Closing week

Dear all,

How sad that we have reached the end of our webskills course. Things are going to change but one thing will stay the same my addiction to technology. I will continue going on the route that was paved for us during the course. I wish to try out all the tools we got acquainted with and make my lessons more enjoyable.

I have enjoyed all the topics we had in our course. Personally I liked learner autonomy and learning styles a lot. I could implement some of the tools in my lessons and students love it. Students are hooked to their computers and love all the things that come through the net let it be games/readings/learning.

I plan to continue my searches on the net and discover all the tools thoroughly.

Thank you for all of my peers and thank you Courtney!

Miss you all!

Eszter

Week 9 Learning styles

When looking back on what I have done in the last nine weeks I had to admit that I read a lot of articles on methodology and tried out several tools provided by the internet. Searching on the internet is a great thing it becomes even more enjoyable if there is someone leading you on your way in an organized manner. This is what I got from this course: well organized and logically built up weekly assignments and tools I can use any time in my teaching. I did not have to find the articles for different fields of teaching during the course it was given to me and the only thing I had to do is read, think and try out the new methods/tools. It is even better than going to a library as here I got everything given to me and all I had to do is to use them properly (guides were also provided for me!).

This week's topic was learning styles. Even though I was familiar with learner styles and tried to think about it as well when preparing for my lessons or for my courses that I teach, this week gave me tools and showed me the way how I can support my students with different learner styles in my lesson. As a teacher I always tried to back up my approach and methods with the right tool and this course helped me a lot. I see things from a different  point of view as I tried out some of the tools just the way students do and I felt the same excitement they do when trying out things for the first time. With this new experience I became more student-centered and more understandable and tolerant at the same time. I have always tried to teach in a way that it would be suitable for my students and now I gained new methods/approaches and tools for it.

I enjoyed all the reading assignments and all the tools I have tried and will continue exploring them after the course. I do not want to list all the things I had done through out these nine weeks as I did not have a favorite reading or tool I loved all of them.

Eszter

Week 8

Hi everybody,

This week again was a fruitful week for I think all of us.

I could try out several tools that were new for me. I have created a class on Nicenet and one on Web Poster Wizard. I am definitely going to try both of them out starting from next week on.

I felt a bit overwhelmed this week even though I enjoyed all the new tools and trying them out but somehow I had the feeling all week that I just do not have time for everything and I felt I forgot something. Hope I did not.

I plan to do a revision on what we have done so far during this course and try to organize things in a way that they are logical to me. I also plan to use all the new tools with my classes the word searches and crosswords I can create very easily and very fast.

Eszter

Week 7 Learners autonomy

Hello,

Nice to be here again. A bit late... (I have some problems with my health.)

Learners autonomy is one of the most important things for me. I would like to help my students become independent learners. To help learners become more and more independent in their studies is one of the teachers tasks. It can be achieved only when the student and the teacher is there at the same time and willing to cooperate.

With one of my groups we have just started the process and taking our first steps on the road. What I can see right now that not all of my students are ready for this change. Some of them love and others just do not come with us. For those who hesitate and are not willing to collaborate I do not force them. I hope to see them joining us when they realized what they are missing out on.

I will be back with one computer classroom soon.

Eszter

Week 6 ENGAGING LEARNERS!!!!!!!

Hello everybody,

Almost at the end of week 6. I really liked this week's most important topic engaging students.

For me and I know for all the teacher's out there, students are the most important part of teaching. I can not hide the fact that behind all what we are doing there is a wish to make our students enjoy and be active participants of our lessons. Behind all of our effort there is one reason engaging students.

This week I have learnt a lot more about PowerPoint presentations and also tried it out with my groups and yes it did work. They immediately knew where to focus their attention when the blank slide appeared on the screen not to mention how great discussions came to light when they saw pictures. Good to see how I can use ppts more effective and engage my students at the same time. It gives meaning to ppt. Engaging students and the role of the teacher is really an issue to talk about.

My project and the changes this week. All my students created a Gmail account as I have asked them to do so through our Facebook group. I have also done a bit of survey with the help of www.surveymonkey.com. The result of my survey was that four of my students would like to learn more about sports, two of them would like to learn about travelling another two would like to work with free time, one with cultures and one with food. I have made my decision and we will work on sports in this project and for our upcoming projects we are going to work with the above mentioned topics as well. For the group and for a bit of studying space I have done a centraldesktop workspace, which is available for 15 days and we started to work there. My students first task is to collect as many interesting things from the web as they can. I told them it could be anything even videos, pictures, posts, blogs, news, articles (and they were told to keep a record of their sources). In the upcoming week we are going to work in groups and use some more interesting tools to come up with our end product! Let me keep it as a secret till next week's post.

I can not wait for the next week to get our new assignments. Good to be in this group!

Thank you all!

Eszter

Week 5

Dear All,

Another busy week is behind us.

I have learnt about webquest and I have to say a big thank you for Ina. Ina you made my life easier this week and you just felt what I really needed help with.

Webquest, PBL, alternative assessment are things I definitely going to use in my teaching. I have already tried PBL but due my fault as a teacher I was not successful. Now I am going to do it in a different way.

First I will do a needs analysis about the topic for PBL.
Second I will choose the most wanted topic.
Third I will give myself time for preparation and do it step-by-step and design tasks just right for my students.
Fourth I will let my students have enough time to do their tasks.
Fifth I will let them use their mobile pone for a change and hope to see how it goes.

This is what crossed my mind and yes now I know where I made my mistakes when I first tried out PBL. Even though my first try turned out to be a failure I do want to try it again and implement it in my teaching practice with the other things I am learning right now!

Thank you Courtney for all your help and advice! I love this course and I do not want it to end....

Yours,
Eszter

week 4

Dear all,

I have gone through a very exciting stage in our studies and learned a lot from my mates comments. So many useful sites we all have tried and visited.

I really enjoy this week. I love the way how we are heading towards our final project. It is good to see all the steps we should make. Unfortunately sometimes I do not have the time to think about everything while preparing for my lessons as normally I teach 29 lessons a week (5 lessons are those ones I spend with students who feel they would like to do it and have fun.). This course brought new things to light and I love exploring and trying out new things.

Sorry for being very short but I can not put my thoughts together as we have been robbed out.

Eszter