Week 9 - Tecnology Continues with Styles

This is my style.  What is yours?

" Technology and technology tools can help provide a range of experiences in the classroom that adress different learning style" (Donna Shaw)

     This week we were given an assignment to read about learning styles and multiple intelligences and discuss about them in nicenet, as usual. I found that there are so many interesting parts and realize that those are important parts of effective teaching to understand different learning styles. Howard Gardner of Harvard University has currently identified 9 intelligences. In his article, he assures that we can help students become more successful by understanding student's strengths and weaknesses in each intelligence. So that's why he developed the list as a theoritical model about the physology of the mind and fortunately "Frame of Mind" is his book's title.

     I really like the words that Howard uses for describing people in each intelligence. Word, number, picture, body, self, social, nature and wondering people are used in the article. It really gives me the big picture of them. The point is how to connect these intelligences with technology and to make our students become more autonomous learner. The most important key is to provide them the most effective learning environment.  In another article by Richard M. Felder, he writes about learning styles and strategies. He provides strategies for different learners. I strongly suggest that you must read the articles. They are very amazing!!!.

A TREMENDOUS LAB

I am introduced with a free Course Management System (CMS) developed by Jeff Magoto, director of the University of Oregon's Yamada Language Center, who willingly participated in discussion in nicenet this week and introduced us to an outstanding program. This is a modern web-based replacement for the audio and video consoles of old. It's called ANVILL (A National Virtual Language Lab. Any teachers or students with web access can use this to listen to the news, watch video clips, or submit voice or video-based assignments. If we want to use this tool, we just need internet connection, a microphone or webcam, a modern browser, and Adobe's Flash Player. To be honest, This tool is really amazing. It has Voiceboards, Forums, Livechat, quizzes and surveys, and Lesson Planning Templates. This is always be free to qualified educators. I didn't explore this tool further but I have had an account on this as a student. Lucky me!

FINAL CREATION

As I wrote in my last post on blog that I made a plan report draft for my future class, I had to finish that report this week. This was easy to complete my draft because I just got help from my partner on this report. Juan Pacheco is my partner who helped me to correct my plan. He gave me a feedback of this report and I took an easy part to finish my report. Thanks to him. I also gave him a feedback for his plan report. I guess it was not a good feedback but I tried my best to help him. His report is perfect and I think it will make his class and students become more attractive and effective. He is the best of all and I'm glad to know him. He is a professional teacher. 

     This week was really gorgeous. I'm thankful knowing the new tool and style of learning. It makes me more careful to choose materials for my students. It gives me some new experiences in learning and teaching. Like I said before that I will always try providing the most effective learning environment for my students. I'm really glad, but I felt sad in the other hand. I missed an important part of this week. I didn't join the webinar yesterday because of my stupidity. Yeah.. that was my incapability of getting information. I felt really terrible on this. I hope next time I should be carefull. I will not miss a single thing again of assingments. That's a promise to myself.
 
     Finally I just want to say my greatfulness to Donna, Jeff and my colleagues for their wonderful thoughts and ideas. They are really amazing people. 

Husni

Week 8 - Plan, Share and Report it!

What Are You Going to Do with Online Resources?

      This online course has been running for 7 weeks, and at this time I was in the week 8. In fact, it's still 2 weeks left. It’s really a memorable trip, although it was difficult in the previous weeks. My instructor, Donna Shaw, said and assured us that the next 2 weeks will be easy and I can feel it. There are no many readings and there is plenty of time to work on and complete the task. At least, that's what I feel and think. It feels like I just started this online course yesterday. I hope that I can join this online course again in the future. I’ve got lots of things and experiences and it can unconsciously improve the quality of my teaching in English.

PLAN or PROJECT DRAFT SHARING

       This is the week of creating a project or plan report draft. This is the first step that I took; I chose to make a plan report because I do not have class at this time. Unfortunately, the class that I described in the previous week ended two weeks ago, so creating a plan report is my choice. The more important thing is the plan that I created will be shared to my partner, Juan Pacheco, that has to be read and given feedback at the end of this week. I did the same thing on his plan report. The feedback is in a form of checklist. I am not saying that I made the correct plan, but I have tried to create a better draft. Juan’s plan report draft is very clear and leads to what he plans. His draft was so good and I think that’s the draft that has been created by a professional teacher. Yes, Juan is a professional instructor. I thank to him that has helped me to improve my draft which is still not good enough.

THAT'S MY CHOICE

     My next step is exploring technology tools. No reading this time. I was asked to explore all of technology tools that is provided in the website page. The task would be to use one of them to create online class website, exercise, or tool for my class. Nicenet, Blogger, Padlet, Google Sites are the tools that we're supposed to explore. There are also lots of exercises that can be created and used for the class such as word search, bingo, crossword puzzle, board game, multiple choice, etc. I have to confess that this available online resources is like treasures that I've just found. That's an incredible thing. Needless to say, I chose padlet for my online tool's task this week. Like I said in my previous post, Padlet is an online posterboard. The students can share the projects, websites, videos, and even articles. As I write in my plan report draft, I will use this tool (Padlet) for my class in order to students can see and download their assignments. There will be some tasks that I'll upload in my padlet page. So I hope this tool will work for me and my students. I hope they will learn autonomously in the future. 

     This is what I can share to you this week. Thanks to my instructor Donna that has been patient in guiding us to pass through this course and other colleagues that have spared their time to share ideas in facebook messenger and in App called viber. I really enjoy this. This will be my wonderful experience. Please, always keep in touch with each other.

Husni