Week 10 UO Winter 2014 Webskills for Teachers: Wrap up

Week 9 UO Winter 2014 Webskills for Teachers: Learning styles - technology connections

Hi everyone,

Multiple intelligences has been a long-time friend. Revisiting it this week, taking the quiz, reading and reflecting about it has been a special treat.

Here are my quiz results:

50% Linguistic
50% Logical-Mathematical
50% Visual-Spatial
50% Intrapersonal
63% Interpersonal
63% Musical
63% Bodily-Kinesthetic
58% Naturalistic

It has called my attention the fact that many areas are in balance. I really enjoyed the links from edutopia and even signed up their newsletter. Being able to connect  multiple intelligences(MI)  and technology is a great choice. I'll keep revisiting the notes at the end of this post* so that connections between MI and technology keep on improving. Definitely that MI also inspires reflections about assessment.

It was rewarding to post the final version of the course plan. Still, to me the revision and edition take tong minutes, as I need time and breaks in order to work more  effectively. Still the final version has an extra sentence to be deleted. Also, the importance of checking with Sean (instructor) if there are doubts. I wasn't clear about timelines and decided - unfortunately to go on without checking. 

Finally, it was great to do the course evaluation sent by uo staff. One item I forgot to mention I'd like to know more about how to set up a wiki if that applies to my level of expertise.

So, time to wrap up - week 10.

Best, Juliana




* As mentioned above, notes on MI and technology from the site -
http://www.ri.net/RITTI_Fellows/Carlson-Pickering/MI_Tech.htm

* Verbal/Linguistic Intelligence - The capacity to use language, your native language, and perhaps other languages, to express what's on you mind and to understand other people. Poets really specialize in linguistic intelligence, but any kind of writer, orator, speaker, lawyer, or a person for whom language is an important stock in trade, highlights linguistic intelligence.

• Word processing programs
• E-mail programs
• Web Page Composers
• Multimedia Presentation tools
• Foreign Language programs
• Storybook CD's
• Typing tutors
• Desktop
• Electronic libraries
• Word games/programs

Logical/Mathematical- People with highly developed logical/mathematical intelligence understand the underlying principles of some kind of a causal system, the way a scientist or a logician does; or can manipulate numbers, quantities, and operations, the way a Mathematician does.

• Math skills tutorials
• Computer programming tutors
• Spreadsheets
• Map Making tools
• Data Bases
• Logic games
• Science programs
• Critical thinking programs
• Problem Solving programs

Visual/Spatial Intelligence- The ability to represent the spatial world internally in your mind – the way a sailor or airplane pilot navigates the large spatial world, or the way a chess player or sculptor represents a more circumscribed spatial world. Spatial intelligence can be used in the arts or in the sciences. If you are spatially intelligent and oriented toward the arts, you are more likely to become a painter or sculptor or architect than, say a musician or a writer. Similarly, certain sciences like anatomy or topology emphasize spatial intelligence.

• Animation programs
• 3D modeling languages
• Clip Art programs
• Computer-aided visualizations
• Digital Cameras and Microscopes
• Draw & Paint programs
• Electronic chess games
• Modeling tools
• Research Group)
• Spatial problem solving games
• Electronic puzzle kits
• Geometry programs
• Digital Imagery/Graphics Programs
• Virtual Courseware

Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence- the capacity to use your whole body or parts of your body (your hands, your fingers, your arms), to solve a problem, make something, or put on some kind of production. The most evident examples are people in athletics or the performing arts, particularly when dancing or acting.

• Hands-on construction kits that interface with computers
• Motion-simulation games
• Virtual reality system software
• Eye-Hand coordination games
• Tools that plug into computers
• Haptic Tools

Note: Voice recognition programs may help the bodily/kinesthetic student create his "written" report while he paces back and forth across the floor. (Over the years I have observed that pacing commonly helps students with strong proclivities in this area, process information and think more clearly).
Musical/Rhythmic Intelligence- The capacity to think in music, to be able to hear patterns, recognize them, and perhaps manipulate them. People who have strong musical intelligence don't just remember music easily - they can't get it out of their minds, it's so omnipresent.

• Music literature tutors
• Singing software (voice synthesizer)
• Tone recognition and melody enhancers
• Musical instrument digital interfaces
• Create Your Own Music Programs

Interpersonal Intelligence- Interpersonal intelligence, is understanding other people. It’s an ability we all need, but is at a premium if you are a teacher, clinician, salesperson, or a politician. Anybody who deals with other people has to be skilled in the interpersonal sphere.

• Electronic bulletin boards
• Simulation games
• E-mail programs

Intrapersonal Intelligence - Having an understanding of yourself, of knowing who you are, what you can do, what you want to do, how you react to things, which things to avoid, and which things to gravitate toward.

• Personal choice software
• Career counseling software
• Any self-paced program
• Downloadable multi-media applets

Naturalist Intelligence- Yhe human ability to discriminate among living things (plants, animals) as well as sensitivity to other features of the natural world (clouds, rock configurations, etc.).

• Scientific plug-ins
• Nature sound and/or image files
• Classification of Flora/Fauna software
• Animal sounds identification programs
• Earth Science programs

Existential Intelligence- Individuals who exhibit the proclivity to pose (and ponder) questions about life, death, and ultimate realities. (Gardner only recently disclosed the existence of this intelligence area. I am unfamiliar with any software at this time that would focus primarily on this intelligence. Perhaps if there were programs that deal with Socratic questioning, they would fall into this category).
Also: 

• Software such as the "Dr. Brain" series incorporates many of the above intelligences a
• Web sites that incorporate any/all of the above
• Videodiscs in any discipline can draw students into a topic in which they may not otherwise be interested.

Week 8 UO Winter 2014 WebSkills for Teachers - Teacher Resources Online

Week 8 has started with total focus on finalizing the draft to be delivered by Wednesday.

To me, fullfilling such tasks that require a thread of thoughts, actions and allignment require an immersion. So it took me 9 hours split into two slots of time to go through the reflections and complete the task.

The only thing  I wish I had paid more attention before:  taking notes of all the articles I read and sites I visited that inspired me during the course plan. Something that has been of great help was the fact I started using the google template for the plan report before. It was such time saver.

I really enjoyed working with rubistar for writing assessment rubrics,  zunal.com and  padlet.com in the order mentioned.  Being able to feel which tools I could develop successfuly has been  essential to have completed the plan.

It's also been a special treat to have the checklist done by a course peer before the final version. It has been a matter of great responsibility to review the same peer's project. Hope my comments have been of use towards the final aim.

The nicenet discussion has been enriching as all the other threads as the course participants are really commited. To me it was nice to check  the readings. But I must say that specially this week it was much more meaningful to go through the posts and observe there are some sites - such as nicenet, blogger, google docs, padlet, zunal and wikis - that are definitely popular due to their level of usage and also due to the fact they promote learner autonomy.

To me, working with zunal.com to create a webquest  and working with padlet to create writing tasks for the course plan has been aspecial  treat. These two tools are so user friendly that one feels motivated to complete the task and share with others. Besides, the final result is so beautiful that it looks like a technological work of art. One special feature of zunal is the fact you can publish your work and if it's accepted it's a natural sign of validation.

Finally, I have alreday ready my peer's feedback re: the course plan & feel ready  to move on with the final adjustments as well as going through the other tasks from week 9.

Grateful for the course opportuniy.

Regards,
Juliana

Week 7 UO Winter 2014 WebSkills for Teachers Learner Autonomy, the One-computer Classroom, and Mobile Devices

Hi everyone,

Week 7 has been an opportunity to learn, to share and to reflect.

I learned a lot from the readings and posts on learner autonomy and also enjoyed the dynamics of class padlet.

From the readings on learning autonomy, the one that stood out to me was "Learner Autonomy" by David Little. Reason why I posted his videos on the class padlet wall. (file:///E:/Downloads/Learner%20Automomy.pdf) . I gave myself permission to copy here in blue and italics  a part of the article  I'd like to remind myself again and again:

The development of autonomy in language learning is governed by three basic pedagogical 
principles: 
• learner involvement – engaging learners to share responsibility for the learning process 
(the affective and the metacognitive dimensions); 
• learner reflection – helping learners to think critically when they plan, monitor and 
evaluate their learning (the metacognitive dimensions); 
• appropriate target language use – using the target language as the principal medium of 
language learning (the communicative and the metacognitive dimensions). 

What does the teacher do? 
According to these three principles the teacher should  3
• use the target language as the preferred medium of classroom communication and require 
the same of her learners; 
• involve her learners in a non-stop quest for good learning activities, which are shared, 
discussed, analysed and evaluated with the whole class – in the target language, to begin 
with in very simple terms; 
• help her learners to set their own learning targets and choose their own learning activities, 
subjecting them to discussion, analysis and evaluation – again, in the target language; 
• require her learners to identify individual goals but pursue them through collaborative 
work in small groups; 
• require her learners to keep a written record of their learning – plans of lessons and 
projects, lists of useful vocabulary, whatever texts they themselves produce; 
• engage her learners in regular evaluation of their progress as individual learners and as a 
class – in the target language. 

To me, it was great to be reminded of the importance of  using the target language as the preferred medium of classroom communication and require some of learners and the importance of engaging learners creativily and meaninfully in regular evaluation of their progress as means of developing learners autonomy in language learning.

Besides that, from the readings and the posts I read on this topic I sum up what I take with me with the following sentence I copy and paste from the articles and posts : Learner autonomy is connected to learner resoonsibility, not to disconnection from the teacher. Autonomous learners are motivated and able to freely apply knowledge and skills outside immediate context.

I'm using the underlined sentence to reflect on my progress in this course regarding this criteria. On one hand, during the course I feel motivated to apply skills learned outside immediate context. But out of my experience with other courses, I know that after the course ends,  it can be challenging  to revisit  and apply the new knowledge. I feel the advantage of an online course like this one is that it allows us more opportunities for practicing during the courses and my feeling is that due the that the percentage might fall after the course ends, but there has definitely been a great margin for learning already.

It was enjoyable to observe the dynamics of peers pairing up. It seems to me the easy flow of the proccess reflects the group energy throught the course.

This week I had a bit bitter lesson. Since week 2, I started exploring some of the course links and during last week while studying about interactive powerpoints, I installed some programmes I shouldn't  have installed and as a result the laptop I use is out of work. Fortunately, I have been  kindly lent one by a friend who also started the fixing proccess. To me the lesson is that it is part of webskills to be more aware of what to install or not to install into your machine.

Regarding padlets, I found it visually beautiful and appealing  to observe the result of the activity proposed. It has motivated me to go through the posts. It's to notice the cooperative aspect of this tool.  Still to be learned is how to and for how long to store the material. Related to  how to apply it to classroom context - despite the fact I went through the article, I confess my inner cup" was kind of overflowing  this week and I couldn't really take it on board.

It was pleasant to exchange with some coursemates our experience of using one-computer classroom.

Regarding the course project - it's now the focus - As I'm not teaching at the moment - I'm investing time and energy in research and reflection so that the draft is ready by next Wednesday.

May we all thrive not just survive towards the course conclusion.

Regards,
Juliana

Week 6 UO Winter 2014 WebSkills for Teachers - Creating Student-centered Classes and Interactive PowerPoint

Hi everyone,

I started the week by reflecting on task 5 - by thinking of more details to the resources suggested as possible changes or solution  to acknowlege the needs raised for the course plan.

Regarding that, during week 5 I posted in nicenet:

" The way vocabulary, grammar and writing skills are worked with can be improved. So, the issue I´m aiming at for this project plan is: the coursebook components has proved to have insufficient resources - further presentation and practice of vocab and grammar topics, and due to that - students who need extra practice feel a bit lost on where to find resources. 

Technology related change suggested:

A. Related to need # 2 mentioned above: Create a delicious page for this level ("pre teens") and learn how to use the tools of tags so that for each of the 6 units I can add extra presentation and practice material to be used by students who need it."

As I noticed that nicenet is to broad for achieving this goal, I took advantage of these week topic - engagement and interactivity - to experiment on something to provide more practice of grammar and vocab. The power point presentation I prepared has this aim. 

The process of creation gave me good idea of the role of the master slide, action buttons and hiperlinking. Despite the fact the last of 3 hiperlinks worked when I was working with the power point in my computer but didn´t after I uploaded the presentation to the class wiki. As an alternative I added the link. I found the sites provided for how to make ppt presentation a little hard to understand and it took me long to read it over and over. The final result reflects my effort and I'm sure I moved on in the proccess. But that's an area I might benefit to have some presential classes - how to use power points interactively. 

Still regarding this aim of providing more practice of vocab and grammar, I'm aiming at experimenting with the use of webquests or any PBL tecquines. I´ll focus on that for the next weeks.

Whislt reading about the use of technology to enhance motivation and engagement I was motivated to notice how many resources there are - both using technology or not.
From this reflection I'll take with me for the journey - student's concentration span is short - 20 minutes or less. Thus constantly combining lecture time with either pair-work or small group work interaction.  Also, the importance of bearing in mind what resources I'm using during lesson planning and classroom management to promote more student centered classrooms.

Wishing us all a wonderful and fullfilling week 7.

Regards,
Juliana 

Week 5 - UO Winter 2014 Developing webskills - Project-based Learning, WebQuests, and rubrics

Dear all,

Hi.

I need to confess there has been three moments during the course so far when I felt a bit overwhelmed.

First, during week 1 when I was still figuring out the different tools to be used during the course and to me it was time consuming. 

Second, during websearching practice. Despite the fact it's quite useful and rewarding - the more I read the more I noticed that it's a skill that still can be improved to a great extent, as according to the readings,  the more refined the search the more valid the results. 

Third, this week while reading the depth of PBL (Project Based Learning) and alternative assessment there was the will to dedicate more time to such topics. Before I actually visited "rubistar.4teachers.org" I started planning a lot in order to optimize the task which led me to tiredness. Then, when I checked the site itself I noticed how friendly, practical and easy to use. It reminded me that when we face reality (the task) instead of the ghosts of our imagination, things seem much easier.

Back to the week´s readings, as I´ve already mentioned on my post in nicenet, Susan Gaer's experience with PBL "http://www.ncsall.net/?id=385 "   is really  inspiring. The study cases she shared helped me face PBL as a reachable goal.  Next step was webquest - which I refer to as a form of PBL which follows a specific pattern. I went through many samples on the site "www.guestgarden.com" and noticed among users there's a huge variety of expertise and usage which motivates us to give it a try.  Finally, alternative assessment which was illustrated by the use of rubrics. I was also motivated by the link "www.cal.org/resources/digest/tannen01.html" whose conclusion  "Alternative assessment holds great promise. Although the challenge to modify existing methods and develop new approaches is not an easy one" is pretty realistic and at the same time motivating. 

As I've already mentioned, working with "rubistar.4teachers.org"  has been a great surprise and why not to say  a real treat as one of the benefits of technology during teacher practice is to optimize time by using resourceful tools like this one. I feel determined to come up with more rubrics for the upcoming school term which starts next February 18.

Last but not least, regarding the project task, my feeling is that as I dedicated quality time for the previous steps, which  I regard as fundamental, I was pretty at easy and comfortable to suggest some solutions. Although I'm aware I need to refine it - specially the use of delicious.com which I have suggested not as a means of motivation but as a resource for extra vocab and grammar practice. Still - I realized it may not be the best tool. I'll take of care of that the following week.

Unfortunately I was not able to cover the extra task whithin this week's time. But I still have the aim to accomplish such task. I feel it might even become a motivational tool for the course project I´m working with. 

Wow. Time for a pause.

Best,

Juliana.

Week 4 - UO Winter 2014 Developing webskills. - Skill-building Websites for Reading/Writing Skills and Technology-enhanced Lesson Plans

Out of all tasks proposed, to me it was of great importance to be able to figure out confidently the aim of  the course project which, in my case, will be a course plan as I won´t be teaching groups up to the the end of February, when summer vacation ends in Brazil. It´s motivating how the whole process so far has taken place. First describing a group (week 2), then reading a complete course project report and having Sean´s feedback and further guidance on the meaning of project and plan (weeks 3 & 4). To me weeks 3 & 4 steps were fundamental. Being able to visualize the whole process and having a step by step template have helped make a choice with which I feel extremely comfortable with. I decided to use a coursebook whose components allow for extra time practices, as this is an issue I´ll have to take into consideration in my teaching reality - the fact teachers are expected to cover the books activities. 

Back to my course plan's choices so far -it's as if while shopping you happen to find the exact piece you were looking for in many aspects - usefulness , beauty, size, price. To sum it up, a rewarding experience so far.

While reading the proposed articles for the week, two main points I'm carrying on with me for the journey. 

First, from Krajka's paper "Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instruction" - http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Krajka-WritingUsingNet.html :  From my teaching experience, the most commom genres worked with are: a letter to a friend, formal letter and argumentative essays. Related to the letter to a friend, one of the ideas proposed - of connecting to e pals via European Schoolnet - http://www.eun.org/. I would definitely offer  it to students as a possibility, but the interests of students vary. What I've been noticing in students I work with is that they spend either a month  abroad or from 6 months to a year. And they're usually stay with families. So, they're really interested in preparing a neat letter with  their presentation. So, what I mean is - all ideas are worth it. But only the teacher can feel the pulse of the context they're connected to. 

Second, from "Using Internet-Based Children's Literature to Teach EFL (2007), by Larry J. Mikulecky". 

http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Mikulecky-OnlineChildrensLit.html
I'm really refreshed by the principles shared - specially the one on the importance of learners having command of 95% of structures for extensive reading as a means of consolidating structures and also building up strong reading muscles. It was then, emphasized the important role of children´s stories for this process.  I'm very used to non fiction reading comperhension activities. I'm now more attentive for the facts there are various ways to approach reading skills development.

When it comes to the week tasks for nicenet posts - I decided to explore one site only for the time being: "Lauri's ESL Website - grammar, vocabulary, listening exercises. http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried/ ". While planning the two one-to-one classes I have at the moment I made use of the site. As ABCD objectives are new to me, I aim at keeping it very simple. I have already used the plans and benefited from both.

And now, I feel ready for week 5.

Best,

Juliana - EFL and online blended teaching - Brazil.