Week 10 !! The End….or…..the beginning ???

Friends, as our collective journey to acquire Webskills comes to an end, I’m full of conflicting emotions !! While I can almost hear my own self heaving a sigh of relief, there’a also a strong sense of achievement that I’ve managed to complete the course reasonably well. I gave it my best shot and barring two weeks when I was down with an illness, I completed all tasks and assignments well in time and to the best of my abilities.

At the same time, I must confess that I’m overcome by an equally strong sense of sadness that from next week onwards we’ll have no more mails from our amazing Instructor Robert nor will I have a daily dose of doing something new, something worthwhile that filled me with the same sense of joy and happiness that I used to feel in my school/college days !!! With this exciting journey which offered all kinds of fascinating and useful materials, tools, applications finally reaching its destination, we shall no longer have any challenging tasks to perform or readings to undertake or discussions to carry on at the Nicenet. In that sense, I’ll greatly miss this class, the discussions, the tasks, Robert’s mails and guidance, assignments and the killer deadlines- it’s a loss that will take some getting used to !!!

If I start talking of the various skills that I acquired through this absorbing course, the list will be pretty long. But most importantly, I think, its helped me to overcome what I’ve often called my ‘tech-terror’ or tech-phobia. I’ve always been apprehensive about using technology: to be honest , technology has never been my forte ; in fact it’s been quite the reverse, it’s been my bug-bear !!. As I’ve also mentioned in my post on Nicenet, my use of technology prior to this course was restricted to using of video, audio clippings or making some power point presentations and using pictures for brainstorming sessions.

But now I can boast of acquiring considerable knowledge and a whole range of skills in using tech tools and applications. I’m going to consolidate my delicious account, I can use blogs, Nicenet, emails, project based learning, interactive power point presentations and a host of other online tools for pedagogic purposes. Indeed, this remarkable course has now equipped me with lots of information, understanding and a bunch of skills that will give me a practical edge in all my future classes and /professional pursuits !! Technology for Multiple Intelligences and Richard Felder’s article are 2 of the many invaluable resources full of practical ideas which we now have at our disposal.

Despite the thrill, excitement and happiness in pursuing this course, I do have some lingering regrets. Chief among them is the inability to produce what I would have regarded as a satisfactory final draft of Project. In addition, missing the opportunity of attending the Webinar and not trying to create a Webquest are other aspects that I regret a lot.

Nevertheless, as this class ends, I feel empowered enough to foster autonomy in my learners and ( to borrow Helen’s words) the Webskills experience has instilled in me a desire for ‘life long learning’. In that sense, I guess many of you will agree with me that the conclusion of this course is by no means an End . Instead it’s the Beginning of our quest to put all the skills we’ve acquired into practical use so that we ourselves and our students can benefit from this wonderful journey that we have been privileged to experience !!

Finally, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the inspiring friends and officials at the RELO in the US Embassy in New Delhi who nominated me for this wonderful course. I also wish to extend my heartfelt thanks to all my fellow participants and other guest moderators. Last but in many ways perhaps most significantly, I feel a deep sense of gratitude to Robert who tirelessly and patiently guided and supported me and always answered each one of my persistent ( and often silly!! ) queries.

warmest regards

Shaila

Week 9 !! .....An Exciting journey moves to a close!!

Dear Colleagues

What a relief !! ….the Project has finally been submitted …though it still needs a bit of reviewing and refinement. I enjoyed going through quite a few Project Reports and found them all well written and executed.

Learning styles and multiple intelligences are interesting themes that have enormous relevance for teachers, researchers and language instructors who are constantly searching for new strategies and effective methods to enhance the language skills of their students.

The resources on learning styles/ Multiple Intelligences were greatly enriching. Specially ‘Technology for Multiple Intelligences’ and Richard Felder’s article contain practical and original ideas which will be extremely useful in planning my future lessons. These resources have empowered me by giving me insights to incorporate technology to cater to students with widely varying intelligence and learning styles. The postings of my fellow participants [specially of those who have a great deal of expertise and experience in using technology] are a treasure that I shall cherish for a long time.

I’ll be completing the evaluation process tomorrow as I have to locate my student id no.

I can’t believe its now just a few more days before we complete this engrossing Webskills journey. But even as we feel a sense of relief that this tough course will soon be behind us, I must confess that there’s a lingering sense of sadness that we will no longer be exposed to and imbibe exciting and innovative experience that this course offers.

Overall, it has been a wonderful adventure, full of explorations and discoveries.

See you next week !!

Shaila

Week- 8.....Moving on !!!!

Friends

This week has been the most anxious one in my Webskills journey. At the start of the week I lost three valuable days because of illness. My troubles didn't end there for after I regained some strength and hoped to put in extra effort to compensate for the lost time, Internet connectivity at home decided to disappear forcing me to go to a Cyber-cafe to read and finish off the tasks for the week !! It was for the first time in this course that I wasn't able to show up for the mid week assignment- ie- posting the Project Plan. Fortunately for me, my partner Nizara was also unable to finish off her Project report which saved me guilt pangs that I've withheld my partner !!

The biggest setback for me was not being able to attend the Webinar. I was keenly looking forward to participate in the seminar through web but because of technical glitches had to miss it. Let me now move on to something positive. This week has not been a total waste. As all the previous occasions, I have learnt a lot from the contributions of my fellow participants. I was till now totally foxed and couldn’t figure out how to create an online tool. But after going through the reading materials and discussion posts on Online tools, I’ve got some ideas and clarity about how to proceed in this direction. I now hope to create something useful and complete my task.

I’ve started working on my Project side by side and have refined it a bit but it still needs a bit of polishing before I can post it on the Wiki for everyone to view it. I went through Ricard’s plan and found it most impressive and neat. I’ll be happy if I can manage fifty percent of what he has done. I still have to contribute my ideas on Nicenet for this week’s discussion on Anvill and other online tools.

Shaila

Week 7 : Developing teacher & learner Autonomy !!

Dear All

Like the past 6 weeks, this too has been a hectic week. We were exposed to 2 new concpets – learner autonomy and one computer classroom. The notion of learner autonomy is extremely relevant for English language teaching. It has acquired greater significance in recent times as the focus of the classroom has shifted from the teacher to the learner. In the Indian context where we are used to teacher-fronted traditions, striving for learner independence is a big challenge. I have been fortunate in this regard as I have been part of a Project to Teach English Communicatively. Its run by our department to train college lecturers of Rajasthan. This program was a collaborative venture between the state government and RELO(Regional English Language Office), New Delhi.

Trainings under this program introduced me to task based teaching focusing on activities, pair and group work. Now in this Webskills course, apart from the technological aspects and interventions, I have read a lot of material on themes and concepts which are important to the language learning set up. I am following all the discussion posts closely and have gained a lot of insight into learner autonomy. I have realized that learner empowerment and autonomy are closely interlinked with teacher autonomy. This awareness has made me realize my role and responsibility in empowering my students.

Preparing a lesson for a one computer class was not a difficult task this time as I had already made an interactive presentation last week. Moreover, we are used to just one computer classroom in a majority of our teaching sessions. I elaborated on that theme and developed a workshop on the use of advertisements for pedagogical purposes.

Reading, writing and commenting on blogs is always an enjoyable experience. Now I’ll have to work hard to polish my Project that has to be submitted for peer review. There’s only a few days left before I exchange the Project with Nizara, my partner for peer review. And I'm exhausted.....nonetheless as Natasa and Luisa while commenting on Helen's blog have remarked I don't want 'to miss a thing'. So there's still no resoite for us. We have to work even harder till we submit our final Projects.

Shaila

Engaging Learners...the interactive way !!

Dear Friends

We are on the threshold of week-7 and this Webskills course has become really absorbing. Those of us who are teaching have started implementing the tech-related changes in their classes. And others like me, who are off-teaching at the moment are trying to refine their Projects. Following Robert’s advice I have narrowed my focus in the Project. Now I plan to deal mainly with structuring discussion and debate units using some resources like Idea Portal.

In our enthusiasm we sometimes strive to attempt far too much at one go and don’t realize that as a result we fail to achieve the desired effect. Robert’s suggestion has helped me appreciate the importance of focusing our projects around one or two key areas which in turn ensure effective results.

I must say the Webskills course has kept me engrossed. How to engage my students and how to make my classes interactive are questions which kept returning to me repeatedly ever since I was initiated into the Learner-Centered approach a few years ago. The reading materials, Nicenet and blog postings during this week have been replete with ideas which can greatly help me to involve my students in the language learning process more easily. I wish I were teaching at present so I could try these ideas to check their efficacy and relevance for my students. The materials and the theme of Engaging students are bound to inspire teachers to try out innovations to make their classes interactive and infinitely interesting.

Some of the readings that I found brimming with practical tips are ‘How to Give Interactive Lectures, Interactive Lecture Techniques, Servicing Learning, Interactive Lectures: Summaries of 36 Formats which I believe can easily be customized and applied to both small and large classes.

I’ve used PPT in my trainings several times and usually try to make my classes interactive but I’ve never made an interactive PPT. Making one was a real challenge. It took me a while but after some effort and hit and trial experiments I finally managed to create one and hope to use it in my future training sessions.

We also had to look for a partner for our Project and I was wondering whom to approach. I got a request from Nizara which I happily accepted. As she too belongs to India, I think the collaboration would be fruitful and mutually beneficial.

Shaila

Polishing Project !!

Dear Friends

In consonance with Robert’s advice I’ve decided to restrict the broad scope of my Project. I’ll now be focusing primarily on improving pronunciation and discussion/debating skills of my students.

For Pronunciation- I plan to use websites like http://www.btinternet.com/~ted.power/phonetics.htm
http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/#
http://ell.phil.tuchemnitz.de/phon/reference/lexSetsFrames2.html

Under my scheme, special effort will be made to take advantage of graphics and the audio resources available from these sites.

For Discussion & Debating skills, I plan to organize small group chats and deliberations over real-world-sometimes provocative topics- such as Child Performers or Changing Sexual Mores in society. I’ll also use Idea Portal to get relevant resources for students to build on their information base on various interesting topics that cater to their taste and competence levels.

I also plan to use this site (http://www.englishclub.com/speaking/agreeing-disagreeing-expressions.htm) extensively to familiarize students with refined ways of expressing dissent and/or agreement.

I hope to refine my Project further before the Peer review.

Shaila

5th Week....Mid- course crisis !!

Dear Friends,

We have now reached the mid-way of the webskills journey. Because of some urgent personal compulsions, I couldn’t devote time to this course for a couple of days. As a result there’s so much still to be done and I am racing against time !!

I have been introduced to several new notions this week : Web quests , rubrics, alternative assessment, self-evaluation. The reading material, discussion posts and other remarks of my fellow participants have not only made these concepts a lot easier to follow but also helped to deepen our understanding of these crucial concepts.

Still there’s so much to read, so much to reflect and so much to prepare and eventually put all this into practice that at times I feel a bit bewildered on how to cope up with all these novel ideas that I’m being initiated into. It’s difficult to keep pace with the rest of the class, many of whom seem quite well-grounded in all these innovative methods. I’m thankful to all of you for the knowledge and insights that you are so generously sharing with us and especially Robert and Courtney for their invaluable contribution and pragmatic suggestions that I may be able to adopt in my own classes. I’ve gained theoretical knowledge about PBL, alternative assessment , rubrics etc. but I still need to work on the rubric assignment which I feel is quite a formidable task.

It took me a while to decide on the topic of my technology enhanced lesson plan. Robert ( as usual )was most helpful with his incisive comments. I’ve made a sketchy plan but I think to begin with it might suffice. Fortunately, I have some workshops coming up where I’ll be working with college students. I’ll try to test this plan and see how it works.

I do want to try and design a WebQuest but will I be able to accomplish that feat with finesse is as they say, the million dollar question !!

best regards

Shaila

Fourth Week !!.....Getting tech-savvy

Friends,

Unlike the previous three weeks, the fourth one has been relatively easy. Taking part and posting in the discussions was not much of a problem. Going through the reading material and browsing the websites- specifically the ones focused on reading/ writing instruction provided many insights and ideas which can be customized to fit diverse needs and tastes.

I have started making an inventory of ideas which I found striking and which could well work effectively for my students. The use of technology, I believe will add variety and spice to my classes. It can break the monotone of routine learning.

The second and third assignments led to thinking of issues and lesson planning. A well planned lesson can work wonders. I’m convinced that by integrating technology a lesson plan can be enhanced but what we need to learn is when and how many web resources should be incorporated for optimum results.

Moreover, I have to synthesize the art of using technology so that it is an integration and not an imposition. In the past achieving this balance has often been an elusive task. So the greatest lesson, I feel I have learnt this week is to look for, search and probe for problems and see if and how far they can be resolved through technology.

Technology enhanced lesson Planning has clearly been a new chapter in my book of teaching experience. The sample lesson plans along with my fellow participants plans have helped me somehow structure my lessons. Time alone will prove how successful it has been, but nonetheless I’m pretty excited about this journey that promises to make me a tech- savvy teacher and trainer.

-Shaila

Reflections....3rd week !!

Dear Friends,

I’m thankful to you all for having set the ball rolling. It becomes easy for me to join in the discussion after reading your contributions and postings each time. I realize I've never been one of the first ones in any of my assignments so far. When it comes to technology I normally take a back seat. I must admit in this course designed to enhance our Webskills I’m one of the back benchers. But I’m someone who is keen to learn and grow.

When I look back I feel this third week has generated a mix of emotions in me. I quite enjoyed reading the three articles on CALL and while browsing the various websites I found quite a few [including the ones on Real English] that I've decided to add to my favorites on the delicious site. My God !! opening up the delicious account was a huge pain. It might appear a simple task for most of you but for me it’s been quite the toughest task so far. I tried and tried and couldn't decipher the letters which we are supposed to type as an evidence that we are humans and not robots.

Paradoxical as it may sound, Delicious has so far been quite unpalatable for me!! But hopefully I’ll soon acquire a taste for it and will not have to struggle for too long.

Going through the Reports I must admit some of them are pretty impressive. I become aware of my inadequacies when I compare what a fine job some of them have done. The same feeling overwhelms me when I see and read some of the blogs and discussion posts of my fellow participants. But the silver lining to this tinge of envy is, it’s a learning experience for me after all.

Reflecting and blogging is an interesting exercise and now that I've got the hang of it I wonder why I didn't attempt blogging so far. I still have to add the links to my delicious site. So I better hurry up. See you again next week, for I certainly don’t plan to come up with any more additions this week.

Shaila

My first 'serious' blogging attempt

As experimenting with technology has been a constant challenge for me, this whole week has been a bit of a roller coaster ride. I’ve somehow managed to create a blog (with help and guidance from our wonderful Instructor Robert) and this is my first posting in the blog named ‘Sharing n blogging’. Besides gaining in confidence , the creation of my blog has initiated me into an area which I’ve been hesitant to enter for over three years.

‘ Blogging ‘ , I think is a powerful tool with numerous benefits in ELT or for that matter any teaching-learning situation. To begin with it helps the teacher to reflect on his/her competencies and also gauge what he/she has been able to achieve. It’s also a platform to connect and share experiences with peers . Last but definitely not the least it’s a medium to communicate with students and encourage them to enhance their knowledge base and skills in a variety of ways.

Understandably there’s a consensus in our group that blogging has several educational benefits and I have resolved to use it in my future teaching and training ventures. One way in which I envisage using it is in the area of developing the writing skills of my students. At least, students would read my and other peer blogs and hence would be motivated to put their ideas and organize them in meaningful ways.