Monday, May 27, 2013

WEEK 8

I think that everything that I have to do during this week might be described in  words
  "so much work to do" .  

We were offered various online tools to explore and create some kind of handout /worksheet. I can say I haven't enough time to try everything  - only some of these:

1)"Tools for educators" offers to create various kinds of handouts like crosswords, dice game, word search,  I published my crosswords by Google.docs 
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SYNwYmNRiUlC2Di4KQclZ9enUuzC8gssNawvAA4OeFw/edit
2)"Easy Test Maker" allows to create different types of tests easily, look at my variant here 
Test on Present Simple/Present Continuous
3)"Web poster Wizard" gives teacher opportunity to create Poster as the topic for discussion. I liked it and made one for my project work - look at it on Poster "What are the British like?"
4) I have created my website on Google.sites - since it was my first experience and I tried how to manage it (deleted one pages and created another - it took so much time),so I did something in a wrong way and sometimes when site opens there is a sign - "Page isn't found", in this case just click on "Home" and you there. The content of the site will be created according to my syllabus and Plan project of our web course. 
My site
When I look 8 weeks back I see my progress - maybe my site isn't good enough but I learned a lot !
The main and large task of this week - to write first draft of Project, I tried to do my best but by Wednesday I hadn't written the time-line for the project. I collaborated with Asma and Saodat - I read and evaluated my peers'drafts and they evaluated mine with checklist. They gave me helpful advice - my draft needs some corrections, it means next week will be very busy too...  

Monday, May 20, 2013

WEEK 7

Unfortunately I started to work with course materials and tasks only in the second half of a week because of the health problems - so I have to overtake my colleagues in two days. It was very difficult because of lack of time for practicing all new we have. 
  • This week we discussed issue that is very familiar to me - teaching strategies if you have only one computer in the room . There were a lot of helpful advice, e.g. Jurgita shared a link with game tools for classroom activity.
  • As soon as I think that's the tool I'm going to use to integrate into classroom activity, new week and of course Robert and colleagues suggest something new that is interesting and helpful too. So it's difficult to choose.   New technology again - Padlet or Wall Wisher - it's very easy to use, in fact many colleagues use this tool and shared their experience . As I see Angel's one I got ideas how to use it in my practice. 
  • Also we found the partners for peer reading and feedback for our projects. My partners will be Saodat and Asma. Time is running fast and we have much work to do.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

WEEK 6


  • The biggest problem for me this week - lack of time.  I haven't enough time to explore and practice everything I liked. 



It was rather interesting to read and watch materials about Interactive Power Point show, especially about alternative tools like Prezi http://readwrite.com/2010/11/27/hate-powerpoint-here-are-5-web-based-alternatives and also watch Samples of PPP of our colleagues - all of them are great, but the Kayyum's one is  the most impressive for me, he gave me some advice so I want to try them.

Monday, May 6, 2013

WEEK 5

 This week was full of discoveries for me.  I read some interesting and helpful articles about PBL. I used it before with my classes nevertheless I got new ideas for this activity.
  •   This week was full of discoveries for me.  I read some interesting and helpful articles about project-based learning (PBL). Students  "work in groups to solve challenging problems that are authentic, curriculum-based, and often interdisciplinary».This activity allows students to demonstrate their knowledge, creativity and individuality. I used it before with my classes, nevertheless I got new ideas to try.
  • I learned about Web Quest - it's a tool or software (I don't know exactly) that gives teacher opportunities to organize PBL in virtual form. I looked at some samples on Web Quest Maker – I think my students will like this form of  work. 
  • Also we discussed and shared ideas about different ways of evaluating, for example rubrics. Rubrics are a great way to clarify expectations for grading of different tasks . And again technology comes to help teachers   - Rubistar Internet tool is easy  to use.

  • It was rather difficult to choose and describe a technology-related change  that I will implement to do differentiated learning in my class more effective!  I haven't decided yet which technology  I'll use because I'd like to try a lot, but I'm not sure (I'm not very experienced in web technology myself). First I'll try Web Quest.... ( it's very pity I have so little time to practice)