Week 8 : The Adventure of Mrs.Loytalay!

I would like to use the following quotes for my Week 8 Task-"...But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep." - Robert Frost, and “A project

 is complete when it starts working for you, rather than you working for it.” Also, “Done is better than perfect.”- Scott Allen as they both describe my situation when I was working on the most important Task of completing my Project report/Plan report. I was responsible for not being more careful with my time and not getting myself prepared to do it since the first week of the course. Additionally, my week very difficult with the tight schedules at school and the extra duties that I am responsible for. I enjoy the way Donna had us finding a partner so we could meet new people. My partner, Zenaide, was very kind to welcome me to join her, despite my students being in grade 9, and hers study as university freshmen. As a result, I can say that this course has promoted learner autonomy in me. Also, learning online, we had produced a lot of discussions, and created new technology tools for our project reports and plan reports.

by having the time limited for this task, I learnt how to create the plan report within a deadline. Additionally, I have learnt how to be a kind instructor when students have a problem, and require my help. I have learnt how to use new technology tools, but discovered that it was difficult to decide which one I enjoy using the most. The new technology tools that I decided to use were WebQuests with Patlet. Therefore, my students will learn from these techniques, and do the activities appropriately. I think it will work well with my students because it is a new experience, and thus they will enjoy it. Moreover, I decided to upload the draft for my plan report an hour before the due time. However, I found that many colleagues were trying to upload their reports too. Nevertheless, I uploaded my draft successfully and then I felt happy and relaxed.

We have one more week to complete our reports.  I have to be careful providing a clear and concise explanation and creating tasks in WebQuests. This is vital so that my students would be able to work on it easily. 

Donna has reminded us that the course is drawing to the end, so this made me very sad. I think back to the start of the course, and recognise that we have enjoyed learning so many useful things. I accepted friend requests and the invitation suggested from our Yellowgroup colleagues immediately when I saw the familiar names on my Facebook.  I would like to give a special thanks to Husni for starting our warm connection for our group. But please don’t forget to invite Donna to join us too!

Week 7 : One-Computer Classroom & Mobile Devices

I started this week quite slow as it was the first week back to school after a long vacation and since starting this marvelous course.

The readings for this week were very interesting. They were about Learner Autonomy and One-Computer Classroom & Mobile Devices.  Our instructor was so kind to let us choose only one topic for discussion and I did the second one. Consequently, I read the articles suggested on the web course - http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic84.htm. It is said, “Although many schools have computer labs, portable laptops, and multiple classroom computers, many classrooms are still dealing with a single computer in the classroom.” Unfortunately my classroom is still dealing with a single computer. However, I have a laptop and a projector which all staff in the English Department share for their classes. The website has suggested about what the teacher and the student use and their roles. After that- http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech092.shtml and http://www.susangaer.com/sgaer/onecomputer/wordprocessing.html by Susan Gaer who has suggested group projects, Quick Individual Project for the lab, larger Individual projects for the one computer classroom. Two other websites I accessed was http://www.llt.msu.edu/issues/june2011/emerging.pdf and http://edvista.com/claire/pres/iphoneapps/. Fortunately, my daughter-Froid came to visit my grade 12 class with her British friend. They used a mobile phone to teach listening and speaking in the classroom. I was glad to see my students were participating and enjoying the class so much.

Then it was fun to post anything we like on Donna’s Padlet- the free application which was known formerly as Wallwisher. Now I have my own Padlet that I can make into an online bulletin board that can display information for any topic. I can add images, links, and videos to this marvelous application.

Then I posted on Nicenet-Task 6, Find a Partner, my partner was Zenaide from Brazil. She was very generous to invite me to be her partner to share our project/plan reports. Zenaide is a university teacher whom is very intelligent and I am a secondary school teacher, therefore I felt intimidated. Zenaide said our students have a similar profile, which I agree with. we decided to post our names and emails on the Yellow Group Wiki- Project/Plan Partner Sign-up page so we could converse easily. 

Donna has insisted on sharing our draft project or plan report with each other by Wednesday, May 28. The final draft of our project is due on Friday, June 6.  I am currently working hard on my first draft now. I hope that my partner and all the Yellow Group colleagues enjoy working on their draft projects/plans reports.

Yaowapa 

Thailand

Week 6 : Large class and Interactive Power Point Presentation

Readings on Week 6 were about Technology Tools for Creating Student-Centered Classes, which included large Classes. I read the workshop handout written by Rick Finnan and Donna Shaw: the higher education development Project, which was about Teaching Large Classes II - Enhancing Learning by Engaging Students. It was about the  problems with large lecture-style classes, the definition of teaching and learning, Enhancing lecture classes which collaboration in the form of small group activities work well with.  Then I have learnt about Interactive PowerPoint Presentation. I had never known or learnt before that one can convert a power point to an interactive presentation that can be viewed online and on-demand by students, colleagues, peers, and administrators. 

The jasmine rice fields in Chumphonburi/Surin

The Task Donna  set  for Yellow group is to create one the Interactive Power Point  which can be a ConcepTest, QuickWrite, hyperlinks/jumps to other sections of the PPT show based on student responses, blank slides to shift attention, a game, a quiz, think-pair-share,  Jeopardy game or interactive story, etc. by using information from the optional readings.  Knowing myself that I am not good at this, I visited several websites and watched  slide shows on youtube about the instruction and some advice of the experts of creating something on the list and decided to create a quiz which seems not too complicated much for me and that I can use it to promote about my province. So I did visit the following websites-http://www.adobeforacademics.com/tutorials/527, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVpquBe7auQ, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UssuI0mY6RI,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdzdPCHqD5w. I made my first quiz by using the Interactive powerpoint on Windows10 at home and uploaded it to the Yellowgroup Wiki.  

To be sure that my Quiz was still there, I accessed the Webskills Online Course again from my school and found that it works well on window7 too.  I only have to wait for the pointing sign (hand) appeared before clicking. Wow! I like it a lot. This tool will be used along with the  WebQuests from Week5 on my project report too. Thank you a lot to the Webskills team for introducing this to us.

Learning online with Webskill Course has made me miss the quotes- "A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." -Lao-Tsu,  "People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success." -Norman Vincent Peale. So just start, then we will learn. 

That was the adventure of mine on Week 6.

The English Resource and Instruction Centre Network Training Program 2014 at Mahasarakham

Yaowapa

Thailand

Week 5 : PBL,Rubric,Alternative Assessment,and WebQuest

Week 5 readings were about  Project-Based Learning (PBL), Alternative Assessment and rubrics, WebQuests. After looking through the web course, I started to design the RubiStar, but then I got confused for almost 4 hours. At first it was quite easy and I felt so confident selecting the criteria for my first own rubric. Unfortunately, I could not upload my link to the rubric page in our group wiki as it had disappeared. However, My first two early -bird- colleagues, Juan and Bathiam, had uploaded theirs already, therefore I became worried and concerned. So, I clicked to view theirs and found that only the top parts of the rubrics were showing, while mine had disappeared together with my RubiStar account.  I then re-read the direction at  RubiStar Instructions on the web course, and discovered that I had to save the file as a permanent rubric so that it would be saved for one week. As a result, my Week 5 first post was my first rubric. I would like to give a very special thanks to Donna and the Webskills team for introducing us to this tool.  I believe this tool is very useful for teachers to use for grading their student’s work and assignments. and for students to enhance their learning. This is the first time I have learnt to create my own rubrics. To be honest, before learning the Webskills course,  I just used the rubrics in the text manual. I was surprised how the creator made this brilliant tool, and now I know how to create my own one.

Following with the readings about PBL on  http://www.ncsall.net/index.html@id=385.html-
“Less Teaching and More Learning” by Susan Gaer.  The author commented that using a project-based approach has helped motivate students to learn language for a purpose.  The methodology promotes building a community among the class members. The instruction in project-based learning is less direct than in a traditional class, and students develop language and literacy skills by working on a product that will exist beyond the classroom walls. The author concluded that there are three crucial elements to success. Firstly, The project must be geared to the population, next, the students must see value in a project, and finally,  be flexible to use outside of the classroom.  Furthermore, I had accessed  another websites for additional readings, for instance;  http://www.sun-associates.com/lynn/pbl/pbl.html ,  http://elearningfacultymodules.org/index.php/Project-Based_Learning , and also  http://pennstate.swsd.wikispaces.net/file/view/PBL-Primer-www_techlearning_com.pdf. Then I read about “What is Learner Autonomy and How can    It Be Fostered” on http://iteslj.org/Articles/Thanasoulas-Autonomy.html. Then followed by the alternative assessment, which was prepared on the web course; http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/assessing/alternative.htm, http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/tannen01.html. When I finished reading those articles,     I moved on to  Zunal  and designed my first WebQuest about the recent Earthquake in Thailand. I then uploaded the picture at http://www.bangkokpost.com/multimedia/photo/408382/damage-from-the-chiang-rai-quake. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to make my WebQuest look more appealing. This was due to several readings I had to do, and the SWOT with all staff at my school was an important event for me to attend also. However, I worked hard to add some detail on my work, and then uploaded it to show my instructors that I could make my own WebQuests. Nevertheless, it is important to create the perfect WebQuest for extra credits on this task, therefore I must strive to achieve this goal. Moreover, it is wonderful to be introduced to this valuable tool, so I will carry on using it in the future. After reading the short introduction on the Week 5, and the prepared articles, I quickly realised that WebQuests is a form of PBL that follows a fairly specific pattern. And which the teacher can create the task statement and designates or furnishes the resources. The learners work in groups and have a specific product, while the teacher produces an evaluation in the form of a rubric. This rubric is for students to use as they are doing their project, and for teacher, as well as self-evaluation when it is finished. It is important to be careful when using WebQuests, since it will be my new tool to use in the classroom. This tool has the potential not only to solve the students problems, but also to encourage them to become more autonomous learners.

The first discussion set for yellow group by Donna and Kelly states, “How can rubrics, alternative assessment and project based learning encourage your students to become more autonomous learners?  according to this, all the Week 5 readings I had mentioned above seemed to be created directly to work well with autonomous learners.  Since the Project-based learning is known as the dynamic approach to teaching, which students explore real-world problems and challenges and simultaneously develop cross-curriculum skills while working in small collaborative groups, as it was identified at http://susangaer.com/studentprojects.  While alternative assessment methods work well in learner-centered classrooms, which are based on the idea that students can evaluate their own learning, and learn from the evaluation process . They are expected to participate actively with evaluating themselves and one another, however many students are not active for this in my school. The effective alternative assessment relies on observations that are recorded using checklists and rubrics.  A checklist simply provides an indication of whether a specific criterion, characteristic, or behavior is present, and a rubric provides a measure of quality of performance on the basis of established criteria. Rubrics are often used with benchmarks or samples that serve as standards against which student performance is judged- http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/assessing/alternative.htm. The teacher herself will create her lesson on WebQuest where students are given a task and provided with access to on-line resources to help them complete the task-http://www.tach-nology.com/tutorials/web-quests/.

With the reasons above, I think WebQuests, can help me encourage my students to become more autonomous learners. They can access the internet at the technology room or at home to study, and therefore do the tasks on their own. They can access the teacher's WebQuests and study carefully from Introduction, Task, Process,Resources, and Evaluation. The students have to study the rubric carefully and make sure they understand it well so that they know what they will be scored on before they manage to complete the tasks. 

When describing a new tool for solving my students' problem, I think WebQuests is the right device to use for me and my students. My students have poor listening and speaking skills, so they need to solve this by practicing outside of the classroom. I had sketched the lesson on WebQuests on Zunal already at http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=244046.  

Furthermore, I found that with 5 essential parts: introduction, task, process, resources, evaluation, and conclusion with guidance on each element makes WebQuests easy for a new user to follow and use. I think my students can access WebQuests easily too inside and outside of the classroom. They can do collaborative work and follow the instruction step by step, and they can assess themselves by using the rubrics prepared by their teacher. WebQuests may become the new technology tools for my final project if Donna does not introduce something more intresting. 

Yaowapa 

Thailand

Week 4: Skill-building Websites for Reading/Writing Skills and Technology-enhanced Lesson Plans

My first task for Week 4 was to read the internet TESL journal created by Jarek Krajka from Stefan Batory Pallottine Secondary School (Lublin,Poland).  The author concluded that there are three elements of on-line lessons, which are used while teaching most of the writing genres, but in different ways and for different purposes. Moreover he suggested 11 reading and writing activities for teachers to use along with technology in order to enhance lesson plans, for instance; A Letter to a Friend, A Formal Letter, A Biography, A Description of a Person, An Argumentative Essay (Both For and Against), Notices and Advertisements, A Description of a Festival of Ceremony, A Description or Review of a Book, Film or Play, A Newspaper Report, A Personal Opinion Essay, A Description of a Place. Each activity was suggested with the website (s) where the readers can access and study further. One last suggestion before he wrapped up his journal was that the Web should not be used all the time, or the Web materials only, but rather a teacher should enrich lessons with the Net component when it is really profitable for students and could help them in their learning. I agree. While reading I accessed the websites he mentioned on each activity and found that those websites are useful for teachers  too, for instance;   www.marlo.com/card.htm , www.eun.org , www.amnesty.org , http://www.panda.org/home.cfm , http://www.imdb.com/ , www.telegraph.co.uk http://www.ohiou.edu/esl/project/index.html ,etc.  (I would  add these website in my Delicious website after finishing editing my Week 4 blog.) I occasionally spent time on referencing websites, since I enjoy learning from them, and want to maintain a note of them for the future. Some of my friends like to use the Notices and Advertisements in their classes. I would like to apply some of them to work with my students too.

Exploring Web 2.2 : Tools for Classroom Teaching and Professional Development
Michael Krauss

I also read "Three Extensive Reading Activities for ESL/EFL Students Using E-books" by Mei-Ya Liang on http://iteslj.org/Lessons/Liang-ExtensiveReading.html . The author presented the lesson plan for the online extensive reading for her intermediate and advanced ESL/EFL students, which is very interesting, but it might be too difficult for my students.  Last but not least I took a quick look through "E-mailing to Improve EFL Learners" Reading and Writing Abilities : Taiwan Experience by Chao-Chih Liao, Feng China University (Taichung Taiwan) on http://iteslj.org/Articles/Liao-Emailing.html . I enjoy reading about his communication activities via emails. By this method, students have an opportunity to practice writing and learning his/her pen pal's culture too.  I have a pen pal too, she was studying medicine in Israel in 1987. It was so amazing that one of her classmates was the doctor from the same city as me.  Something different is that we wrote in a letter and it took several days before receiving each other's letter. She has moved to work and live with her family in the USA, but we still send postcards to each other every Christmas. Wow! What a long  beautiful  relationship! Nowadays it is easier and faster when students communicate with friends via the internet instead.

http://www.confessionsofapsychotichousewife.com/2012/05/giveaway-pen-pal-kids-club.html

After reading about technology-enhanced lesson plans,  I have created a technology-enhanced lesson plan by using the format shown on the web course, and share it to the lesson plan page in my group's wiki.  Although I have create my own lesson plans all my life, I still have to spend  many hours or several days doing the research and reading. A key difference from my old style lesson plan is that the ABCD Objectives has been used; the technology alternative  in case things do not work as planned including with Learning styles have been used for creating the lesson plan too. These will make my lesson plan easy to read and understand.

My blog would be edited by myself day by day. Thank you a lot to all my classmates for our precious discussion and your helpful minds. I love working with you all.

Meeting with the science teachers.

Yaowapa

Thailand