Week 10 (New beginning)

Well. I just have to say THANKS! to the US Embassy and University of Oregon, for this great opportunity.
I have made 20 new friends =).  Technology makes people get closer.
 During these 10 wonderful weeks, we have discovered a whole new world that made us reflect upon what we have been doing in our teaching practice and how tech tools can help us improve our students performance in English!. It is not about using ICT tools to be innovative but also how to be better teachers.

Maybe some of us had some experience bringing technology into our classrooms but I can be sure that none  had ever experienced so many ways to combine and fed from many different teaching points of view. and that´s what I have to be thankful for.

Teaching means lifelong learning, so let´s keep working and leaning, this is not the end, instead this is a new beginning=)

Thanks Webkills for making my first 2012 months so meaningful and worthy to live for =)

Yours,

Yohimar from Venezuela!

Week 9 (Projects)

Well, during this week we had to improve our projects and upload to the wiki the final version. A no so busy week since I did my best during last week to do a good draft, so I just had to make some changes after my partners feedback.

The course is almost over and I feel really satisfied with the process and final products. From 20 participants, 19 have finished and added their projects into our wiki . It means we did it people =)

During this week we also discussed about learning styles and multiple intelligences, Gardner´s theory.
 they are:
* words (linguistic intelligence)
* numbers or logic (logical-mathematical intelligence)
* pictures (spatial intelligence)
* music (musical intelligence)
* self-reflection (intrapersonal intelligence)
* a physical experience (bodily-kinesthetic intelligence)
* a social experience (interpersonal intelligence), and/or
* an experience in the natural world. (naturalist intelligence)

We had to focus on applying this theory to the learning and teaching of English using tech tools. I proposed different online tools that can be combined to take advantage of each student´s learning style and intelligent, such as facebook, twitter, Vyou, ning among others. 
As you can see, technology expands our horizons about the available teaching tools different than the convencional ones, and that is what I am going to do in my classes from now on. This course gave me the tools to improve my teaching practice and now I feel responsible to be the change in the subject, to try to make things different and overcome all shortcomings and restraints I have in my school.

Still working on my week 9 tasks,

Yohimar

Week 8 (Project draft)

Week 8, a week for hard work!

This week has been really tough for me, catching up with some papers for the MA I started 3 weeks ago,  the project report draft of webskills course and the usual tasks of each week...Not that easy! But, I nailed it :)

During this week, we discussed about online tools applied to teaching practice, especially language teaching. People came up with some suggestions such as skype, LMS, VLEs, blogger, nicenet, ANVILL and some other tools we can use to teach online. I am sure they all work but this should not be just about content but also management of learning. In order for students to have a certain sense of autonomy in their learning, for example, VLEs must have a structure that begins in socializing, passing through interaction until they get personal demostrable competence in what they are learning as Salmon suggests in her model for e-moderation http://www.atimod.com/e-moderating/5stage.shtml

Another important thing about my progress during this week, is that I worked with Marina (Greece) and Orquidia (Venezuela) checking our project report draft. We gave really good feedback concerning our reports. It is nice to learn from each other to improve our products from this amazing course.We are doing our best and helping one another to make perfect project reports

Well, actually I am so excited to achieve this first 2012 promise! The E-teacher scholarship program gave me a great opportunity to get updated and become a better teacher!

Still having a blast in this course,

Yohimar

Week 7 (Keep on changing)

Hi my dear followers!

The end is getting closer:)

Wow week 7 and almost starting week 8.

During this week we have been discussing about learning autonomy as well as One computer classroom. I took part in both discussions. I would like to share an article which seems to be pretty interesting when talking about learner´s autonomy Click here

Concerning my project I am glad to be worning with Orquidia and Marina to give us support on our projects and help each other. My report is no ready yet but by wednesday 29 it should be finished (hope so hehe)

I started working on my google site  editing home page as well the teacher´s description. My students took a look of it last friday when I brought my computer to the classroom to show them the site, They just loved it and are excited to start learning online too:)

Still catching up with some tasks,

Yohimar

Week 6 (Starting to change)

Time to implement the change!

My idea of a project is to provide more listening practice outside and inside classroom. So far, I have thought of youtube videos and a google site. 

 Well, I started this week by  asking  my students to bring me a DVD in which I will burn a movie called "If only". They will watch the movie at home since we do not have a TV or DVD player at the language lab. Then, after carnival holidays, they will discuss in class details about the story.

After they have watched the movies like twice or three times at home. I will upload to youtube some shots from the movie, in order to embed them later as html code in the google site I have created to develop my project. This will be dedicated to listening activities for my English I class. Of course, the site is still in progress.

Still thinking about more new ideas but that´s what I done so far :)

Yohimar

Week 5

Week 5, halfway of the course! and great progress in our projects!

During this week we had the chance to review a complete different view about assessment!

Alternative assessment  is directly related to our students ways of learning, their strategies and styles which teachers have to consider when working on tasks or projects! That is, through an exam, written or oral, is not the only way we have to assess learning. We can give learners the opportunity to be involve in the process of assessment and learning. It´s about working in teams, teachers, student and peers! they learn one from each other.


But, how can we do that? Project based learning is the best way, they work all term long to accomplish different tasks that are part of a project. And the most appropiate way to review learning goals is by using a rubric.

I created a rubric in Rubistar, you can take a look at my oral presentation rubric

I was so excited because I could use it in my class this week. Although it was another topic still an oral presentation and I used the same rubric I had created in the site proposed in the course.

Look at the picture of one of my students doing her oral presentation

Week 4

One more week,

and the learning experiences are even better! this week we are working on lesson plans enhancing technology especially for teaching vocabulary, reading and writing. I love activities for developing these skills.

That is what I like and do the most in my English classes. During this week, I am checking multi-skills websites like Activities for ESL students related to colors and months of the year!  I would use them to promote practice outside the classroom, which is my students need!

Reading and writing are the foundation of any communicative purpose we can have in our classes. In my lessons, my students read short stories everyday and homework is basically focused on writing compositions about topics related to their daily life...That´s why, when preparing my first lesson class for webskills winter course, I proposed PENZU  this is for writing and sharing diaries or journals. This is great to develop writing and reading skills. You can check it at Yohima´s lesson plan

Still working on week 4 activities,

Yohimar:)

Week 3

I love web 2.0 and during week 3 we have started to explore web 2.0 tools such as delicious! I find it really useful especially when researching. Sometimes, we feel overwhelmed because of a lot of sites and information we find on the web, but now we can get organized, survey pages, save the important ones to eventually read what is really worthy for our purposes! So, isn´t it amazing?

I used to save my favorites on my computer but now I think it´s no useful, got to bring my PC everywhere :/ So with delicious I can access my bookmarks wherever I go without having to start searching all over again! :)

Besides, I can share my pages and help some other people on the web!

It´s great that this course gave me a shout out to remind me about this amazing tool! I had forgotten it!

During this week we are also working on lesson plans concerning aural/oral skills! I love Larry Ferlazzo´s blog! he is an edublog winner and I have learned a lot checking all the sites and tools he proposed! really nice resource for this week reading material:)

Still cathing up with my week 3 tasks xD keep you posted guys :)

Yohimar

Week 2 (In progress)

Well, now it is time to talk about week 2. hmmm so far, I have just completed one post in the first discussion thread, it means I already checked the noodletools and tried some search engines.

I must say, the tools I tried do not cover my expectations so far, at least, not for my purposes. Of course, I have to continue practicing and reading more about all of them. I am kind of lazy right now and I just tried sweetsearch, iseek and surfwax and I still prefer google xD. Mr know-it-all google hehehe...Altough, sweetsearch, as it offers background of topics, gives short, concise and essential information that may help people that is just looking for concepts, definition or the big picture of the topic. That´s what I liked the most.

Even though, I think this week content is pretty important for teachers applying ICT tools to their teaching practice since a good use of search engines might enable us a good selection of resources, content and information to design materials, digital resources or even digital courses.

Still working on my week 2 task, so keep you posted people...xD

Week 1

Hi there,

I got to say, I have been so anxious about really starting blogging. I used to have some blogs but no so much on them...So, this is a great start for me! =)

During this week, I have interacted with people who are far far away from my country, but, It´s nice to realize we have similar points of view concerning teaching!
I have also explored more functions of this blog application that maybe new, or at least, I din not know how to use them.

I am really excited about all what is coming in this course. To start, Nicenet is completely new for me because I am used to working with moodle courses...So, let´s see what it has for me =)