Hi, everybody
We are at the end of this course, and I would like to let you know what I actually learned from the course. I wouldn’t be able to tell you everything I learned, but I can tell you I learned a lot of great things in the 10-week period.
First, I learned some social skills like interacting with other people, the type of language I should use in the interactions, developing team spirit through discussion threads. This course made me realize that I belong to a community, and that community is all the participants in this course, in particular and all the teachers in general. In addition, the assignments helped me refine my thinking skills.
Second, the course helped me become familiar with web search engines and web searches and I was able to make a list of useful URLs related to education and teaching. I learned how to create a blog, a delicious site, a PowerPoint presentation, and exercises on line with exercise generators, with a view to promoting teaching and learning. In a nutshell, I learned how to use online tools for enhancing teaching and learning.
Third, I learned that my teaching should aim at developing learner autonomy. For that I should engage my students in active, interactive activities inside and/or outside of the class through class projects. For the implementation of such projects I should train my students to use the computer and the Internet in order to gather relevant information and materials. And the information and materials for performing the tasks should fit the students’ needs and interests.
Fourth, this course helped me develop my sense of punctuality and my ability to keep deadlines.
All in all, this course made me a new teacher with innovative teaching ideas, methods and tools.
Sincerely,
Bruno
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Reflections on what I did and learned in week 9
Dear facilitators and classmates:
This week I went through some exercise generators and created my first online exercise at http://poster.4teachers.org/worksheet/view.php?id=145783 .
I learned through these exercise generators that there are so many interesting exercises that a teacher can create easily to be used online and offline. The possibility of using the exercises online makes the exercises available and practical in the way the students can access them anytime and everywhere there is Internet connectivity. Once the exercises are generated and the URLs to access them, the students can work independently of the teacher and with less anxiety from the classroom atmosphere, which is not always conducive to good learning.
In addition to learning to create online and offline exercises through exercise generators, I learn how online tools can positively affect teaching and learning. Accepting to use these tools is tantamount to accepting a redistribution of teacher’s and students’ roles in and out of the classroom. This redistribution of roles grants more autonomy to the students while requiring of the teacher more guiding, management, and planning skills.
I put the final touches to my project report taking into account the comments provided by my peer reviewer, Raphaël.
Yours,
Bruno
This week I went through some exercise generators and created my first online exercise at http://poster.4teachers.org/worksheet/view.php?id=145783 .
I learned through these exercise generators that there are so many interesting exercises that a teacher can create easily to be used online and offline. The possibility of using the exercises online makes the exercises available and practical in the way the students can access them anytime and everywhere there is Internet connectivity. Once the exercises are generated and the URLs to access them, the students can work independently of the teacher and with less anxiety from the classroom atmosphere, which is not always conducive to good learning.
In addition to learning to create online and offline exercises through exercise generators, I learn how online tools can positively affect teaching and learning. Accepting to use these tools is tantamount to accepting a redistribution of teacher’s and students’ roles in and out of the classroom. This redistribution of roles grants more autonomy to the students while requiring of the teacher more guiding, management, and planning skills.
I put the final touches to my project report taking into account the comments provided by my peer reviewer, Raphaël.
Yours,
Bruno
Friday, March 5, 2010
Comment on this week's readings
Hi, Sandra, Deborah, Jeff and Classmates
This week, I learned new things I could use in class with and for my students to promote my students’ learning. Those things are learner autonomy and one-computer classroom.
All the articles on learner autonomy stress the necessity from reshaping teacher and student roles. Students should be taught to take more responsibility for their learning. Samuel Sheu lets us know that learner autonomy is dependent on teacher autonomy. How can a teacher give some autonomy or independence to his or students if they, themselves, do not have that autonomy? Sometimes the teacher’s goodwill may run up against the in-depth established education system. He notes some constraints to learner autonomy are the education policy through its standards, curricula, textbooks and the examination-dominated system and some school administrators. All these factors do no allow any autonomy both from the teacher and the learner. Based on the literature I read I can say that if change has to occur it can but come from some teachers who would accept to pioneer
I learner from Dimitrios Thanasoulas quoting Holec that learner autonomy is ‘the ability to take charge of one’s learning.’ Learner autonomy supposes the teacher is aware of that necessity and has the ability and the will to help his/her students develop autonomously. Learner autonomy shouldn’t be seen as an end to itself, that is a product; rather, it should be seen as a process. According to Thanasoulas learner autonomy must be build on helping students learn more about their learning, cognitive, metacognitive strategies and on learner’s attitudes, motivation and self-esteem. This is a challenge teachers should take: training to train their students to become autonomous. Thanasoulas suggests three strategies we could apply to promote learner autonomy through self-reports, diaries and evaluation sheets and persuasive communication as a means of altering learner beliefs and attitudes. Richard Smith takes a different approach to promoting learner autonomy through action research.
As for the one-computer classroom, I learned some uses and tips about computers from the article ‘Strategies and Applications for the One-computer Classroom’ by Linda J. Burkhart. The uses of the technology concern both the teacher and the students. For example, the teacher could use the computer as a tool keeping records, manipulating information, creating charts, student lists and name tags, communicating with other professionals and subject experts via email. I could also use the computer for demonstrating concepts, demonstrating writing and editing skills, for having live access to a selected Internet site to retrieve relevant data. As for the students, the computer could be used for finding relevant information for their project-based work, for finding sites for writing when they want to develop their writing skills (how to write an essay, how to write a paragraph, how to use connectors in sentences, how to write good sentences, etc). Another way of developing reading and writing is through blogs, email. The computer could also be used to promote cooperative learning through student projects. For example working on a project of how to raise community awareness of the cutting down of trees in the country, my students will to find appropriate pictures or images from the Internet that show the bad effects of deforestation to convince the community.
The article suggests useful tips that teachers and students could use with the computers to enhance teaching and promote learner autonomy.
Wishes,
Bruno
This week, I learned new things I could use in class with and for my students to promote my students’ learning. Those things are learner autonomy and one-computer classroom.
All the articles on learner autonomy stress the necessity from reshaping teacher and student roles. Students should be taught to take more responsibility for their learning. Samuel Sheu lets us know that learner autonomy is dependent on teacher autonomy. How can a teacher give some autonomy or independence to his or students if they, themselves, do not have that autonomy? Sometimes the teacher’s goodwill may run up against the in-depth established education system. He notes some constraints to learner autonomy are the education policy through its standards, curricula, textbooks and the examination-dominated system and some school administrators. All these factors do no allow any autonomy both from the teacher and the learner. Based on the literature I read I can say that if change has to occur it can but come from some teachers who would accept to pioneer
I learner from Dimitrios Thanasoulas quoting Holec that learner autonomy is ‘the ability to take charge of one’s learning.’ Learner autonomy supposes the teacher is aware of that necessity and has the ability and the will to help his/her students develop autonomously. Learner autonomy shouldn’t be seen as an end to itself, that is a product; rather, it should be seen as a process. According to Thanasoulas learner autonomy must be build on helping students learn more about their learning, cognitive, metacognitive strategies and on learner’s attitudes, motivation and self-esteem. This is a challenge teachers should take: training to train their students to become autonomous. Thanasoulas suggests three strategies we could apply to promote learner autonomy through self-reports, diaries and evaluation sheets and persuasive communication as a means of altering learner beliefs and attitudes. Richard Smith takes a different approach to promoting learner autonomy through action research.
As for the one-computer classroom, I learned some uses and tips about computers from the article ‘Strategies and Applications for the One-computer Classroom’ by Linda J. Burkhart. The uses of the technology concern both the teacher and the students. For example, the teacher could use the computer as a tool keeping records, manipulating information, creating charts, student lists and name tags, communicating with other professionals and subject experts via email. I could also use the computer for demonstrating concepts, demonstrating writing and editing skills, for having live access to a selected Internet site to retrieve relevant data. As for the students, the computer could be used for finding relevant information for their project-based work, for finding sites for writing when they want to develop their writing skills (how to write an essay, how to write a paragraph, how to use connectors in sentences, how to write good sentences, etc). Another way of developing reading and writing is through blogs, email. The computer could also be used to promote cooperative learning through student projects. For example working on a project of how to raise community awareness of the cutting down of trees in the country, my students will to find appropriate pictures or images from the Internet that show the bad effects of deforestation to convince the community.
The article suggests useful tips that teachers and students could use with the computers to enhance teaching and promote learner autonomy.
Wishes,
Bruno
Friday, February 26, 2010
This week's Readings
Hi, stakeholders
This week, too, I have read a lot about large classes and PowerPoint and learned how to use PowerPoint interactively in class through 10 basic steps. What I find so interesting about PowerPoint presentations is that they allow making learning vivid, and making learners become more interested, responsible, autonomous, inquisitive and critical thinkers.
One way of using PowerPoint presentations interactively in my class that crosses my mind is the teaching of some vocabulary items – using photographs and hyperlinks to Web links. So, instead of losing my time defining some words, I will allow them to see the real-to-life pictures of the new vocabulary items. More often than not, definitions and explanation seem to of little help. For example, the Internet links could provide with a variety of vegetables if my students and I decide to study vegetables. For this lesson, I think there is no better way than using visuals with PowerPoint. It is obvious that learning will take place easily and in a relaxed way.
In addition to learning how to use PowerPoint presentations interactively, I learned from the readings some practical and efficient ways of dealing with larges. You know, in my educational setting, small classes are the ones that have at most 40 to 50 students, and knowing strategies could only benefit my students. Some of the strategies I retained from the readings include personalization. Personalization is a good method for meeting all the students’ needs and styles in a very discreet way. For example, Next time I want to find a topic or an issue for discussion, I will devise open-ended questions for my students to answer before deciding a final topic or issue.
The readings this week have definitely given me new interesting ways of bringing positive changes in my classroom for the benefit of my students.
Best regards,
Bruno
This week, too, I have read a lot about large classes and PowerPoint and learned how to use PowerPoint interactively in class through 10 basic steps. What I find so interesting about PowerPoint presentations is that they allow making learning vivid, and making learners become more interested, responsible, autonomous, inquisitive and critical thinkers.
One way of using PowerPoint presentations interactively in my class that crosses my mind is the teaching of some vocabulary items – using photographs and hyperlinks to Web links. So, instead of losing my time defining some words, I will allow them to see the real-to-life pictures of the new vocabulary items. More often than not, definitions and explanation seem to of little help. For example, the Internet links could provide with a variety of vegetables if my students and I decide to study vegetables. For this lesson, I think there is no better way than using visuals with PowerPoint. It is obvious that learning will take place easily and in a relaxed way.
In addition to learning how to use PowerPoint presentations interactively, I learned from the readings some practical and efficient ways of dealing with larges. You know, in my educational setting, small classes are the ones that have at most 40 to 50 students, and knowing strategies could only benefit my students. Some of the strategies I retained from the readings include personalization. Personalization is a good method for meeting all the students’ needs and styles in a very discreet way. For example, Next time I want to find a topic or an issue for discussion, I will devise open-ended questions for my students to answer before deciding a final topic or issue.
The readings this week have definitely given me new interesting ways of bringing positive changes in my classroom for the benefit of my students.
Best regards,
Bruno
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Comment on Rubrics, Alternative Assessments and Learning Styles
Hi, Deborah, Rick, Sandra and classmates
In addition to the multiple intelligences I mentioned in the previous blog, I learned about alternative assessments and rubric creation. Alternative assessment is a way of monitoring students’ language progress and performance that is different from the conventional ways. Alternative assessment is, according to Charles R. Hancock, “an ongoing process involving the student and the teacher in making judgments about the student’s progress in language using non-conventional strategies.” On the other hand, the article “Creating a Rubric: Tutorial” defines the rubric as a tool designed by instructors to assess the students’ performances. It is specifically used for subjective assignments like writing, discussion, presentations…
These articles have helped me gain a deep insight into planning and assessing subjective assignments. In the past when I gave my students a writing assignment, I used the holistic approach to assessing their performances, which consists in giving a global grade for all the student’s performances. I did not know that for subjective assignments creating rubrics was important for assessing performances and tasks.
As a matter in fact, rubrics are very important in that they help the teacher assess in an objective way the subjective assignment. “Rubrics also show students how to meet the instructor’s expectations, i.e. what they need to do to be successful.” For example, next time I have to assess a piece of writing I will specify to the students the elements that will make a performance or task poor, average, or good. Now I will take into account the effect of context on performance and provide adequate contexts in which I will assess competence. In these contexts I will get the students involved in monitoring their own progress and performances. Both my students and I will be involved in the assessment progress. That will be possible because the students will have already been well acquainted with my expectations through the rubrics.
I realize that using rubrics and alternative assessments is a practical way of meeting students’ different learning styles.
Alternative Assessment and Second Language Study: What and Why? by Charles R. Hancock http://ww.cql.org/resources/digest/hancoc01/html
Creating a Rubric: Tutorial at http://health.usf.edu/publichealth/eta/Rubric_Tutorial/default.htm
Best wishes,
Bruno
In addition to the multiple intelligences I mentioned in the previous blog, I learned about alternative assessments and rubric creation. Alternative assessment is a way of monitoring students’ language progress and performance that is different from the conventional ways. Alternative assessment is, according to Charles R. Hancock, “an ongoing process involving the student and the teacher in making judgments about the student’s progress in language using non-conventional strategies.” On the other hand, the article “Creating a Rubric: Tutorial” defines the rubric as a tool designed by instructors to assess the students’ performances. It is specifically used for subjective assignments like writing, discussion, presentations…
These articles have helped me gain a deep insight into planning and assessing subjective assignments. In the past when I gave my students a writing assignment, I used the holistic approach to assessing their performances, which consists in giving a global grade for all the student’s performances. I did not know that for subjective assignments creating rubrics was important for assessing performances and tasks.
As a matter in fact, rubrics are very important in that they help the teacher assess in an objective way the subjective assignment. “Rubrics also show students how to meet the instructor’s expectations, i.e. what they need to do to be successful.” For example, next time I have to assess a piece of writing I will specify to the students the elements that will make a performance or task poor, average, or good. Now I will take into account the effect of context on performance and provide adequate contexts in which I will assess competence. In these contexts I will get the students involved in monitoring their own progress and performances. Both my students and I will be involved in the assessment progress. That will be possible because the students will have already been well acquainted with my expectations through the rubrics.
I realize that using rubrics and alternative assessments is a practical way of meeting students’ different learning styles.
Alternative Assessment and Second Language Study: What and Why? by Charles R. Hancock http://ww.cql.org/resources/digest/hancoc01/html
Creating a Rubric: Tutorial at http://health.usf.edu/publichealth/eta/Rubric_Tutorial/default.htm
Best wishes,
Bruno
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Comment on Week 6 Multiple Intelligences and Technology
Dear mentors and colleagues:
This week I have read the sites recommended for reading and learned a lot about learning styles and multiple intelligences, and how multimedia could positively affect teaching and learning. In the past I taught my students in a given way as if they were all learning the same way. Reading about Gardner’s theory I realize now that I failed to meet all my students learning styles. Gardner has shown us that people learn differently; he has come up with a theory of eight learning styles. Based on to Gardner’s theory, teachers could devise class activities or tasks to meet every student’s learning style. These activities must engage learners in ‘fostering knowledge transfer to new situations, higher-level thinking, attitude change, and motivation for further learning’ (Rick Finnan and Donna Shaw quoting James L. Cooper and Pamela Robinson) in “Enhancing Learning by Engaging Students”.
Now a new problem arises from the ‘multiplicity of our students’ learning styles: How can teachers cope with such a situation? I think that being aware of the differences that exist between our students is already a good start for solving the problem. For schools which have scarce teaching and learning materials, technology seems to offer various possibilities to meet our students’ different needs and interests. The idea of introducing technology is well perceived in “Multiple Intelligences and Technology” at hht://www.cascanada.com/multech.html: “Multiple Intelligences can be enhanced with the use of technology.” The article goes further to give a specific example of the use of word processing softwares to help teach language aspects - like writing, editing, and rewriting - that could be designed to meet, for example, the linguistic learner style.
Other applications of technology can be used to meet our students’ learning styles, but what matters is how judiciously the teacher chooses the most appropriate and available materials for his specific students. As my students’ language need is writing, the project with my students will be on ‘Writing an Invitation Letter.’’ As far as I am concerned and for the time being, my students and I limit ourselves to the simplest uses of the computer and the Internet like logging in and out, sending and receiving mail and web searching. Anyway, my students and I have already gotten on the technology ‘bandwaggon’ to stop right now.
Yours,
Bruno
This week I have read the sites recommended for reading and learned a lot about learning styles and multiple intelligences, and how multimedia could positively affect teaching and learning. In the past I taught my students in a given way as if they were all learning the same way. Reading about Gardner’s theory I realize now that I failed to meet all my students learning styles. Gardner has shown us that people learn differently; he has come up with a theory of eight learning styles. Based on to Gardner’s theory, teachers could devise class activities or tasks to meet every student’s learning style. These activities must engage learners in ‘fostering knowledge transfer to new situations, higher-level thinking, attitude change, and motivation for further learning’ (Rick Finnan and Donna Shaw quoting James L. Cooper and Pamela Robinson) in “Enhancing Learning by Engaging Students”.
Now a new problem arises from the ‘multiplicity of our students’ learning styles: How can teachers cope with such a situation? I think that being aware of the differences that exist between our students is already a good start for solving the problem. For schools which have scarce teaching and learning materials, technology seems to offer various possibilities to meet our students’ different needs and interests. The idea of introducing technology is well perceived in “Multiple Intelligences and Technology” at hht://www.cascanada.com/multech.html: “Multiple Intelligences can be enhanced with the use of technology.” The article goes further to give a specific example of the use of word processing softwares to help teach language aspects - like writing, editing, and rewriting - that could be designed to meet, for example, the linguistic learner style.
Other applications of technology can be used to meet our students’ learning styles, but what matters is how judiciously the teacher chooses the most appropriate and available materials for his specific students. As my students’ language need is writing, the project with my students will be on ‘Writing an Invitation Letter.’’ As far as I am concerned and for the time being, my students and I limit ourselves to the simplest uses of the computer and the Internet like logging in and out, sending and receiving mail and web searching. Anyway, my students and I have already gotten on the technology ‘bandwaggon’ to stop right now.
Yours,
Bruno
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Reflection on what I learned this week about PBL and WebQuests
Dear stakeholder:
This week, I learned about two new methods of teaching language in the classroom: the Problem-Based Learning and WebQuests. What I retain from the two methods is they use a different new methodology for teaching in the classroom. They advocate the involvement of students in meaningful and interesting activities in which they will have to work as a community to perform a common task.
In her article “Less Teaching and More Learning” Susan Gaer at http://www.ncsall.net/?id=385 shows how efficient PBL is because she successfully reached her goals using PBL.
Bernie Dogde in "Some Thoughts About WebQuests" at http://webquest.sdsu.edu/about_webquests.html defines WebWuest as “an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the internet, optionally supplemented with videoconferencing”.
WebQuests seem to be an alternative to teaching language in the classroom. Yet, in some educational environment it will not be possible to take advantage of this new teaching technology because the use of computers and the Internet is still at a nascent stage. So, the option remaining for the teachers will be PBL. I do not say that PBL is better than Webquests, I simply mean that PBL is more like to have success in some countries for the reasons mentioned above.
As far as I am concerned, PBL is definitely the method I will choose between the two methods because my students and won’t need any equipment for realizing the project.
What do you think?
Wishes,
Bruno
This week, I learned about two new methods of teaching language in the classroom: the Problem-Based Learning and WebQuests. What I retain from the two methods is they use a different new methodology for teaching in the classroom. They advocate the involvement of students in meaningful and interesting activities in which they will have to work as a community to perform a common task.
In her article “Less Teaching and More Learning” Susan Gaer at http://www.ncsall.net/?id=385 shows how efficient PBL is because she successfully reached her goals using PBL.
Bernie Dogde in "Some Thoughts About WebQuests" at http://webquest.sdsu.edu/about_webquests.html defines WebWuest as “an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the internet, optionally supplemented with videoconferencing”.
WebQuests seem to be an alternative to teaching language in the classroom. Yet, in some educational environment it will not be possible to take advantage of this new teaching technology because the use of computers and the Internet is still at a nascent stage. So, the option remaining for the teachers will be PBL. I do not say that PBL is better than Webquests, I simply mean that PBL is more like to have success in some countries for the reasons mentioned above.
As far as I am concerned, PBL is definitely the method I will choose between the two methods because my students and won’t need any equipment for realizing the project.
What do you think?
Wishes,
Bruno
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Response to Gaby's posting on Recommendations for Multi-skills Websites
Hi, Gaby and All
You did well by choosing a reading story for your class activity. I think your students will enjoy it. I agree with Luba that the idea of using funny stories in class is great, but I agree with Jonathan and Luba that your learning objective is more centered on you than on your students. If you take a look at the Audience, the Behavior, and the Degree you will see that the activities you designed for the reading story are not congruent with your learning objective.
In similar cases, there are two things that you can do about it: either you re-word your objective or you re-design your activities. For the specific case, I suggest you re-word the instructional objective.
Also, should you retain the option of re-wording the objective, two possibilities can be offered, depending on our interest. If your interest is on developing students’ sense of social values, namely the moral in the story, so you may reformulate the objective the following way:
After reading a story (C), students (A) will be able to (infer) the moral from the story and tell/or write the moral (choose what best serves your purposes) (B), with 80% of grammar /or vocabulary accuracy (D).
But if you interest is on developing students’ language skills, I would suggest this reformulation:
Given a reading story (C), students (A) will be able to give synonyms for words and correctly answer comprehension questions (B) with 80% of accuracy (D).
Do you think the suggestions could work?
Waiting for your reaction.
Kind regards,
Bruno
You did well by choosing a reading story for your class activity. I think your students will enjoy it. I agree with Luba that the idea of using funny stories in class is great, but I agree with Jonathan and Luba that your learning objective is more centered on you than on your students. If you take a look at the Audience, the Behavior, and the Degree you will see that the activities you designed for the reading story are not congruent with your learning objective.
In similar cases, there are two things that you can do about it: either you re-word your objective or you re-design your activities. For the specific case, I suggest you re-word the instructional objective.
Also, should you retain the option of re-wording the objective, two possibilities can be offered, depending on our interest. If your interest is on developing students’ sense of social values, namely the moral in the story, so you may reformulate the objective the following way:
After reading a story (C), students (A) will be able to (infer) the moral from the story and tell/or write the moral (choose what best serves your purposes) (B), with 80% of grammar /or vocabulary accuracy (D).
But if you interest is on developing students’ language skills, I would suggest this reformulation:
Given a reading story (C), students (A) will be able to give synonyms for words and correctly answer comprehension questions (B) with 80% of accuracy (D).
Do you think the suggestions could work?
Waiting for your reaction.
Kind regards,
Bruno
Response to Gaby's posting on Recommendations for Multi-skills Websites
Hi, Gaby and All
You did well by choosing a reading story for your class activity. I think your students will enjoy it. I agree with Luba that the idea of using funny stories in class is great, but I agree with Jonathan and Luba that your learning objective is more centered on you than on your students. If you take a look at the Audience, the Behavior, and the Degree you will see that the activities you designed for the reading story are not congruent with your learning objective.
In similar cases, there are two things that you can do about it: either you re-word your objective or you re-design your activities. For the specific case, I suggest you re-word the instructional objective.
Also, should you retain the option of re-wording the objective, two possibilities can be offered, depending on our interest. If your interest is on developing students’ sense of social values, namely the moral in the story, so you may reformulate the objective the following way:
After reading a story (C), students (A) will be able to (infer) the moral from the story and tell/or write the moral (choose what best serves your purposes) (B), with 80% of grammar /or vocabulary accuracy (D).
But if you interest is on developing students’ language skills, I would suggest this reformulation:
Given a reading story (C), students (A) will be able to give synonyms for words and correctly answer comprehension questions (B) with 80% of accuracy (D).
Do you think the suggestions could work?
Waiting for your reaction.
Kind regards,
Bruno
You did well by choosing a reading story for your class activity. I think your students will enjoy it. I agree with Luba that the idea of using funny stories in class is great, but I agree with Jonathan and Luba that your learning objective is more centered on you than on your students. If you take a look at the Audience, the Behavior, and the Degree you will see that the activities you designed for the reading story are not congruent with your learning objective.
In similar cases, there are two things that you can do about it: either you re-word your objective or you re-design your activities. For the specific case, I suggest you re-word the instructional objective.
Also, should you retain the option of re-wording the objective, two possibilities can be offered, depending on our interest. If your interest is on developing students’ sense of social values, namely the moral in the story, so you may reformulate the objective the following way:
After reading a story (C), students (A) will be able to (infer) the moral from the story and tell/or write the moral (choose what best serves your purposes) (B), with 80% of grammar /or vocabulary accuracy (D).
But if you interest is on developing students’ language skills, I would suggest this reformulation:
Given a reading story (C), students (A) will be able to give synonyms for words and correctly answer comprehension questions (B) with 80% of accuracy (D).
Do you think the suggestions could work?
Waiting for your reaction.
Kind regards,
Bruno
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Reflection on Ahmed's Blog Posting
Dear Ahmed,
Thank you sharing some useful links with us.
When I read your blog on Using Computers to Enhance Learning I realized that you have done a great job. You comment gives a greater place to writing by stressing the merits of WAC (Writing Across Curriculum). I like WAC philosophy according to which ‘writing to learn facilitates learning to write’. As a matter of fact, WAC is new to me, but it seems it can solve many writing pitfalls, according to you.
One question I have for you: Can WAC work for lower grade students?
Thank you for contributing and your response.
Best regards,
Bruno
Thank you sharing some useful links with us.
When I read your blog on Using Computers to Enhance Learning I realized that you have done a great job. You comment gives a greater place to writing by stressing the merits of WAC (Writing Across Curriculum). I like WAC philosophy according to which ‘writing to learn facilitates learning to write’. As a matter of fact, WAC is new to me, but it seems it can solve many writing pitfalls, according to you.
One question I have for you: Can WAC work for lower grade students?
Thank you for contributing and your response.
Best regards,
Bruno
Reflection on Skillbuilding Websites
Hi, mentors and colleagues
This week I visited http://edtech.tennessee.edu/~bobannon/lesson_plan.html and at http://edtech.tennessee.edu/~bobannon/lptemplate_08.pdf and learned how I could use technology-enhanced plan for better planning my reading and writing lessons. In fact, I learned new things about planning the instruction. Among the new things, I can mention the following elements that I have never thought of or used in planning a lesson: writing my name as the author of the lesson, specifying the number of meetings or hours needed for the lesson, giving a short description of the lesson, writing the class layout and the grouping plan for the lesson, setting performance indicators, using technology in class as a resource or medium, closing the lesson, giving supplemental activities for the lesson, making adaptations for special learners, and writing the assessment methods for the lesson.
I think that taking into account these aspects in planning lessons will make a change regarding teaching and learning, specifically in classrooms which have computers and Internet access. The non-equipped classroom teacher could also adapt the lesson to meet his students’ needs.
In addition, I learned through browsing recommended skill-building sites how to improve teaching and learning reading/vocabulary and writing. To this effect, sharing relevant websites with students could help them build their autonomy while learning English in an interesting way. Some of the websites include http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl.section/1/ and http://www.learningandteaching.dal/taguide/WritingasaToolforLearning.html for writing and http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/, http://spot.pcc.edu/map/prev/, and http://www.englishclub.com/esl-quizzes/vocabulary-quizzes.htmlfor reading, and vocabulary.
Teachers should help students to create their own so they can write to one another and to the teacher through blogs to develop their writing, reading and vocabulary skills.
Wishes,
Bruno
This week I visited http://edtech.tennessee.edu/~bobannon/lesson_plan.html and at http://edtech.tennessee.edu/~bobannon/lptemplate_08.pdf and learned how I could use technology-enhanced plan for better planning my reading and writing lessons. In fact, I learned new things about planning the instruction. Among the new things, I can mention the following elements that I have never thought of or used in planning a lesson: writing my name as the author of the lesson, specifying the number of meetings or hours needed for the lesson, giving a short description of the lesson, writing the class layout and the grouping plan for the lesson, setting performance indicators, using technology in class as a resource or medium, closing the lesson, giving supplemental activities for the lesson, making adaptations for special learners, and writing the assessment methods for the lesson.
I think that taking into account these aspects in planning lessons will make a change regarding teaching and learning, specifically in classrooms which have computers and Internet access. The non-equipped classroom teacher could also adapt the lesson to meet his students’ needs.
In addition, I learned through browsing recommended skill-building sites how to improve teaching and learning reading/vocabulary and writing. To this effect, sharing relevant websites with students could help them build their autonomy while learning English in an interesting way. Some of the websites include http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl.section/1/ and http://www.learningandteaching.dal/taguide/WritingasaToolforLearning.html for writing and http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/, http://spot.pcc.edu/map/prev/, and http://www.englishclub.com/esl-quizzes/vocabulary-quizzes.htmlfor reading, and vocabulary.
Teachers should help students to create their own so they can write to one another and to the teacher through blogs to develop their writing, reading and vocabulary skills.
Wishes,
Bruno
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Delicious!
Hello to all the stakeholders in this course
This week first I have known more about aural/oral skillbuilding sites. I read and learned more about how to use technology to develop aural and oral skills in class. I particularly read two articles: The Best Practices in Technology and Language Teaching by Dennie Hoopingarner at the Michigan State University and Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials by Lindsay Mille. For example, Randall’s Cyber Listening Lab at http://www.esl-lab.com/ , pronunciation links at hhtp:/www.uoregon.edu/~dealey, http://www.esl.about.com ,http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/pronunciation/pdf/exercises/ , http://www.onestopenglish.com/ http://www.esl-gallery.com , among others, are very good sites for developing listening and speaking skills.
Second, I learned to create on Delicious.com my Delicious! URL, which is http://www.delicous.com/brunoniki. It was that easy doing it; it took a few days before being able to create the URL, but without succeeding in bookmarking and tagging. In my opinion, Delicious! And the similar tools are simply magic. I was from imagining the existence of such important teaching aids on the Internet. They are useful media for teaching and learning.
I love Delicious! because it provides teachers with a variety of teaching and learning materials in a quick and simple way. The way things are presented on Delicious page makes reading easy and attractive for the readers. No sooner than had I read Jonathan’s Delicious! page that I realized that Delicious has a figurative sense. Jonathan’s page whetted m appetite for reading the bookmarks that I found very interesting for me, and my students as well. It was so delicious going through the bookmarks that I said to myself that Delicious! is a dish that should be shared with and tasted by other teachers and students.
After reading through the bookmarks a question came to my mind: Why did I not know about Delicious long ago?, and the answer to my own question was: Surely my students and I missed a lot by not knowing anything about Delicoius! in the past.
Now a final question is: Is it conceivable after getting acquainted with Delicious! and the like to ignore the importance of technology in the educational setting? My answer is definitely ‘No’.
After going through the aural/oral skillbuilding websites with all their tutorials and after learning how to create and use Delicious in teaching and learning, my conviction is that no teachers should miss the opportunity to use technology in teaching.
Thank to the facilitators for the tutorials on how to use Delicious in teaching and to the classmates for their contribution.
Sincerely,
Bruno
This week first I have known more about aural/oral skillbuilding sites. I read and learned more about how to use technology to develop aural and oral skills in class. I particularly read two articles: The Best Practices in Technology and Language Teaching by Dennie Hoopingarner at the Michigan State University and Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials by Lindsay Mille. For example, Randall’s Cyber Listening Lab at http://www.esl-lab.com/ , pronunciation links at hhtp:/www.uoregon.edu/~dealey, http://www.esl.about.com ,http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/pronunciation/pdf/exercises/ , http://www.onestopenglish.com/ http://www.esl-gallery.com , among others, are very good sites for developing listening and speaking skills.
Second, I learned to create on Delicious.com my Delicious! URL, which is http://www.delicous.com/brunoniki. It was that easy doing it; it took a few days before being able to create the URL, but without succeeding in bookmarking and tagging. In my opinion, Delicious! And the similar tools are simply magic. I was from imagining the existence of such important teaching aids on the Internet. They are useful media for teaching and learning.
I love Delicious! because it provides teachers with a variety of teaching and learning materials in a quick and simple way. The way things are presented on Delicious page makes reading easy and attractive for the readers. No sooner than had I read Jonathan’s Delicious! page that I realized that Delicious has a figurative sense. Jonathan’s page whetted m appetite for reading the bookmarks that I found very interesting for me, and my students as well. It was so delicious going through the bookmarks that I said to myself that Delicious! is a dish that should be shared with and tasted by other teachers and students.
After reading through the bookmarks a question came to my mind: Why did I not know about Delicious long ago?, and the answer to my own question was: Surely my students and I missed a lot by not knowing anything about Delicoius! in the past.
Now a final question is: Is it conceivable after getting acquainted with Delicious! and the like to ignore the importance of technology in the educational setting? My answer is definitely ‘No’.
After going through the aural/oral skillbuilding websites with all their tutorials and after learning how to create and use Delicious in teaching and learning, my conviction is that no teachers should miss the opportunity to use technology in teaching.
Thank to the facilitators for the tutorials on how to use Delicious in teaching and to the classmates for their contribution.
Sincerely,
Bruno
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Creating a URL on delicious.com
Hi, mentors and classmates
I eventually created my URL on Delicious! and here is the link: http://www.delicious.com/brunoniki.
Do you know that I envy you when I read that he enjoyed his Delicious!link: http://www.delicious.com/ahmedkhatab? I would like to know the taste of Delicious!, too, but the problem is that I am not able to add bookmarks and tags to my Delicious! URL to have that privilege.
So I would be grateful to you all again to help me sort out "bookmarking and tagging"
Sorry for troubling you again.
Thank you.
Regards,
Bruno
I eventually created my URL on Delicious! and here is the link: http://www.delicious.com/brunoniki.
Do you know that I envy you when I read that he enjoyed his Delicious!link: http://www.delicious.com/ahmedkhatab? I would like to know the taste of Delicious!, too, but the problem is that I am not able to add bookmarks and tags to my Delicious! URL to have that privilege.
So I would be grateful to you all again to help me sort out "bookmarking and tagging"
Sorry for troubling you again.
Thank you.
Regards,
Bruno
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Reflexion on Blogs: Making sure I can post a blog
Dear colleagues,
I want to make sure everybody have receives my blog posting. Please let me know when you read. That will be an indication that I was successful in blog posting it.
Thank you for your support.
I must confess that the beginning was very hard for me, but ever since, things have been getting better, I hope. I have found out, by trials and errors, that there are so many advantages of using blogs in the teaching context, for example, sending assignments to students, correcting students’ work, sending lessons to students, getting students to read each other’s work and making corrections. You do not necessarily need to have Internet access in your school to benefit from blogging.
One application of blogging in my teaching situation is using blog postings to develop my students’ writing skills.
Bruno
My blog URL is http://brunoonline-bruno.blogspot.com
I want to make sure everybody have receives my blog posting. Please let me know when you read. That will be an indication that I was successful in blog posting it.
Thank you for your support.
I must confess that the beginning was very hard for me, but ever since, things have been getting better, I hope. I have found out, by trials and errors, that there are so many advantages of using blogs in the teaching context, for example, sending assignments to students, correcting students’ work, sending lessons to students, getting students to read each other’s work and making corrections. You do not necessarily need to have Internet access in your school to benefit from blogging.
One application of blogging in my teaching situation is using blog postings to develop my students’ writing skills.
Bruno
My blog URL is http://brunoonline-bruno.blogspot.com
Reflexion on Blogs
Dear colleagues.
I must confess that the beginning was very hard for me, but ever since, things have been getting better, I hope. I have found out, by trials and errors, that there are so many advantages of using blogs in the teaching context, for example, sending assignments to students, correcting students’ work, sending lessons to students, getting students to read each other’s work and making corrections. You do not necessarily need to have Internet access in your school to benefit from blogging.
One application of blogging relating to my teaching situation could be using blog postings to develop my students writing skills.
I must confess that the beginning was very hard for me, but ever since, things have been getting better, I hope. I have found out, by trials and errors, that there are so many advantages of using blogs in the teaching context, for example, sending assignments to students, correcting students’ work, sending lessons to students, getting students to read each other’s work and making corrections. You do not necessarily need to have Internet access in your school to benefit from blogging.
One application of blogging relating to my teaching situation could be using blog postings to develop my students writing skills.
Friday, January 15, 2010
welcome!
Hi, everybody!
Welcome to Bruno's blog.
On this website you will have access to my different assignments.
Looking for your visit
Bruno
Welcome to Bruno's blog.
On this website you will have access to my different assignments.
Looking for your visit
Bruno
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