Week 1 - First Step toward Success

     This is the first challenging and wonderful journey I've had in my life. I was first recommended by the Dean of college where I work now to join the online course of University of Oregon where I get the webskills course. I followed the instructions given by him. I was thrilled to get an email saying that I have been accepted to attend a course for 10 weeks held by University ofOregon. One thing that makes me really happy is an email from one of the instructors of this course named Donna Shaw. She said that I could start to take a course and do some tasks for the first week. I have gained many things in this first week. It begins by visiting the course website and then by filling ‘The needs assessment survey’. The most interesting thing is to join a class discussion on nicenet.org, a non-profit organization of Internet professionals who give their time to provide services to the education community. I can also meet (not face to face) all my friends in this course from different countries around the world. The topics given in the first week is really fun. Self introduction of each student, discussing the ground rules and guidelines and rubrics which was very effective in its use to regulate the flow of discussion to be more efficient and effective, and ultimately creating a blog that is a reflection for the users. Thanks to my instructor, Donna Shaw, who has introduced me to other things where it could improve my teaching skills, and also thanks to all friends for sharing ideas, thoughts and culture. I agree with Angel, one of my friend in this course, in his first blog post that said ‘this is a challenging and tough week’. It really makes me to run fast. 

     There are some amazing things here that I find and learn when I create a blog. As it says in an article provided by the instructor 'Blogging for ELT' that this is one of the easiest ways to publish student writing on the WWW . I totally agree because I’ve applied that idea on my students. It provides a real audience for their writing, extra reading practice and also it can be an online journal for them and especially for me. It is very interesting reading for English teachers who want to increase their teaching skills through a blog. (I really recommend it). I used to use an email in providing students' assignments, but it sometimes made me confused because it didn’t seem work. Most of the students rarely open their email. With this idea of blog I can use a blog to convey an idea or task for my students. They can go directly to the blog, read the instructions and download assignments there as well as the website provided by the online course that I follow. Although I still have a little knowledge in this regard, I must continue to try and learn. It never hurts to always learn the positive things. I believe it.

Thanks to you all. Thank you for this new experience.

Any comments and suggestions are welcome.