Sunday 30 November 2014

WEEK 8 : WHAT A WONDERFUL TECHNOLOGY WEEK!


It was again an important week – Week 8. It was full of rich learning and practice, putting into practice what I have been learning – all the new technology tools that have the power to change the way I teach.
Getting ready with the Project Report (draft) for peer evaluation was a good start for me. I was delighted to go through the reading materials and have glimpses of the various wonderful websites and technology tools. Preparing online worksheets, PPTs, Padlet Page and other  teaching and learning materials and tools made me realize how fortunate I am to learn all these new things which are already changing the way I teach English.

Going through the draft  report of the Project of my project partner, Mr.Sergio, was a great experience for me.  Preparing the checklist for peer evaluation helped me learn and understand some very important things I should follow in the project.

I really felt like a curious child when I was making my class Padlet page. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Though I was running short of time as I was busy with academic schedules and official trips during the week, I was happy that I was able to finish the tasks.  
I was glad to register with  ANVILL, which is again a new exploration for me into the technology realm.

On the whole , Week 8 was an awesome one, filling us and pouring on us all that we need to know and all that we can learn about the use of technology in English language teaching.
Thanks again to the instructors for their meticulous plan and efforts in their mission to make me a complete E-Teacher.  

SASI RAJ 
 

Sunday 23 November 2014

Week 7 : A Challenging and thrilling Week


It was really a challenging week for me. Right from day 1 I was completely busy with my academic schedules and official trip to some places. I was sometimes hard pressed for time. In spite of my hectic schedules I was able to complete the tasks for the week. It is due to the fact that the tasks were quite interesting and they were quite new. So with the new found joy, and with the energy and zeal born out of curiosity, I raced against time to complete the assigned tasks.
'Learner Autonomy' though I knew a little bit about it, my reading of the article “Emerging Technologies  : Autonomous Language Learning by Robert Godwin-Jones  was an eye opener for me. I also read some more articles such as David Nunan’s “Nine Steps to Learner Autonomy” to get a complete understanding about this very important component of teaching-learning process. I am happy that  now I have a better understanding of this important concept which would certainly help me in making my classroom teaching more interesting and effective.
Then the tips about the use of one-computer classroom are also very useful for me. Though I use one-computer class most of the time, these tips taught me how to use one computer class in an efficient manner.
I was amazed at the limitless scope and the innumerable ways in which mobile phone can be used in and outside classroom. I prepared an activity for use of mobile phones in learning vocabulary in the classroom. I was greatly delighted when I posted it in Nicenet.
Another important and interesting thing that happened was the pairing for peer review of our project report. It was really a great opportunity to interact with our friends asking or agreeing to be project partners. I am happy to be paired with Sergio for my project work. This was a nice experience.
Then continuing with the implementation of our project in the class, though challenging, was very exciting. Guiding my students to continue with their reading, writing and commenting on their blogs and giving feedback on their tasks filled me with a rush of new enthusiasm and energy of a person who has invented something new. The whole week offered me, I should say, a lifetime experience in the field of teaching and learning of English.
A challenging and thrilling week – Week 7!  Now marching towards Week 8......... for more challenging tasks!
Thank you instructors for equipping me with new tech skills every week.
 

Sasi Raj

Sunday 16 November 2014

WEEK 6 - REFLECTIONS :LEARNING ABOUT ENGAGING STUDENTS IN LEARNING TASKS


More learning .........more about more web tools for engaging students in learning!

This week took more momentum towards my learning more about more web tools that will help me in engaging students in learning tasks.

The links provided in the reading section were really wonderful .Those links introduced me to different kinds of web pages having useful instructions, tips , case studies, reports and projects about the effective interactive use of technology and techniques, especially  the use of PowerPoint as an interactive teaching and learning tool. I have learned a lot of useful tips and minute details about the use of PowerPoint in the classroom teaching. My visit of   http://tep.uoregon.edu/resources/largeclasses/usingtechnology.html
was an enriching experience.
 
For the first time I have come to know about making interactive PowerPoint. It was a new discovery  for me  when I read the articles/materials on using PowerPoint and improving PowerPoint  to engage the students and motivate  students to actively participate in the classroom learning.And then making an interactive PowerPoint and posting it to our Wiki was also a great learning experience for me. I learned to make it. This EXPERIENCE is going to make a big change in my classroom teaching.
 
I learned more about how I can use engagement triggers and tasks in my classroom teaching. I have learned now how to use cartoons, photographs, images, pictures, video clips, etc to make my class interactive. I learned more about short pair activities and group activities to be used in my class. Knowing more about ‘Think-pair –share’ and its extended activities like ‘write-pair-share’ activity was really interesting.

Week 6 was a really a great week in the sense that it helped me to anayse the techniques that I use in my class and some of the new techniques that I learned from the websites which were provided by the instructors and choose which ones would be suitable and useful to my class.  

This week offered me an opportunity to put into practice what I am learning from this E-teacher program - the implementing part of the technology related change in my class. Yes. I was able to start implementing the project in my class. It was a delightful experience helping students create their own blogs and getting their blogs links by email. Seeing their blogs and them getting motivated beyond my expectations was a rewarding experience for me and a great achievement. This experience made me realize that technology does wonders in the field of teaching and learning if we know how to use it .

There is no limit for joy and wonder.........during this week. It should be only experienced..... learning and using technology and techniques to engage students in their learning tasks!

IMPLEMENTING THE TECHNOLOGY RELATED CHANGE IN MY CLASS

In my technology related project, my main objective is to use technology to motivate students in reading and writing tasks/activities. I would like to find out whether technology and internet resources would provide high level motivation and interest in reading and writing tasks.   

I made some changes in my original project step in order to get more focused. First, I got my students create their own blogs and send their blog links to me by email. Keeping in mind the course objectives of my class, I wanted my students to read their lessons on their own. I asked them to read the lessons from their e-textbooks available online in the text books publisher’s website. To start with, I asked them to read three lessons (two short stories and one short biography) from the online e-text book. Then I asked them to write a short summary along with a brief comment on each of the three lessons and post them onto their blogs. Most of the students have completed the reading of the lessons and the posting of the summary to their blogs. Once all the students have completed this task, each one of the students will visit at least five blogs of their classmates, read the summaries and write comments on each of the posts in the blogs.
 
I have visited their blogs and I have found them awesome. My joy finds no bounds when I see their marvelous blogs in terms of design and content. I have already begun to feel the change that is happening because of technology. Students who are not at all interested in reading these lessons using the text books and would not be interested in writing tasks in the classroom are showing a lot of interest and are writing wonderful reviews in their blogs.

Writing comments in the blogs would certainly be another interesting activity for them. This will be their next task, which is an impossible task in the classroom, given the nature and the size of the class.

There is more to do, peer evaluation and introducing the students to rubrics for evaluation, reading more online and making more posts......during the next week. They are writing their mid-term exam conducted by the school next week but I hope they will find time to do their reading and writing tasks.


 

Sunday 9 November 2014

WEEK 5 - A MORE PRACTICAL WEEK!


WEEK 5 -   A MORE PRACTICAL WEEK!

 
Week 5 has been a great week, full of practical tasks, reading and brwsing.  Reading of the articlesMaximizing the Benefits of Project Work in Foreign Language Classrooms by Brulent Alan and Frederika L. Stoller and “Seven Essentials for Project-based Learning” by John Larmer and John R. Mergendoller about Project-Based Learning (PBL) gave me a lot of insight into the understanding of the Project-Based Learning. Though I have heard about PBL I had not had  much opportunity to learn more about it till I learned about it this week through reading of the articles, websites and case-studies. I enjoyed learning about PBL and I can say with certainty that  I have got greater understanding of PBL now and I have decided to use PBL frequently in my classes hereafter.

Another important task that I am delighted to mention is to learn about ‘alternative assessment’ and ‘rubrics’. Reading articles about ‘alternative assessment’ and visiting web pages to learn about  ‘rubrics’ and web-quest were interesting experiences. Though designing alternative assessment tools and rubrics are a bit difficult tasks, I have grasped their value and significance in the 21st teaching/learning scenario. Understanding alternative assessment and rubrics in the correct perspective with the help of technology has been a real great experience for me and it has injected into me new strength as an e-English teacher. Designing and preparing rubrics for a writing task using  http://rubistar.4teachers.org/ was an awesome experience for me.

Yet another interesting experience I had was writing technology related change that I would implement in my class (which is a project step). Initially when I started thinking about how and in what way and what change I would like to implement in my class with the help of technology, it was very difficult for me to give shape to my plan. But after much thought, I was successful in writing it. I felt it was a challenging task.

On the whole, the week’s tasks were both challenging and interesting. The week offered practical tasks and challenging activities and introduced me to many new things and areas of digital learning.

Thank you, all participants and the instructors for the great week.

Best

Sasi Raj from India  

Sunday 2 November 2014

WEEK 4 – A GREAT WEB JOURNEY!


 

WEEK 4 – A GREAT WEB JOURNEY!
 

It has really been a great week, full of challenging tasks - searching for interesting interactive websites for reading, writing and vocabulary skill building, description of my class issue/problem for the project, writing a technology enhanced lesson plan, etc.
 
Each task was a learning experience for me ,especially using websites for teaching reading and writing. I found the wonderful web tools and the marvelous interactive websites that I visited during the week  are quite interesting for me and the experience has now begun to give an entirely  new  dimension to my teaching profession.

I thoroughly enjoyed writing my technology enhanced lesson plan .It took a lot of thinking and planning about the outline of the lesson and the websites or web tools that I want to use in my technology enhanced lesson. I felt a bit strenuous while preparing the lesson but I was greatly delighted when it finally took shape. It was a great rewarding experience.
 
Describing my class issue was also a wonderful task which helped me to get a profound insight into my classroom setting, teaching, type of students, teaching/learning goals, etc. I have learned what an action research project in the field of teaching is from my describing my class issue.

On the whole ,it was an exciting journey through various websites, web pages and web based tasks  which make me feel that I am on my way to become an e-teacher.
Great many thanks to the instructors for their efforts in designing interesting web based tasks and activities.






Sasi Raj

Saturday 1 November 2014

TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LESSON PLAN


 Technology Enhanced Lesson Plan



Technology Enhanced Lesson Plan


 

Name:  SASI RAJ           

Class name: 8th Grade

Type of student: 30 students of mixed ability students, age  12-13 years old                  

Duration of lesson:  30 minutes

 
MATERIALS:

 
TECHNOLOGY COMPONENT:

(For introduction and revision of the vowel sounds - previous unit) https://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/phonemic-chart-ia.htm
(For minimal pairs) http://davidbrett.uniss.it/phonology/vowel%20sounds/IndexofMinimalPairs.html

(For  vowel sounds   i: i )  (beat/bit, heed/hid, leap/lip, reach/rich, seek/sick, read/rid, weep/whip)
http://davidbrett.uniss.it/phonology/vowel%20sounds/beat%20bit%20mini/MinimalPairsBeatBit.html

 (For  vowel sounds :  ɒ  ɔ: ) (cot/caught, fox/forks, often/orphan, pot/port, shot/short, spot/sport)
http://davidbrett.uniss.it/phonology/vowel%20sounds/MinimalPairsCotCaught/Minimal%20Pairs%20Cot%20v.%20Caught1.html

 (For vowel sounds :  ʌ  æ ) (cat/cut, mad/mud, match/much, lack/luck, matter/mutter, cap/cup, slam/slum)
http://davidbrett.uniss.it/phonology/vowel%20sounds/cat%20cut%20minimal/MinimalPairsCatCut.html

 
OTHER MATERIAL: Worksheets having the minimal pair words with phonetic symbols of those sounds to be learned by the students.

 
INTRODUCTION:

Revision of the English vowel sounds:    i: i,  ɒ ɔ: ,  ʌ  æ

Objective of the lesson : After learning the vowel sounds i: i,  ɒ ɔ: , ʌ  æ  (condition), the students (audience) will be able to identify the same sounds (behavior) in all the minimal pairs having the same sounds (degree).

 
TECHNOLOGY OBJECTIVES: After listening to the audio recording of the vowel sounds from the interactive websites (condition), the students (audience) will identify the same sounds (behavior) in all the minimal pairs given in the interactive websites (degree).

 
PROCEDURES: Steps of the presentation of lesson  -
1.First, students will listen to these vowel sounds on the interactive websites
    i: i,  ɒ ɔ: ,  ʌ  æ

2. Then, they will repeat the sounds (say the sounds aloud)

3. Then, they identify the sounds in the minimal pairs given in the interactive websites

etc.(This is an assessment part)
 
STUDENTS’ ACTIVITY:  

1. Students listen to the vowel sounds on the interactive websites and repeat them aloud
2. Students listen to the vowel sounds and identify the sounds in the minimal pairs by clicking on the correct word.

ASSESSMENT: Students take a formal test by clicking on the correct word having the sound they hear from the interactive websites and see their grades on the websites immediately.

 
BACK UP PLAN: (Plan “B”)

Work sheets having the minimal pairs along with phonetic symbols of the vowel sounds that the students are going to learn.


HOMEWORK / FOLLOW UP:  
Students will prepare a set of minimal pairs for the vowel sounds that they have learned on the interactive websites.