sound pedagogical sense and are quite useful. 

Using some of these features I  made a PPT for teaching John Keats's "Ode to Autumn" for my undergraduate learners and uploaded at the class Wiki.

Project Task 5: Begin to implement the change

My teaching learning context

1. Class size: 60-80 low proficiency/mixed abilities learners sitting in rows on desks. 

Associated Problems: Noise & discipline, how to address learners' individual learning problems, to monitor their learning behavior and to provide corrective/productive feedback.

2.Prescribed Syllabus & Text books: Anthologies of poems, stories, essays appended with some reading comprehension/language exercises.

3.Evaluation: Annual term-end achievement tests where students are asked to write essay type answers to 5 questions out of the 8 given questions. These questions are fairly "guessable" and students normally memorize them.

4.Examination-oriented learning motivation: Students know that they can "pass" their annual exams by memorizing answers to a few well-guessed questions, so they do not feel the need to participate in class room activities, or sometimes even attend the class!
My objectives for Technology integration: 

• To shift my learners' attention from exams to learning to communicate in English.
• To engage them to use online resources along side traditional class room learning.

Possible solutions:

A. Whole class presentation: The aim of the whole class activity is to provide "comprehensible inputs" to the whole class.

a) Traditional way of teaching the prescribed texts (poems, stories, essays) using text books, by lecturing and explaining, using black board "the chalk and talk" method.

b) Tech-integration: Interactive PPTs, videos, Smart boards

B.Grammar and Composition groups: The class size is reduced to 20 students and they are given practice in LSRW, grammar and composition activities.

Traditional way: Handouts, assignments and "chalk and talk".

Tech-integration: Web Quests, wikis and blogs, e-mail, discussion groups, chats. Though Robert pointed out that Discussion groups can be difficult to manage at times and we need to prioritize responding to them as per our learning focus.

On these lines I tried out a webQuest  on "How to write a Persuasive Essay" and an interactive PPT on John Keats's "ode to Autumn" with my class and observed that my learners were very receptive and and enthusiastic about these new ways of learning. Though PPT was quite easy to receive, they took some time to learn from the webQuest. But they were happy to work online in small groups of 4 learners. I found the whole class presentation responsive, quieter and students showed willingness to learn. I feel I need to give them some training to learn "how to learn independently" from online resources.

I am preparing more PPTs and webQuests based on the prescribed syllabus and will try them out with my learners in the coming week. 

Week 5 : My Reflections

The assignment schedule for week 5 included  a discussion on creating rubrics for alternative assessment, Project-based learning and webQuests. We were also asked to complete two tasks viz. creating a rubric using the website  http://rubistar.4teachers.org/  and another task was to describe a potential change which could occur in our target classes with the application of  appropriate technological tools. An additional extra credit task was to create a webQuest at http://www.zunal.com/.

Discussion: Assessment, rubrics and project-based learning

As Smiles points out this week's discussion focuses on three interrelated issues of online learning: project based learning (PBL, hereafter), rubrics and webquests. PBL , as Liliana , Bernie and many other friends have suggested, is a learner-centered and inquiry-oriented method of learning where learners, with some guidance from their teacher, try to find solution to some of very clearly defined and specific problems assigned to them by their teacher. This is "learning by doing" and the value of this approach lies in the total cognitive and affective processes used by the learners for exploring ways and means to arrive at the solution or to complete a particular task. PBL is like a mini research project which gives learners a sense of thrill and accomplishment on its completion. So PBL is great fun, it is competitive, it , caters to learners' various learning styles, motivates them and keeps their total attention on completing the project at hand at their own pace, in consultation with their class mates or mentor. Compared to a class where students fear ridicule at incorrect responses, PBL is non-Face threatening and it instills a sense of confidence in learners.

In spite of its various advantages PBL has had only moderate success in academic circles where teaching through lecturing/explaining is still predominant. Sujith's assertion that learners don't find PBL interesting has some truth in it. If the project does not have a clear road map, learners may just get caught in the quagmire of world wide web and may feel lost and demotivated. The teacher has to play the multiple roles of (broad) project designer, technical adviser, superviser and facilitator. A teacher needs to be "just there" as Robert and Janine have been for all of us. Moreover, as Janine has very pertinently pointed out, projects should cater to the age and linguistic level of our students. So it is a real hard work that keeps the teacher on his toes till the project is completed. Janine has given us a nice link http://www.edutopia.org/project-based-learning-guide to give us an idea of project-based learning.

In week 5 assignment schedule Robert has defined PBL as an approach where learners are given instructions and resources (scaffolding), then they work in groups create a project. This is similar to problem-based learning, where learners work to come up with a solution to a specific, usually real-world, problem. If the task is authentic and the audience is broad, this is especially effective. I think the key word here is "scaffolding" where alongside giving clear and specific instructions the teacher has to take care of the following:

• The design and set up of the project
• On demand technical support/solutions
• Immediate guidance/feedback
• Detailed criteria for assessment
• An awareness of learners' proficiency levels
• An awareness of content complexity and challenge
• Constant motivation to learners

I think only continued supervision and support by teacher can encourage learners to complete the project successfully.

PBL, in short, is an exciting area to explore and I hope to use it in my upper-intermediate classes where learners have examination-oriented learning motivation. I am very sure that if I blend PBL with my traditional classroom teaching, my learners will feel motivated and enthusiastic to learn English communicatively

Project Task 4: Describe a potential change

Academics at the college level in India have always been strongly influenced by the annual examinations. What teachers teach and what students learn is largely dictated by what will figure in the exams. Subject areas which are not important from the viewpoint of examinations are either not dealt with seriousness or they are simply neglected. Tests have a great impact on the way we teach and learn any subject. The simple logic is: `Why bother to study the entire curriculum when you can score well by studying limited portion of the prescribed syllabus'. Hence it is testing, not the 'official' stated curriculum, that is increasingly determining what is taught, how it is taught, what is learned, and how it is learned. I believe that annual achievement tests for English language learning have had a negative wash back effect on the entire teaching and learning operations in India.

When I went through the links http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/assessing/alternative.htm , http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/tannen01.html on alternative assessment, I saw an opportunity to convert the negative wash back into positive wash back by choosing rubrics. As described by Robert in Week 5 assignment schedule, a rubric is a kind of contract between the teacher and the learners, so that learners know that if they do the things associated with "excellent" in the rubric, they will get an "excellent" mark. Students are more motivated, and assessment is easier. The main goal is to "gather evidence about how students are approaching, processing, and completing real-life tasks in a particular domain" (Huerta-Macias, 1995, p. 9). Here students' attention is shifted from a term-end test and they are involved in genuine language learning experience through various classroom and online tools like projects and webQuests. As many of my course mates have said in their posts such learning is dynamic, authentic and personally so rewarding to learners that they do the learning tasks for the joy of "doing" them and not for passing exams. 

As I am grappling with the problem of examination-oriented learners, I think a gradual introduction of rubrics, PBL and webQuests will raise my learners' motivation to learn English for improving their proficiency levels. Following detailed instructions by Robert, I was able to create rubric  for teaching and assessing a persuasive essay : Do advantages of playing video games over weigh the disadvantages? for my upper intermediate learners at http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=ShowRubric&rubric_id=2249356& and also create a webQuest on how to teach a persuasive essay at http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=171218.

Task: Create a rubric

http://rubistar.4teachers.org is yet another great find for me in this wonderful course. It is a handy tool for creating ready to use rubrics which can be customized as per our learning focus. The best thing about this tool is that it allows you not only to assess learners' performance but also help them with clear guidelines for assessing their performance. No wonder most of my fellow teachers in this course have found this tool extremely useful in teaching and assessing learners.

Here is the link to rubric I created for teaching and assessing a persuasive essay : Do advantages of playing video games over weigh the disadvantages? for my upper intermediate learners. 

http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=ShowRubric&rubric_id=2249356&

Extra Credit Task: Create a technology-enhanced project or WebQuest

Robert describes WebQuests as a form of PBL that follows a fairly specific pattern. The teacher creates the task statement and designates the resources (learners do not "just search"). Learners work in groups and have a specified product. The teacher produces an evaluation in the form of a rubric for students to use as they are doing their project and for self-evaluation when it is finished. The teacher evaluates with the rubric as well. After going through some sample projects at http://susangaer.com/studentprojects/ and using the website http://www.zunal.com/ I was able to create my first ever webQuest on how to teach a persuasive essay at http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=171218 for my upper intermediate students. I hope they will find learning through webQuests quite exciting and rewarding and this experience will raise their motivation to learn and use English for genuine communication.