Wednesday, June 9, 2010

THE END

Time passed so quickly and we have come to the end, everything was wonderful. I really liked the hours I spend in front of my computer. Meeting English teachers on line gave me the opportunity to share my problems relating to English teaching. I have learned many things about teaching but more importantly I have learned to use the WEB more efficiently and how to integrate the technology into my teaching. If we blend the technology with our teaching I think the results will be more successful. As teachers we must keep ourselves update with technology and we must find new ways to improve our teaching skills.
It was wonderful to know all of you!
Goodbye.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

COURSE EVALUATION

In this course we have made lots of readings about teaching and blending the technology with our teaching skills. I personally find the readings about Lesson Planning and Assessments very beneficial for my teaching skills. Creating a blog and Google sites were also very important titles for me. It is unnecessary to mention all the topics here but I must say all the readings and homeworks we did were completely new and useful for me. I tryed some of them in my class and got good results. Some of the issues we diccussed were hard to apply because every country and class have its own different circumstances in teaching. I am going to try to integrate all I learned in my classes. I have printed all the readings and bookmarked all the sites for future use. I am going to continue to learn about technology by updating my knowledge and my web skills regulary. I think the most important part of the course was having the opportunity to interact with many English Teachers from different parts of the world. I have learned many things from my colleagues through Nicenet. I hope to stay in touch with my course fellows and continue share our experiences and the technology about teaching.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

WEEK 8 REFLECTIONS

This week we had a one useful task in the course which was creating a one-computer classroom lesson. I have read informative posts of my collages, studied their lesson plans and found some of them applicable to my class. Our discussion topic was about self-direction and learners autonomy. Again, I had the change to read some important comments related to the topic. We wrote the first draft version of our project report and shared it with our project partner for suggestions and missing parts. Thanks to my partner Ruslana for she made important suggestions on my report. I cannot wait the to see the project reports of the other participants of the course, because I think some of them may help me in dealing with the problems I have in my classes.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

WEEK 7 REFLECTIONS

The course is coming to the end, we have only three weeks left. This week we have discussed about some techniques to make our classes more interactive. There were good comments about the subject and I must say I refreshed my knowledge with extra information. We have created a short PowerPoint slide show and shared it with the other members of the course. I used to think that PowerPoint presentations are interactive teaching tools but now I can see they may not be enough to create an interactive environment in the class. This week we have learned some ways to use them more efficiently in the class. We also suggest a parner for peer review and thank to Ruslana she accepted to work with me. I started to work on a PowerPoint presentation that summarizes our course and includes the topics that we talked about. I am planning to share the outcome of the course with my co-workers here.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

WEEK 6 REFLECTIONS

This week was great for me. I have learned some new approaches about creating a rubric and using alternative assessment tools in my class. Learning styles was another important subject of the course. The most important isssue of this week was making an objective assessment in our classes, after reading the article I started to be more careful while evaluating my students. As I stated on nicenet, assessment was the hardest task of my job but now it becomes easier for me. I am going to ask my colleagues to read the articles about assessment and I am going to discuss with them and share my ideas about what I have learned on week 6. I think making a successful assessment in class makes the teacher more close to his/her students. My classes will end by the end of this month so the outcomes of this course will be more important for me for next year. I decided to make radical changes in my classes next year.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

WEEK 5 REFLECTIONS

It was a busy week again. Sometimes I can not follow everyone's comment but I am happy to be there with the others. The week starded with the wonderful example of Ruslana's WebQuest page. I like it. All the participants described a potential change that might occur in their classes. I read my colleagues comments about the case and I think they might help me in the future. After reading about Project Based learning I create my own one. The comments about this discussion topic were important for me. I read wonderful posts and I am thinking of applying some of them into my class. ABCD method still holds its importance in our works. I am getting more familiar with it day by day.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

WEEK 4 REFLECTIONS

The course is getting better day by day. In the fourth week we discussed the importance of Lesson Planning. The discussion was simply about planning the lesson and the benefits of it. The articles we read about Technology -Enhanced lesson plans were good examples on using the internet in writing instructions. This week we explored new web pages relating to reading and vocabulary. And of course I bookmarked them and shared them with my students and colleagues. This week the most important part of the course for me was sharing some class issues with the other participants. I recognize that some of my colleagues experience the same difficulties in the their classes too. Sharing their experiences was very important for me. This week's greatest contribution to my teaching skills is that I decided to reconsider my classware and add some more technology based activities into my lessons.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

WEEK 3 REFLECTIONS

Using technology to improve aural/oral skills week helped me a lot. I was aware of some methods and I was already using them in my classroom but the articles which we read as an assignment enlarge my scope and made think about some other methods to use. My associates' comments were also helpful and they made me reconsider my aural/oral practices in my class. I have learned some voluable clues that I am going to use. Creating a delicious page and share it with the others was a good idea and it was very useful for me. I so much liked this activity that I am going to ask my student to do the same activity. And of course I am going to share it with my colleagues at my school.
The course really works........

Saturday, April 24, 2010

WEEK 2 REFLECTIONS

After two weeks of missing the course it was really good to be back. In the second week of the course I made some readings about ABCD system and read the comments of my colleagues about it. ABCD system seems to be a proper and sufficient system in considering the needs of our students. I will try to use it in my classes widely and maybe I can rearrange some of its phases to fit my students better. The second week of the course was also important for me because I have discovered new search engines. I am happy to know that besides Google there are some useful search engines too. I will recommend them to my students. Describing the class where I teach was a good task. I realized that in diffrent parts of the world there are similiar classes to mine, and the teacher of English experience mostly the same things. I also learned about some teaching tools and I am looking forward to use them myself.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

week 1

The first week of the course is really passing nice for me. During the orientation week, It was good to see Teachers of English from different parts of the world. Meeting new people is always exciting. This week I have learned how to create a blog and I am looking forward to use a similar blog for my students. I think blogging will help my students a lot. I am planning to add some documents about my course and ask my students to view them from their computers. Blogging really helps, it takes the boundaries of the classrom and makes learning easier.