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.
Hi Rajinder,
ReplyDeleteOnce again you made it clear what you've been through the whole week; you're lucky you could benefit from the two interesting discussions of the week; as for me, as I taught full tome on Tuesday and friday, I wanted to engage in the discussion on Saturday but unfortunately the Nicenet server was down and it was not possible. I already had a hard time connecting on Wednesday and that is the reason why my post has been duplicated or even triplicated??? As it always said 'error', I tried over and over again. I just hope it will be back soon as I already miss the discussions with you all.
All the best,
Colomba
Hi Colomba,
ReplyDeleteYes tech glitches do take place and we have to live by them. I think most of us are missing Nicenet and I hope its services are resumed soon. The focus of most of the tasks this week was on exploring web tools for learner autonomy. I find this topic particularly important as I have now got some ideas to "reach" out to my learners,give them feed back and also let them 'experience' individualized learning! The project work has so far been very exciting and rewarding, will share more next week.
Regards,
Rajinder