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
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Technology and Skills development
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!)
Saturday, January 23, 2010
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
Friday, January 22, 2010
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
Saturday, January 16, 2010
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