End of chapter 1...

Last week. For the first time I am going to post a picture, following my colleague Amjad. It represents how I feel at this point. I have already walked a lot towards my objectives, but there is still a lot ahead of me.


As I reflect about the last weeks, there are some considerations I must do. I’ll put them in a list, as Andreja uses to do.

1) I loved having this reflective blog! Although it was the last task I completed, it normally was the most pleasant, and I really want to keep this habit. I am going to keep this blog and resurrect another I created for another course;

2) I need to develop my “distance-learning skills” a lot! I am still very used to face-to-face discussions. But I have one characteristic when writing – I tend to be very objective. I haven’t come to a conclusion if it is a good or bad characteristic for online courses;

3) I have managed to implement some small changes in my teachers’ group. I taught them how to create a blog (they are not blogging very often yet, but this is the next step), I created a site for the English group, for sharing documents and links, following our wiki sample, I have been able to share many of the interesting sites I have seen throughout this course – teachers seem to be very motivated about these novelties;

4) I rediscovered many things, I was a bit rusty in some aspects. The ABCD format for pedagogical objectives is similar to what I was used to see, but easier to apply. The development of lesson plans and projects – I mean, the task of thinking about all the steps, and writing it down – helped me to organize my ideas. I am quite an active person, and normally tend to do more than one thing at a time. Being forced to put everything on the paper (plans, ideas, reflections, comments) seemed a waste of time at first, but helped me a lot. It is funny that only now, exactly at this moment, I realize this.

5) As I did not have students to test my project, my task was double, since I had to think about all the “what ifs” as Deborah and Sandra said. Again, a new personal skill was developed. Planning is hard, deciding a plan B, and sometimes the plan C, is even much more difficult.

Concluding. When I applied for this course, I had two main objectives. First was to add more knowledge about the use of web and technology resources in teaching and learning, which is a subject that enchants me. My second objective was to understand how an online course must be prepared, organized, developed. I had had another experience before, but let’s say it was not so intense. I used it as a comparison pattern. My intention is to become able to design online workshops and courses in the future. But what I got from this experience is much, much more than I planned. And it was great. I am sure I could have done even more, and I hope I have the opportunity of doing so.

Thanks Sandra! Thanks Deborah! Thanks to all my colleagues! This is not an end, this is the “commencement” of the second chapter. I hope you stop by sometime, leaving comments, suggestions, or at least a “hi”.

See you soon

Marcia

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Not fiction, reality...

One more week and it is over. I cannot deny I am feeling a kind of relief. I feel as if now I will be able to explore all the things that have been "passing in front of my eyes"... It is like a film we watch and like a lot, but then we have to watch it againg to listen to the dialogues with more attention, sing the theme song along, find out the details of the climax scene...

I have completed my project and it seems more real to me now. Even though I have not tested it in real, I can say that I have thought about itso much, the possible results and the necessary changes and adaptations, that I feel as if I had tested it in classroom, more than once. And added to this, the best product of this week was that I created a wiki page for my teachers' group, for sharing ideas and materials. It has already started well, with additions by other teachers. I was expecting this to happen only next week, since I had not introduced it formally to them, I had only sent the online invitation. I am delighted with the infinite possibilities that are about to become real.

Finally, I have to congratulate our tutors for the project peer correction task! It was amazing. All the elements were so integrated (the checlist and the rubric) that our task was more like a complement of our own project. I "corrected" (if I can say so) Roland's project, but I was in fact evaluating mine. This was a great experience, that I intend to put into practice in my courses and classes. The objectiveness of the rubric also deserves my applause. Besides this, this task made us feel closer to our fellows, it created a friendship atmosphere.

Thanks to Roland for his help with my project. I am sure there is still a lot to add, but it is the first step. I am sure it is much more a real project now.

Marcia

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... aiming for the stars...

As I was not able to post in my blog last week, I decided to add some reflections to this week’s posting. There were some things that seemed very interesting for me about last week readings, and I cannot avoid making reference to them.


First of all, I just loved the text Teaching Naked: Why Removing Technology from Your Classroom Will Improve Student Learning (http://ctl.stanford.edu/Tomprof/postings/786.html). It may sound controversial to have an e-course on webskills and say that I am fan of a text which title says to remove internet from the classroom. At first that sounded weird to me too. But after reading the text, I saw that the point the author want to state is that the good management of our class time includes using only what is necessary in class, leaving things that can be done by the students individually, as a preparation or complement of the lesson, like using the net, for example. That leads to our topic this week, which is autonomy. I am also very fan of it, keep telling my colleagues, we must teach our students how to learn, then they will learn by themselves. If we do not give them the tools they need, we cannot ask results from them. For example, if our students have never been taught how to search words in the dictionary and find the best definition or synonym for a word, how can we give them an exercise that requires this and expect them to do it?

I wrote in my application for this course that I “strongly believe that the key to work with many students in class is to motivate and teach them to work alone, so that they become independent, and responsible for their learning”. We have to want them to become active, keeping in mind that this does not make us totally passive, but in a different acting position.

Now, I would like to address here a comment Sandra Jeffs did when commenting on a colleague’s posting this week: “We must have good classroom management, motivate students, teach our curriculum, and notice all the subtlies happening with and between our students, etc. Teachers are blamed for a great deal of perceived deficiencies in education. So, are we teachers "super people?"If we think we are "super people" are we setting ourself up for problems when things don't go "perfectly?"

Well, I don’t think we are super people. What I have seen in my teaching life is that we want this label when things are great, but we deny it totally when things don’t work well. And I totally agree with Sandra, since she herself gave an extraordinary answer, saying that “we teachers need to keep our feet on the ground, while at the same time aim for the stars”.

I am surely aiming for the stars, as well as this group and all the other unique teachers I was lucky enough to meet in my life.

Special regards for Roland, for sharing his project with me and for his great words about mine. Thanks!

Marcia

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Learning issues...

First of all, I could say that some aspects of the introduction of the article “Enhancing Learning by Engaging Students” by Finnan and Shaw, support most of the discussions we have had so far, since the beginning of our course. The authors say that the aim of teaching is to “transform students from passive recipients of other people’s knowledge into active constructors of their own and other’s knowledge”, and this is the key issue I have been trying to address since I started researching and studying about how to improve our students’ learning. I strongly believe that the students we have in our classrooms nowadays are not motivated by everlasting lectures, or the idea that the teacher is the owner of all knowledge. Therefore, there is an emergent need for new tools to help teachers and students to feel comfortable in this novel way of teaching and learning, each of us in new roles in the process: teachers as helpers, guides, advisors, and students as actors.


The other assigned reading, “Using Learning Styles to Adapt Technology for Higher Education”, by Terry O’Connor, inspired lots of reflections about the topic. First of all, the author says that “for educators, the question is not simply one of trainable skills or attitudes, but recognizing that people who have fundamentally different instincts are in the classroom”. And added, “They are unlikely (or unable) to be successful when limited to activities that are not compatible with the attitudes they bring into the learning situation”. This thought is totally connected to the point that we must know our students so that our lesson planning addresses their expectations, needs, so that learning effectively happens during the class or during the course.

I feel very comfortable to say that these theories can echo all around the world, since all my colleagues in this e-course share the same opinion, that we, teachers, need to think in our students, and change our classes to fit this new generation.

In the next post I will talk a little about the way I see and feel technology in relation to these aspects.



Thanks for the attention, and I am waiting for comments!

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Teacher training experience

I have always been a great fan of technology, computers, internet, games, etc. Today I found out there is a term for that, I don't know if it is used in other countries. This generation that is totally connected to these gadgets is called geek. There it is, I found myself. Of course I am not an expert. I still have so much to learn, but I use to tell my friends that I am not afraid of trying, and normally read the Help files. This is the recipe of my technology knowledge.

Last week, I had a great experience I want to share. About 4 years ago I took a course about Web Tools, but mainly related to iEarn. Since then I have tried to apply some of the things I learned in my classes, and to share this with my colleagues in my school. Not everyone was as interested as I was.

Last year I had the opportuniy of taking part in the ILEP program, also sponsored by the US State Department, and during the 5 months I stayed in Kentucky, one of our mandatory subjects was Technology applied to Teaching. Lots more of resources were made available, and again, my desire of sharing it with others became stronger. I simply can't avoid. It is a kind of mission I have to accomplish, teacher formation, or training, is something I would really like to develop.

Back to Brazil, I intented to develop a workshop or training sessions, basically about web tools and resources, but again, don't ask me why, it was not possible. I took an online course here, offered by a teacher formation center in Brasilia, where I live, but it was very short, and dealt only with blogs and their use in teaching. To be sincere, this course was very superficial, I can see now. Time was very restricted.

Finally, I got to this group. And things have started very well this year. In the planning week that preceeded the beginning of classes, we had a lot of meetings, and one of them was mine! I was invited to present a small session about webskills, or internet resources, to my coleagues. As our group is very varied in terms of computer/internet skills, I had to choose some points. I taught them something about templates in Office programs (Word, Power Point and Excel), gave a small lesson about iGoogle (page agregator) and finally introduced blogs to them. At the end of the session, most of the teachers had created their own blogs, and we had the opportunity of sharing ideas on how to use blogs in classes.

It was the first step. There are more to come. We have already decided that we are going to set other sessions to continue this "training". I am sure all the ideas and suggestions that I have seen throught this course will enrich even more my sharing with my teachers here. And at the end, there is only one objetive: enhancing our students' learning.

That is all, for now!!!!!!

Marcia

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Week 6 - part I

One more week is over. This was a hard week, since I started in school and we had a smaller week due to Carnival holiday. The course has been providing so many interesting things for us to read, reflect, and try to implement, I will need twice the time of the course to be able to get at least 70% of all the resources we have.


I started this week a little frustrated, since I tried to create my WebQuest in GardenQuest, but did not succeed. It seemed my browser version was not supported, but I upgraded my IE to version 8.0. It did not work. Anyway, I will try to do it with the other suggested site: Zunal. I have already had lots of ideas to create WebQuests, I am sure they will become great projects. For example, in a semester I worked with a group of Intermediate 3 students, they read “Oliver Twist” and as the final project for this class I suggested the creation of a Newspaper. All the topics discussed in the book became topics for articles, ads, editorials, etc. Unfortunately, the conclusion of the project got a little loose, and now I see that a WebQuest would tie the information, and a rubric would guide the work.

Talking about rubrics, I had already read a lot about it, specially related to oral presentations, since there are some tasks that, in my opinion, are more difficult to be evaluated, or more, graded. Rubrics have always seemed to me as a clear and objective path to guide not only the grading of the students, but also to give them feedback, and to avoid misunderstandings. I have tried them sometimes with my students, even for self-assessment, and the results were very satisfactory.

I am feeling more confident at the end of this week, although last week I got a little sick and thought that everything would go late this week, but I can see the project getting organized now, and even without the opportunity of testing it with real students, I can see that all the tasks are getting connected and adjusted. Step by step, the picture is being completed, and I can already see that the result will be a success. For all of us.

Marcia

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Project Based Learning

This week was not a typical one. First of all, because activities have just started “for real” in school. Than demanded a bigger amount of time, added the fact that I was selected to be the English group coordinator. It gave me a great motivating sense of accomplishment, as well as an enormous load of responsibilities. Our group has been in need for a real group attitude for some time, and working with another colleague, I am sure we will be able to change some things – for better.


Besides this, I fell sick. Although we were on holiday, I did not have energy to do anything. That made me feel terrible, since I did not complete the week tasks on time. I just hope this does not interfere in my evaluation (not the grades, but I would not like to be seen as irresponsible).

Again, loads of things to see, read, and learn. I am more in track now, it seems the project starts to become real. The only problem, for me, is because I won’t be able to test my project with the students, because of the schedule of the school, and also because I won’t have classes this term. But I am so motivated in sharing everything I have been reading and planning with my colleagues. I have already thought of some ideas for using Web Quests, I just have to go into QuestGarden or Zunal and put them into practice. The site seems to be very friendly-user, after I have organized my idea into words and ABCD objectives, I suppose it will be easier to put it into an interesting layout. I intend to add videos and pictures too, because it helps motivating students.

I had already read about Web Quests, and PBL, but I have to assume that there is still a lot to research. The amount of information that is available is amazing. But there is one point that is already clear: working with projects, in a constructivism approach, keeping in mind the cooperative and collaborative aspects that projects imply, is one of the real possibilities to motivate our students. But to start this, I know I have to teach students how to work in groups, and develop a way to keep their motivation throughout the project. Well organized tasks and good orientation will help them in this process.

Marcia (during Carnival!)

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week 4 - planning

I never thought it would be so strange to go back to a complete detailed lesson plan again. I am going to use a citation from the text at http://edtech.tennessee.edu/~bobannon/lesson_plan.html that says that "the extent of the detail will vary depending on the number of years of experience that the teacher has and the number of times he/she has taught the lesson." I can use this explanation for the fact that I was not used to write down my plans anymore, at least not with so much details. Also, since we do use a textbook that has a very detailed and teacher-friendly guide, there is not much left to the teacher. Thinking about the outcomes of the class and the learning styles desired, makes the teaching much more active and conscious. Designing the learning objectives in the ABCD model also made me think a lot about the lessons I have given lately. I did know what I wanted, but it becomes more clear when we state it. Moreover, it becomes easier to tell students what you expect from them, and to define assessment from the plan.

But as I use to say, there is nothing we cannot learn or re-learn. I saw myself in the beginning of my carreer, planning my complete lessons. Now, I intend to take a look at my colleagues' lesson plans, so that I enrich my portfolio of lessons and activities.

See you!

Marcia

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Technology and Skills development

Reading the texts proposed this week was a pleasure for me. They caught my attention so much that I printed them, so that I could underline, circle, put lots of stars and exclamation points. They sound so familiar to me because there is so much I believe expressed in these articles.

I have been interested in teacher training for some time. When I entered my master’s degree course, my research was about the changing aspect in teachers’ beliefs, after they start teaching. Human beings are in constant change, but what makes us change for real. We know that we do not change because another person tells you to do so. Sometimes examples may help, but a person only changes if he/she really decides to. This is similar to the use of technology, or computer assisted language learning (CALL) nowadays. As far as I have seen, there is still a lot of resistance on the use of these tools. I would say that in part it is because teachers are not yet prepared to use technology themselves. But there is another point I would like to comment. I think that we, teachers, are still afraid of having our knowledge confronted by our students, especially in an environment of teaching English as a foreign language. I imagine years ago, when teachers started using tape recorders of video in their classes. How many of them probably avoided that because they were afraid their students would have access to other sources of language. Comparison would be inevitable.

But how can we avoid that? How can we have more and more teachers working towards our main objective, which is to make our students learn? One of the best ways, for me, is through information. I intend to share these articles with my colleagues. I am sure that it can generate waves within my school. If we can give a step at a time, I am sure we can have more and more successful experiences. One cannot deny that technology is part of our everyday lives. Not using it for the benefit of teaching and learning is leaving a blank space, and spaces can be fulfilled by anything.

I hope that the following weeks keep bringing me even more “mind-boiling” issues. (Thanks Andreja for sharing this with me!...)

Marcia

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Personal Thoughts

In this week I was not able to finish the assignments earlier. Again. I will try harder next week. I always have the impression I am years behind. I know what to say, but I am never sure enough of how to start. Organization is the key word that is missing here. But as I said when I applied for the course, the challenge for me is to take part in an online course. This has been an interesting experience so far, although I have to admit that I feel frustrated some time. I am too perfectionist, and I would like to have an account of everything that has been said and commented and answered in the posts during the week. This is a good reflective post. Probably this is what students, or even teachers feel when we invite them to work on a collaborative project, as a blog, for example. There is always the fear of saying something that the others will not agree with, or maybe of saying something that is not useful at all.


The two articles, although not long, where very dense. Too much information to reflect upon. And the delicious pages are a wonderful net of amazing links, waiting for us to explore, and use.

One of the things that is probably affecting my focus on the course is that I will only have a definition about my position in my school next week. I have been the Pedagogical Supervisor of my school for the last 8 years, I suppose. Now, I asked to be totally back to classes, that is, become a normal teacher (if there is anything like that). I found myself a bit disappointed because the pedagogical projects of the school were not working as I wished them to be. And I do not think it is my fault, but anyway, there is a time when we see that, if you don’t agree with something, you have to change. Then, I am going to start this school year with my own classes, my students, and I will be able to develop the projects I want, and I am sure there are some teachers that will be willing to work with me in these projects. The use of technology for collaborative projects is one of them, following the models of iEarn. But, there is still another possibility, which is that the group of teachers chooses the coordinator in the beginning of the year, and I have already heard that some teachers will propose my name for the position. Some would think that it is the same thing, but it is not. Since the coordinator is a choice of the teachers, normally they accept the proposals better. Well, I will have to wait since next week to know what is going to happen.

(I hope this week I find some time to change the layout of my blog a little. I also want to add some pictures.Appearance is also very important!)

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e-Course - expectations

One of my objectives when I applied for this course was to understand how an online distance course works, and how would I respond to it. I have to admit that at first I was skeptical, not about the course, but about me. I am the kind of person that prefers face-to-face discussions, I am having a hard time in the forum. It seems I am always behind the others. Maybe it has to do with time management. I tend to post in Nicenet at the end of the week, I prefer reading what the others have said first, and then add my opinion. And then it seems that I will never have enough time to read everything and comment on everybody’s posts, and to check all the sites suggested. And finally I come to the aspect of my writing style. I have always been objective when writing, afraid of being repetitive.

Technology in teaching has entered my life suddenly. I have always loved computers, machines of all kinds. Then I took a course about iEarn, and in this course we learned how to integrate internet tools in our teaching, mainly for the collaborative perspective present in iEarn. Then, as the Pedagogical Supervisor of my school at that time, I started to improve my knowledge to share with my colleagues, but that is not as easy as we want it to be. Most of the times human beings are afraid of new things, because it can mean more work, and teachers already have enough of that. Sharing ideas with this group now will show me new perspectives and help me try again to implement the use of technology not only in my classes, but in my whole school, and who knows, contaminate even teachers in other schools. I can’t deny the empowering that this course will give to my professional life, inside my classroom with my students, and in the teachers’ room, sharing things with my colleagues, but nothing will compare with the personal growth this course will represent for me.

Marcia

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Week 2 - Searching the net

The task this week seemed a little weird to me at first: How come I search something in the internet NOT using Google? Google is my standard search engine, iGoogle is my home page when I turn on my computer, and I do have Google toolbar. What else can I say? I even change search engines in the computers at my school for Google. That is not addiction, it is just that I have always found things easier using Google, and normally it fits my query better than the others I have already tried.


First, reading the texts about using operators in searching. I was a bit used to that, I learned using them by reading the “help” sections. That helps a lot in learning, I use to tell my friends when they ask me how I know something in computers. And I am sure that, if you do not know how to search for something in a “correct” way, you may spend a lot of time and not get to a good result.

I followed the Noodle tools guide and tried some of the sites suggested. Some of them I already knew, most of which I had found through Google. Cluster was one that I found interesting because it groups sites in “clusters” according to the ideas they present, I suppose. It helps a lot specially when you are not sure of what you really want, and too broad queries definitely result in poor results.

Another site that was new for me was the Social Issues. It made my mind boil with so many ideas for themed lessons. Unfortunately the time was not sufficient for everything I wanted to search. It will come with time.

Márcia

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Blogging - First Impressions

Creating a blog is not a new thing for me. I have already tried to have adventures in this field. But this time it seems different, since this one has a reflective aspect. Reflection is a key word in every single activity of teacher training, but it comes to reality, how much do we really think about our practices in class and the results they have in our students' learning process? In our daily lives, with so many classes, so many students, and all the duties it implies, it sometimes becomes difficult to "think" - we move in an automatic-pilot model...

I hope that this new experience will help me rescue the original energy we all have when we start our teaching path. Our students are in need of new tools, new inspirations to help them follow the speed of modern times, and the demands the society have on them. And also, after we finish this course, we will be able to share with our colleagues everything we will learn from our tutors and our new friends.

Márcia - Brazil

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