Week 6: Daniel's Reflection

Empowering Teaching

 

 

This week was all about promoting productive instruction via the Microsoft tool Power Point. I have until this week viewed power point as an important tool in one way communication. But this week has advanced my knowledge on power point that it can not only be applied to enhance interaction in class but also very convenient to apply it in a large class size with having as equal out come as managimg a small class size would have. Isn't this a break through specially in classrooms over flooded by an influx of students? I have applied such interactive powerpoint in my class. First as it was a new phenomenon to my class I have to further investigate about it on how to implement it in order to foster class interaction. Thus I have read several articles on it and viewed the sites indicated in our course site for this week. They have actually enlightened me a lot in broadening my understanding on the do's and don'ts of that process. They further have boosted my confidence on its application as an interactive tool. As I have already mentioned it over my discussion post on Nice net, power point application was never new to my knowledge as I have used it in several occassions. But as an interactive tool, this week was my first step. It was indeed a very rewarding adventure. My students enjoyed it beyond imagination. And what witnessed that  was I hardly spoke apart from the instruction I was expected to give the rest and much of the class times were shared among the learners. Thanks Donna, for that enlightement that I have now been friendly to such interactive power point in every type of lesson in my class. I commonly use lectures in my class room and the interpreted lecture and blank slide techniques play a great trick of engaging leaners share their ideas in class. 

 

This week has also been a kind of experiment for what we have suggested as a solution to our class room problems. In my case it was a motivation problem. My students were not motivated to give presentations in class for the basic fact that they memorize their presentations and were easily disappointed with themselves as they fail to recall every thing in their presesntation. Thus my suggestion was if I can allow them present using power point it will easily alleviate the problem. The question is how did it go? Well, to be frank I have a very successful week this week in every respect. By demonstrating interactive power point in class myself,  I have not only managed to foster interaction in class but also laid an example to my students. Most of them used Interactive Power point while giving their presentation. One peculiar example is from Winta a student in my class. Her presentation was on "Isn't the Institute of Religous Studies (IRS) late at establishing student's lounge?". After introducing her topic and stating her findings colourfully using power point she arrived at the conclusion that the institute is inhibited by spatial limitations from having students' lounge. Finally she used the power point interactively asking her class mates to suggest possible recomendations and I can't tell you the enthusism she has created making each student want to suggest a recomendation. I was practically speechless at how the students dominated the discussions. What is more all the presenters were competitive to one another; each came up with very interesting slides and demonstrated their presentations with FULL confidence. What a MOTIVATION ! Now that I have witnessed the power of technology I will impart it to other English teachers to use interactive power point presentations often in thei class rooms.

 

To generalize this week has taught me a lot. One of which is that technology what ever it can be has the power to encourage learning. Second I also have got the taste that I no more should depend on the old style of chalk and talk instruction. I knew I have to upgrade my self in my instructions. It further taught me there is no raeson why we teachers can't manage motivating large class sizes to learn through power point. 

Power point is indeed a tool to empower teaching!!!

                                                                       

Daniel's Week 5 on Web Skills

 ACADEMIC GROWTH

As usual the week began with reading articles. I am growing fond of such practice not only because I gain lots of practical lessons from the readings but also my habit of reading on the fields of teaching-learning has shown a marked growth as I seem to be hunting for books or articles there on the web on the topic. This week's reading entirely focused on alternative assessment which I found it to be quite constructive in Learner-Centered classrooms. This means of assessment actually is as opposed to the traditional teacher based assessment. Alternative assessment gives students the wider opportunity to learn at the same time assess their learning by centering on their strong sides rather than their weaker sides. It also gives them the opportunity to assess their peers as well, there by enhance communication in the class. In short, the teacher assumes his/her right place as facilitator of the class and students mange the trend of learning. VERY IDEAL!!! 

                                                           

        The second article I am so grateful is"Less teaching and More Learning" written by Susan Gaer. This article emphasizes on motivation.Through a project based learning a teacher can promote learning of specific learning outcomes. This article was written from Susan's own experience. I have actually never imagined that students can come up with accomplished tasks such like books while learning simultaneously. And We all understand that nothing promotes learning than experiencing. These students are not only learning the language skills they are also learning other related tasks. Thus I would conclude such learning as very practical  . I am actually very grateful for it gave me the thought that I can also design a project likewise where students can contribute articles, poems, essays, humors or comic to our institutes year book.  I am planing to integrate these tasks into the lesson plan where I will be devoting some instructional time so that the students can work on it.   

                                                        
                                                         

                                                       

 Web Quest, another significant site in the learning of any field of study across all academic levels. The site http://www.zunal.com/ especially is very resourceful as it offers ready made lessons where students can pick a topic of their interest if working on their own, or if supervised by a teacher they can work on a uniform task all for the purpose of efficient learning by increasing the students and technology interaction. I was marveled my self to have come discovered such a site. however, I equally felt sorry to all the schools all over that world who have no internet connectivity for missing such wonderful learning resource.As an extra credit I have managed to open my own web quest, but I feel that I still need to learn a lot about that site if I can design my own topics and lessons of learning.

   

One basic thing that I think teachers need to work is at identifying learners' difficulty. Because once a problem is identified a cure is at hand. Thus one of the tasks we had to do was identifying our class room problems and a solution that incorporates technology. I have come to identify one problem that deters my learners' speaking proficiency.I found out that the traditional method of oral presentation that was practiced in my class very depressing and not motivating to the students. I have decided now to come up with one lasting solution to the problem, and that is to incorporate Microsoft  power point program and an LCD projector into the presentation. That way I believe,  the presentation trend would become very interesting and attractive to my students.   

                                                              

        This week has also its own surprises for me. One of which is creating one's own Rubric and link it to the course wiki. In deed, the web is a solution to every educational need. I remember my self designing several times my own rubric and never be satisfied with it. As I usually become concerned at its efficiency of assessing my students' qualities with respect to the learning trait I was looking for. But looking at site http://rubistar.4teachers.org/ I was so amazed at its support to teachers who are looking to design their own rubric. No need of wasting time; there already are  ready made measurement weights for ever quality a teacher would intend to measure . A teacher can create his/her rubric just by  visiting the site any time they need. Using the site I my self have managed to create my own rubric for my technology integrated oral presentation in my class room. I am very grateful to my instructor, Donna, for she is the one who have guided me to a such very important web site. THANKS!!!

                                                                                                        

Week 4: Reflection

 

"Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail”

                                    (http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/proverbs.html)

This week viewed from comparative point of view was a bit too demanding yet very practical. We had to accomplish a lot of tasks this week that I presume would lay a foundation to the upcoming action research we are expected to undertake by week 9.

First as usual we had to read articles that foster our understanding on the use of technology at teaching English skills. I personally am growing fond of such articles for they are helping me see ways that I can incorporate technology at teaching specific aspects of the skills in the language. After this course I actually have a big plan to organize workshops in different teaching settings here in Asmara sometime in the summer to help teachers see beyond and exploit the internet and technology in general in their teaching endeavors. To this perspective the articles I read in this week were really assets. For instance, the article “Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instruction” by Jarek Krajka proved that how the internet can get into the action of teaching the writing skill. Jarek in his/her article pointed out the benefits students have from learning through the internet as compared to the usual traditional class room. A teacher who has devoted his/her time at upgrading his/her students’ writing skill such like I, would surely employ at least some of the teaching writing genres Jarek has indicated. Out of which Writing a formal letter, Biography, Notices and Advertisements, Argumentative Essays, and Description or review of a book, Film or play seem quite suitable genres for my class room. The good thing about the article is all the genres have corresponding websites that promote the learning of that particular genre.

The second article “Three Extensive Reading Activities for ESL/EFL students using E-books” by Mei-Ya Liang focuses on the contributions of E-books and the teaching strategies employed for the purpose at promoting the skill of reading. These include enabling students to choose an e-book according to their interest and reading level from among ten given books, Reading and sharing books that ultimately enable learners to see others interpretations of the book, and finally Evaluating books that promotes according to Bloomfield the higher cognitive levels. Because students must synthesize, analyze and evaluate the text they read. Something I appreciate about Liang’s article is that she has managed to insight the procedures and study guides for each type of lessons, very practical indeed.

Following reading the articles I was also invited to choose among four to five websites that promote the learning of vocabulary, reading, spelling and the like for my class. After browsing each site I found two websites very effective in my class: www.breakingnewsenglish.com and http://www.lclark.edu/~krauss/toppicks/toppicks.html

Breaking News EnglishFree, Ready-to-Print EFL/ESL Lesson Plans on Current Events / English News Lessons.
-- As The News Breaks, Teach It --

I liked the first one for it practically teaches basic components of writing. In short, everything is practical with this site; students are expected to fulfill tasks that promote the learning of basic components of the skill. On top of this the site will also inform learners with the timely news and information. For instance, I never knew until I read it in the website that Gambia has taken a courageous step forward to introduce a three days week end, surprising isn’t it? Thus, in addition to improving writing this site also updates learners with contemporary news. The second site I found it very interesting for my students and I have already shared it to them because I know some are very interested to sit for an international exam and the site particularly helps them in their preparation for such international exams such like TOEFL, IELTS. GRE, GMAT, SAT and so on.

It is obvious indeed there never is instruction without a lesson plan because failing to plan is simply planning to fail. The next task was creating a technology-enhanced lesson plan. It seemed a bit daunting at the time, but later after visiting the two websites indicated things got much easier and using the template in our week 4 course web site I managed to prepare a lesson plan. I found the template actually very helpful in my future lesson planning format.

        If someone has to find solutions to a problem first s/he has to identify a problem. Identifying a problem let alone in serious contexts such as education, it is the first step in every endeavor that hopes to bring a lasting solution to a prevailing problem. To this respect project task three has been very pragmatic in essence for someone looking forward to use technology, s/he must see possibilities that the technology can ease or avoid an existing problem in the traditional classroom teaching. It is thus, identifying the problem should come first in our pursuit of enhancing teaching-learning with the aid of technology. In my class room for instance, I have found lack of learners’ motivation during presentations. And this in return is hampering their improvement in the speaking skill. Thus my assumption is through the involvement of a certain technology may be that ordeal will change all together.

       In general my overall reflection of this week is very positive. The week has been very practical it has got involved me into a lot of practicalities starting from identifying a problem in my class and planning a lesson to that perspective. I hope it will bring one lasting solution to the already going on traditional presentation once I implement the lesson.

My reflection on Week Three

My third week on Web Skills

          Web skills! It gets better with this course every single day as each day opens up into a whole new surprise. The exposure is something beyond expectation. Now I feel different and changed my somewhat limited perspective of our world into a wider scope. The web is undeniably a very big world with stocks and piles of resources of every sort, and means of communications.  One can simply say, “Man has digitized his world.” Accessing to information has now become at a click further.

          The reading articles for this week were supportive to our learning. To begin with the article on the use of authentic listening materials at fostering the listening skill was indeed very helpful. I believe it brought some perspectives to our teaching endeavors.  Authentic materials such like TV, radios and other related materials apart from what they contribute at keeping students abreast with the current news and updates they also are very instrumental at boosting the language proficiencies of the learners. The article was on the pros and cons of each authentic material and was very informative. Actually such phenomena were never new for me because in my teaching experience I had implemented such method.  It was when I was an English teacher in Holy Savior High School in Asmara. They were 12^th grade students and it means a lot to them to become successful in the mastery of the four basic language skills because they were in their transitional time for tertiary education.  Thus, to help improve their listening and there by boost their speaking skills, I let them watch the BBC news. The class was in the afternoon so they had to follow the GMT news from the BBC news desk. They followed this twice a week for a half semester. It was like a pilot program, and I found it   very rewarding particularly at enhancing speaking in class. For the post listening involves their views on the eventualities of the events they followed there in the news. Yet, such method also has its limitations. One of which is time constraint, for to include such a method as an ongoing learning process, it requires a lot of time. Either the students must come to school to learn nothing but English. As a solution the teacher may assign the task of following the news to be done at home, still this also deprives the pre listening activities (brainstorming questions) students must have before going on with the listening. The second reading article that I read was on computer assisted language learning (CALL). I found that article timely and important for teachers looking to see the significance that technology has to their language teaching. Integrating technology into ones teaching makes learning simple and enjoyable.

          The websites we had to search for this week were quite different from the previous week. This is because they are particularly focused on English language teaching. We have come to identify websites that we can use as resources in our teaching endeavors. Each web site has its qualities and area or skill it emphasized and all organized to serve the various English learning levels. Especially there was this particular website: http:www. Esl-lab.com, which stood out for me out of all the other sites. One particular reason I liked this site is for it targets the listening skill across all learning levels. It also follows the right approach to implementing a listening lesson beginning with some brainstorming questions as pre listening, then the listening itself usually in the form of dialogues which makes it rather interesting to follow, and finally provides post listening questions.

          The task assigned to us for this week involved getting our Delicious page and linking it to our course’s wiki. As one of the tasks required of us to do, I have read it during our first week when we had to search the whole course website‘s contents. Back then there were a lot of words I couldn’t find a single meaning for. One of such words was the word “Delicious.” After all, I understand the word delicious as a common compliment after taking a morsel of food. Still I can’t get it how such word ended as a name for a page. I would greatly appreciate if anyone who has an idea on it to write me as a comment. Anyways it seemed quite scary at first signing into Delicious, but practically it is much easier than signing up for a blogging. Whenever I access into certain websites I commonly come across this message that says “Book mark us”, I never understood until now that the purpose of delicious is to bookmark websites that you think will serve you a purpose in life. It also makes it easier for you to sign in from the URL there in your delicious rather than trying to remember each URL or write it on the piece of paper or mobile phone, and if either of them gets lost  get frustrated; simply to explain a bank of URLs’ that someone can access right away from. In short, it was quite a privilege for me to open my delicious page successfully and link it into our course’s wiki. I had a great time and experience!

          Last but not least, the project task #2 was something enlightening. It gave me a glimpse of what my project report must look like. I read a number of projects there in our course website for week 3, and out of all I specifically chose to respond on one project from Burkina Faso entitled  “Working with a Large Class of Grade 13 "Terminale" Students” by Tendouinde Bruno Nikiema. The action research basically focused on how technology can overcome the barrier of large class size at attaining certain instructional objectives. The teacher in that research explains how he has used the email at boosting learners’ writing skills. The stages he followed to study the significance of that technology has helped him arrive safely at achieving something at the end. He managed to instill team work and self-motivation amongst his learners, the two qualities that are cherished a lot at creating supportive learning class room.

          To conclude, like the past few weeks, this week has also been quite interesting and remarkable at broadening my outlook towards the web and my general perspective of the world.

Daniel's Week 2 Reflection

Week 2 Reflection:

Dear Donna, and classmates:

            Here follows my reflection for this week, please read it and, I really appreciate your comments on my thoughts.

            As the week opened, and  as I read the instructions from my mail, a sense of fear started to shroud me; I really felt a chill down to my backbone. My instructor, Donna, had nicely presented all the things we are expected to accomplish some of which by Wednesday 11:59 and some up to Sunday 11:59 Oregon time. Yet, I have to admit that the tasks and assignments as I read them made me panic for a bit of a time then. Anyways, later I started with vigor and interest to accomplish all the tasks laid ahead of me.

            The first of the tasks was looking for reading sources for week 2 from our course web site. After accessing that site, I understood our week 2 will emphasize on learning objectives. As I have attended to several workshops and given a workshop myself to middle school teachers on how to write clearly attainable objectives, it was easy for me to grasp the whole idea. Bloomfield had clearly explained the three domains of learning: the cognitive, psycho motor and affective domains. And learning in general is the manifestation of an outcome in terms of these three integrated domains. The cognitive domain, for instance, goes in levels starting from the basic understanding level to the higher levels of synthesizing. And each learning objective varies in terms of the specific outcome it requires from the learners. Another good thing I have come to learn from this course is the way an objective gets to be written through the ABCD for. As an Instructor I always state my specific objectives for the lessons I teach. Although the ABCD are apparent in the objectives I state, but I do not specify each in the way we are doing for this course.

            Example:

By the end of the lesson: students (A) are expected to define (B) the steps to effective   writing when asked (C) in simple and grammatically correct sentences (D).

In short, the ABCD method helps a teacher never to miss out a very important component of the objective. The psycho motor domain is also very essential as it deals with the fine and gross motor skills of the learners. Yet, what I can’t see is how this domain can be practical when dealing with technology enhanced learning. May be some of you my classmates can comment on this. The affective domain, very essential but difficult to assess, is the best strategy one can use to attain with attitudes and emotions of the learners. I would also suggest using either Likeret type or Semantic differential type questionnaires the right tools to assess the degree to which a learner feels or has an attitude of a certain learned outcome. I sometimes use these types of questionnaires. For instance, in my city Asmara, there are a number of secondary schools whose Math teachers always complain with lack of interest amongst their  students towards that subject. And my believe is that teachers must work on the affective domains of such learners before proceeding to the other domains. Often, I advise Math teachers to include in their objectives the real life relevance and application of a certain concept that they intend to teach, that at least will instill some level of motivation on the learner        s and help them level up their interest and efforts into the learning.

The second of the tasks involved searching the given web site: http://www.noodletools.com and express one’s impression on it due by Wednesday 11:59 Oregon time. My knowledge of the web was rather limited before. This is due to the fact that I used to access the internet only from Google, yahoo, face book and planet papers.com. However, accessing http://www.noodletools.com has opened up whole new options for me. Now I can search for a particular piece of information from a number of sites. It would also help me choose the site that best provides the information. In general, I had a really constructive time searching through the websites, and some of the sites have actually become my lifetime partners. I was also privileged to read all my class mates posts and some websites they have indicated I found them to be really instrumental at enhancing learning. For example, dogpile, esl.com and choice history.com can be noted here. The good thing that I am growing fond of about this e-learning is that it opens up an access to read each other’s posts on one topic and learn from each other a great deal. I am very lucky that I have a very supportive learning community, and I have expressed that in my response to one of my class mate’s post.

The third task involved a description and one ABCD objective. This part actually marked the beginning of our project for this course. And this is because it lays the foundational ground to the upcoming tasks. It, of course, is understood teaching must begin with an objective, and if we have to enhance learning through technology it is undeniably true we should start with clearly defined and attainable objectives. This part actually got me to think deeply until I come up with a view that on how involving a certain technology into my class would subsequently ease things out. I teach English in one institute called Institute of Religious Studies (IRS) here in Asmara. I teach my students the course Advanced English composition (ENG.232). The course intends to upgrade the ability of the students in their speaking integrated writing skills. There are 30 students in the class and all of them are EFL learners. They are trying to learn to the best of their abilities, but at times are observed to be challenged specially during presentations on their reports.

The fourth task was literally getting started with the course project. It goes with the background of the learners. I think this is where we most of the teachers fail at delivering the lesson to the learners. We fail to analyze their backgrounds; instead, we start from an ideal student perspective. The ensuing would be a discrepancy in the learners’ outcome. Some of them would become high achievers, some modest, and some low achievers. However, I believe there is a possibility that every student can learn on equal footing. And I think the main intention of analyzing one’s students’ background is to achieve such equal learning in class.

To sum up, It really has been a very constructive time for me this week. It helped me see that one must not necessarily have all the technological gadgets and resource to be able to enhance learning through technology, one can simply start with what s/he already has and inspire students into learning to the desired level.

Best Regards!!!

Daniel

Week 1 Introductions and Ground rule for Discussions

My reflections on Week 1Introductions and Ground rules for Discussions:

My name is Daniel Berhanu, you just can call me Daniel . For me this year has started with so many pleasant surprises. One of which, I could join to a very wonderful an online Web skills training with so wonderful and very supportive instructor, Donna, and a very enthusiastic and motivated class mates. I have been introduced to my wonderful instructor,  all my class mates I have read all your wonderful introductions and you all have a very colorful backgrounds. It gives me a pleasure to know you all. I also have posted my introductions at Nicenet and my reflection on the ground rules for Discussions as well. I have read the Ground rules, indeed they are very guiding and helpful at creating a supportive class room community. I thank you Donna for your dedication and support that you have been able to demonstrate this few days. Indeed it is going to be a very successful class for all of us.

Thanks!!!