Rendezvous with Rubrics - Week 5, Post 2

This was the first time I created a rubric. I know, however, I am hooked!

I will definitely be using this great tool. Rubrics makes the life of a teacher easier. Once created, keeping in mind the needs of the topic in question, assessment becomes easy. Sharing the rubric with the students before the actual assessment would allow the students to prepare themselves according to the criteria given in the rubric. This helps the students perform better, I believe.

I made my rubric using Rubistar. That part was easy. I made the rubric for an oral presentation by the students related to the topic given as homework “Having a Conversation”. I made a Google docs copy of my rubric with the details of the class and students. The difficult part was loading the prepared rubric into the class wiki. I had to figure out the process to do it properly. It took me some time, but finally I did it. Yeah!

Technology solution for my class issue:

Here, I was at a loss. I have already learned about so many new tools. I wanted to apply all of them. However, as my students would be completely overwhelmed by all the technology inputs, I started thinking about what would be the best possible technology solution to my primary class issue.

Courtney’s suggestions showed me the right way. My students work well in groups and, I feel, Project Based Learning with WebQuest would be the best solution for my class issue.

Image Courtesy:

1.     http://crescentok.com/staff/jaskew/isr/education/rubman.jpg

2.     https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ3CI9DpXF7WUOIv-NSbGqzafgHD5-0jMrT_0qeHI__hqjKlKRD7w

Alternative Assessment: A Better Way to Evaluate - Week 5, Post 1

What a great week it is! 

This week we were introduced to alternative assessment tools.

The process of evaluation is often not well defined. It is better for the teacher as well as the student if the evaluation tool is easy for all to follow. I never knew there existed so many methods of assessing the students' performance.

In the article by Jo-Ellen Tannenbaum "Practical Ideas on Alternative Assessment for ESL Students”, she mentions non-verbal assessment methods such as physical demonstration and pictorial products as well as other methods such as KWL charts, Oral presentation, role play, content area logs, reading response logs, dialogue journals and portfolios. That’s quite a few! Out of these methods the ones I have used for evaluation are Oral presentations, role play and pictorial products.

Image Courtesy: 

1. https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRsta11WgSp2OjwiCYW-Ji6fAsLPHeRegVgxFn2Cd7r1mFCj2OmA

2. https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQX600V6QgQpC_v_R04CHbdnRYkZmJxa26Ypf-_tT-9umehws0v

Websites to build Reading, Writing and Vocabulary skills – Week 4, Post 2

The Tip of the Iceberg!

I read many interesting articles and visited some multi-skill websites as part of this week’s learning. I feel I have only seen the tip of the iceberg. There is still so much to explore!

This week we focused on websites that build reading, writing and vocabulary skills. As I was going through the Nicenet posts of all the webskills participants, I found a common strain in all of them. It seems students everywhere do not like to read or write. So much time is either spent watching meaningless things on television or chatting with their peer group. Introducing our students to the wonderful websites dedicated to reading and writing may change the scenario.

Penzu is an exciting way to make students write more. It is an online personal journal. It seems way more attractive than writing a regular pen and paper journal. Discovering Make Beliefs Comics, where one can create their own comic strip, was so much fun. I made my first comic strip too (URL: http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/?comix_id=22618129C1432329). Tools like Storybird or Dvolver Moviemaker, where you can write a story creating visuals of your own, certainly is an attractive way to encourage students to write more. These sites are really going to make my classes so much more interesting and fun.

Quizlet is a tool which allows you to make your own sets of flash cards according to the needs of the lesson. Games and quizzes, based on these sets, can help make a teacher’s life easy and generate positive interest towards the topic in question. This is surely another tool which I am going to use in my classes.

Some of the websites which are suitable for my students’ needs are ESL Independent Study Lab (URL: http://legacy.lclark.edu/~krauss/toppicks/toppicks.html), Lauri’s ESL Website (URL: http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried/) and Activities for ESL Students (URL:  http://a4esl.org/). I explored these in detail and could find so many great activities that my students can benefit from. I looked up some of the websites and pages explored by other participants and found them to be very useful.

For extensive reading there are many wonderful sites. The following are some which I found to be of great help: http://www.er-central.com/, http://bygosh.com/, http://americanenglish.state.gov/ebooks/ and http://etralc.usf.edu/lit2ro/.

Describing a class issue:

We were asked to describe our classes as part of the steps towards our final project. I found that many of us had similar classes with similar issues. However, students’ lack of motivation in reading and writing seems to be a common issue. Lack of wholehearted participation and declining interest levels are also common problems. Even if they have the resources, students in other parts of the world, do not understand the value of reading books. This is the time to change their views, introduce them to the splendid online resources available and help them to appreciate the value of reading books.

The main issue in my class is the students’ inability to communicate their thoughts in English due to lack of exposure and confidence. Unavailability of resources at home and school is the main hindrance to exposure.

Nevertheless, I am sure the future holds much more possibilities! I look forward to that beautiful and bright future!

Image Courtesy:

1.      http://calebthompson.io/images/iceberg.png

2.  http://diarybyemmy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/3297852-77458-read-and-write-written-in-multicolored-plastic-kids-letters.jpg

Lesson Plans incorporating Technology - Week 4, Post 1

Planning paves the path to success!

I have always felt that lesson plans are very important in the whole learning process. They help a teacher every step of the way and always come handy. Preparing for a class becomes so easy once you have planned for it in advance.

This week we were asked to make and share a Technology enhanced lesson plan using Google Drive. The material provided by Courtney helped a lot.

I made a lesson plan for my Grade 9 students using a text from their course book. Incorporating technology surely would make this lesson come alive. I thought of using videos and the wonderful tool Vocaroo, which can be used to make voice recordings. My students are not very computer savvy, so I decided to use simple tools, things that they can easily understand with my help. I focused on improving my students' speaking, listening, vocabulary and writing skills through this lesson plan

Something which I had never done in any of my lesson plans before was making a Plan B. This is so important if one has to use technology in class. We all know that, sometimes, in spite of all our prior planning, nothing goes according to plan. Plan B is for such a rainy day. In all my future lesson plans, I will surely incorporate it.

Next week I will implement my first technology enhanced lesson plan. I am sure it will bring positive results.  

Image Courtesy: 

http://mspowell.com/discoveryclipart/lesson%20planner.bmp

Proper Pronunciation+ Listening Practice=Effective Learning – Week 3, Post 2

Pronunciation:

To speak English properly one has to focus on developing both the Oral and Aural faculties. Speaking skills can be built by practicing proper pronunciation and intonation, which is dependent on listening skills. Hence, improving both the Oral/Aural faculties is necessary to acquire expertise in English. This week we learned techniques to improve the listening and speaking skills of our students.

We went through articles discussing the importance of pronunciation and learned how to improve it using different tools. All the participants working together led to a fantastic discussion where many ideas were pooled in. This helped immensely. “Using original videos and sound effects to teach English” by Shahla Yassaei (http://americanenglish.state.gov/search/solr/speaking) led me towards so many new tools that can be used in my classroom.

Looking at some great lesson plans I got ideas regarding their implementation (with minor modifications, suited to my students’ needs) in class. Two great ideas that I would like to introduce are: using personal photographs (http://iteslj.org/Lessons/Ahola-PersonalPhotographs.html) to narrate stories and scavenger hunts (http://www.onestopenglish.com/skills/speaking/teaching-ideas/) to improve vocabulary.

A plethora of exciting websites exists where one can find so many tools and resources. Audio and video clippings that can assist learning English can be found in abundance. I liked Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab (www.esl-lab.com/vocab/v-computers.htm

), Spoken Skills (http://www.spokenskills.com/student-activities.cfm?section=studentpractice&practicepageID=1501

), Learning English (http://learningenglish.voanews.com/), Agenda Web (http://www.englishgrammarsecrets.com/passive/exercise3.swf), Englishtown (http://corporate.englishtown.com/online/home.aspx), Ship or Sheep (http://www.shiporsheep.com/) and Vocaroo (http://vocaroo.com/). There is still a lot to explore. All these sites and the ones mentioned by other participants would help us in building the Oral and Aural Skills of our students.

Reviewing a Project Report:

Eight sample Project reports belonging to past participants of the Webskills course were given, from which we were asked to read any one. A review of the Project that we read was to be presented. I studied two of them: Joanna Zubel’s (Poland) and Prem Bahadur Phyak’s (Nepal) report. I decided on reviewing Joanna’s report. It was a fascinating experience as I could understand that this course would finally lead me to writing such a report. I liked her style and her in depth analysis of the students’ needs as well as the problems she was facing. How she introduced technology in her class and what the students’ responses to the new improvement were, helped me to think about my class setting and what would be beneficial for my students. Gordana presented a fantastic review of Phyak’s report. Ravaka, Sergio and Janja reviewed Zlatka’s report and presented many angles of the same report. This was so helpful!

In all, this week was great!

I have added a page to my blog titled, “India: My Homeland”. I invite all of you to visit my new page and leave your comments….

Image Courtesy:

1.   http://malayalamteacher.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Malayalam_pronunciation.jpg

2.  http://image.slidesharecdn.com/listening-140731033514-phpapp02/95/teaching-listening-2-638.jpg?cb=1406795899

Discovering Delicious! – Week 3, Post 1

Did Columbus feel as happy as me when he discovered America?

This week’s biggest discovery for me has surely been Delicious. I never knew there existed something called a “social bookmarking system”. This will make my life so much easier. I now feel bad about the fact that I have lost so many good links over time, which could have been safely kept had I known about Delicious earlier.

I have shared Delicious already with my family members and some friends. I have got thank you notes by the dozen. Thank you Delicious!

Delicious lets us keep all our important links categorized under tags, something which I found really helpful. I can also mark certain sites “private” if I want to. Sharing my links and getting links from others has become so easy. Also, I can add comments about each link so that later I can understand what is there in the site. I have added those links to my Delicious page which I found useful and have tagged them under categories. I have put a comment for each site to make it easy for me to understand what it contains. My toolbar now has the “add to Delicious” tab. After visiting a site, if I decide to keep it, I can click on the tab and add the page to my Delicious account. No need to go to the Delicious page itself. Also, I added the Delicious Pages of Courtney, Deborah and Zulyar. One can also follow others on delicious. Interesting!

Delicious is delightful!

Image Courtesy: http://www.flashcoo.com/cartoon/Thanksgiving_food_fusion/wallpapers/1920x1200/PSD_Food_illustrations_3194_chocolate_dessert_and_cereal_breakfast.jpg

ABCD Behavioral Learning Objectives – Week 2, Post 2

I had no clue about what this “ABCD” was. I was “????????”

I started reading up the material provided for Week 2. Going through “How to Write Clear Objectives” (Ref#1) from Pennsylvania State University’s Teaching and Learning Office and “Classifying Objectives” (Ref#2) from the Innovative Technology Centre at the University of Tennessee helped to clear most of my doubts. I had heard about Bloom’s Taxonomy earlier, but had never used it actively in teaching as the methods applied in my school are very different. We, the Webskills participants, were all supposed to put forth our own ABCD (Audience-Behavior-Condition-Degree) model objectives by the end of the week. Some of the participants knew about this, some had used it or were using it regularly.

I was totally at sea!

I re-read the articles! I re-re-read them!!

Then I started with my set of ABCD objectives. I decided that if I had to do it, I would do it well. I decided to work with the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy’s six levels of classification of learning objectives. So, I started with the first and the lowest level in the Cognitive Domain – Remembering Level. Once I could write my ABCD objectives for this level, I did not have to look back. I could do the rest. Yippee!!

Now, I know that I am going to plan each and every class of mine with the help of the “ABCD” objectives. It would also be clear to the students what is expected of them.

We were also asked to describe a class as part of the first step towards our final project. This was easy. Just that I had to do the whole work twice. I had prepared a nice table with all the answers neatly formatted. Unfortunately, after several attempts and various methods I failed to upload my table. I had to do it all over again. I have yet to learn how to upload a table on the Nicenet platform.

Looking forward to Week 3!!

References:
1. http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/learningdesign/objectives/writingobjectives/
2. http://edtech2.tennessee.edu/projects/bobannon/classifications.html

Sharing to Learn, Learning to Share!–Week 2, Post 1

The Joy of Sharing!

Yes, this week it was evident that all of us were sharing our new and wonderful experiences with each other.

Sometimes, giving brings more happiness than receiving!

The wonderful world of the web engines was a discovery that all the participants made together. So many of us were only accustomed to Google or Wikipedia or YouTube only. Through the Noodle Tools site “Choose the Best Search for your Information Need” (Ref#1) I got to know for the first time that there are so many search engines and each can be used for a specific need. Phil Bradley's List ofWeb Search Engines (Ref#2) was my next discovery. “The List of Search Engines” (Ref#3) categorized the search engines according to requirements/purpose of use. I tried out a few and was amazed at the wealth of information I could get related to a specific search. For my class I searched a specific topic “Ancient Civilizations” in five Search Engines which specifically catered to Ancient History topics. I found History World and ipl2 very helpful, easy to access and user-friendly. INFOMINE, Ancient History Sourcebook and Wikipedia – Timelines may not be so useful to my students after all.

Deborah Healey’s articles on “Technology Tips” (Ref#4) were fantastic. I learned the use of the three Boolean Operators and how they have limiting or expanding use depending on how one uses them. I have made a list of all the tips given by her and intend to share it with my students, friends and colleagues.

My webskills classmates shared a lot of information regarding search engines. I learned about iSeek, edmodo,

EHow, sweetsearch, IMDB, teachertube and so many more from Hanna, Gordana, Virginia, Lorena, Zulyar, Anar and the others too. Thank you to all for sharing!

Technology is advancing in leaps and bounds. We need to harness its power to improve our skills as teachers. Just see how technology has brought us together.

Now, all we need to do is SHARE……!

Video Courtesy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fA7Fw4ZGu-I

References:

1.http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/information/5locate/adviceengine.html

2. http://www.philb.com/webse.html

3. www.thesearchenginelist.com/#e

4. http://pages.uoregon.edu/dhealey/techtips/june2009.html

My adventures in the "Wide Web World" - Week 1, Post 3

A whole new world has opened up for me. I feel like “Alice in Webland”!

It is amazing to think how much technology has advanced and how much it can benefit us. I was going through the different links and suggested readings sent by Courtney, Hanna and others and was pleasantly surprised to find that everything was new to me. On the other hand, so many new things were available for me to learn now. 

I am so happy that the U.S. Embassy of India selected me for this course. It is absolutely by chance that I got to know and send my application for this course. I was so surprised when I received the letter confirming my selection.

I have always tried to do new things in life, things that challenge me and also allow me to grow as a person. Each year I make it a point to learn or try to learn something new. This year started off by my venturing into a new field of work, planning and coordinating events for a bunch of organizations. Last year I renovated my house, learnt to drive and bought my first car. The year before I learnt swimming and riding a scooter. Before that I ventured into a totally new sphere, conducting workshops related to Finance by becoming a certified financial trainer. This is a totally new subject for me and I am very proud that I could do so well in it. These seem to be small achievements, but to me these are great.

UO AEI’s webskills course is the best thing to have happened to me in the last quarter of the year. It is what I had been waiting for. I do a lot of work on my computer on a daily basis and go online too. However, in my school work (my primary job) I have very little opportunity to utilize my knowledge of computers as I work in a Government Sponsored school where a blackboard and chalk are all that we, language teachers, are provided as teaching tools. For a long time I have been advocating the use of technology on a daily basis to impart education in my school and have personally tried to start it at a basic level with my students. However, a lot still needs to be done to convince the authorities. Taking up this course would be the best way for me to hone my skills and introduce my colleagues to the benefits of technology-driven education.

It has been about three years that my school got an overhead projector as part of a Government grant. Since then, I have actively utilized its potential. Although my school has a few computers, students are allowed to use them only for computer classes. There is no internet accessibility for the students, as of now. I intend to change the present scenario. I know it will be a difficult task, but I am sure that I can convince the authorities about the great benefits of using technology in the language class with the help of my acquired knowledge from this wonderful course. It will, after all, open up a whole new world of possibilities for my students. 

Wish me luck and success, friends!

Festivities in India - Week 1, Post 2

Celebrations:

It is the season of festivities in India now. All over India "Durga Puja" is being celebrated. I believe the world over, where ever Indians reside, they celebrate this festival. Let me explain a bit. "Durga" is a goddess who successfully defeated all evil forces, and "Puja" means the act of worship. Hence, we are celebrating the victory of good over evil, something which is common to all faiths.

There is a lot of activity at my home related to these celebrations and I am pressed for time. However, I am am managing quite well as I seem to have successfully created my own blog today. Yeah!

I have a suggestion. Let us incorporate a few things about us, like our teaching environment, our schooling system, about our students needs and something about our countries and cultures in this blog. This way we get to have a first- hand picture of so many nations and know about its students and its teachers. Let me know if you all agree to the idea.  

I send by best wishes to all of you! Hope to read all your blogs very soon.

Image Courtesy:http://thereaderonline.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/fireworks_small.jpg

Resourses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durga_Puja

Experiments of a new blogger - Week 1, Post 1

The Silver Lining:

I have never created a blog before. I was very apprehensive and doubtful. Then I started experimenting and it no more seemed difficult. The dark clouds of doubt were blown away very soon. I could see the silver lining!

I visited a few sites (Ref #1), looked up some interesting blogs (Ref # 2-4), googled, "How to create your own blog?", went through the blogger instructions sent by Courtney and there I was looking at my very own first blog in wonder. Wow! I am impressed with my performance.

I have earlier gone through blogs pertaining to news articles and the national geographic blog, which is my favorite, as I am a travel enthusiast. I felt that it was only possible for web designers to create blogs. Now I know that I can do it too. So can my students. It may not be high quality, but it can surely be heart-felt.

I am now excited about making improvements to my blog. How do I do this? How do I do that? I feel like a child who is experimenting with new things. I am looking forward to all your suggestions and advice.

This is going to be fun, friends!

Image courtesy: http://www.dermalinstitute.com/us/news/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Silver-Lining.jpg

References: 1. https://www.youtube.com/
                   2. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
                   3. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/
                   4. http://srbachchan.tumblr.com/