Thanks seems to be the easiest word :)

The music of our great Moldovan composer Eugen Doga will speak louder than my humble words.

That's it?

So here we are at the end of our course. A mixture of antagonistic feelings are storming in my brain. On the one hand I feel a soothing relief because it is over, on the other I'm full of sorrow because it is over. I've remembered a small poem about the duality of the human nature:

Man is a fool.

When it is hot, he wants it cool.

When it is cool, he wants it hot.

He always wants what he has not.

This course has been very useful for me. I've learned many interesting things I will most definitely use in my classes. Beginning with Week 2 when we tried to formulate a clear ABCD objective and ending with the issue of learning styles, I was in a constant process of autonomous study.  I cannot tell that I would use only one particular tool. I think the best result is in their harmonious combination. At one lesson, one tool might be used, at the next - another, etc. It depends on the ABCD objective set before every lesson.

I know for sure that I would do a lot of blogging in the next academic year. I will also work with a wiki together with my class. It will be similar in some ways with what we had here. I will go one using my blog for my educational goals. 

There were no irrelevant tools in this course, in my opinion. Even if some of the things were not completely new to me, I had the chance to look at them from another perspective. So I discovered other ways of using that tool. However, what I'm dreaming of is how to organize online conferences. I would suggest thinking of organizing some webinars.

I am happy for Sandra that she had the opportunity to meet FACE-TO-FACE the team in Oregon. You see people still long for this physical contact, if you understand what I mean. That is why my belief stays unchanged: technology is only A tool to improve teaching, to make it more interesting and diversified.  It is A tool every teacher should use nowadays to get to their students, to motivate them. I hope that one day we'd have the chance to meet. Meanwhile I'll follow Poncho's advice in one of his posts: "Dream on".
As I have got into the musical style lately I would like to end with:

The end is near.........

The title of my post sounds a bit creepy but this is the truth: "our course is slowly coming to an end, but only to mark a new beginning in our teaching process. As far as you can see I have already got into the melancholy of the farewell mood :)

Meanwhile this week has been as full as the previous weeks. As a matter fo fact we started slow and now we are letting it flow :) 

What I  have got is that a person is a bundle of multiple intelligences he/she makes use of in the process of learning. Definitely, one may prevail over the others, but does not exclude them. I found the variety of offered web tools for every intelligence apart very useful. You can notice that some of them are repeated, eg. blogging is good for intrapersonal and interpersonal inteligences, whwereas, Powerpoint, I would say, is an "omnipresent" tool. So we have the possibility to choose what best suits our educational goals.

I have also rediscovered the benifits of the butterflies-in-my-stomach feeling caused by tests and learned a new maxim "Forgetting is a friend of learning". Above all I have finally submitted my project plan. I hope it is not bad as I worked hard on it just like all of you did, I'm pretty sure.

Now what I want to do is... (this addresses musical/rhythmic intelligences :)

Why not live in ANVILL?

This week has been the toughest! And it is not only me who thinks like this. This is the feeling I get after reading your blog posts or nicenet discussion threads. But the process of overcoming all the difficulties gets us closer to the stars, or at least to another improvement in our teaching career. In our case, we become more digitally literate, and thus, closer to our technologically friendly students. So we should change our place of residence and choose ANVILL, or Google sites, or Blogger, or Nicenet. Definitely I am joking, we should not go to extremes. Just we should take advantage of every technological tool that would bring diversity to the process of teaching and enhance the process of learning.

The other issue that caused so much panic was the creation of our first draft. But let's look at the positive side, we once again had the possibility of getting the thrill of the student life. I think it is good to be reminded of it from time to time, as it will make us think twice before assigning a certain task to our students.

As I am not teaching this semester, my project is prospective rather than retrospective. I truly hope to impliment the changes I have planned, but above all I am more than positive that the students will enjoy them.

One more thing, I love the idea of organizing webinars. I attended a couple in the past. I hoped that this one will be just as great as the others. Unfortunately I had some tech problems and I couldn't hear most of the webinar. Maybe you should organize more webinars? I think it's a wonderful opportunity of interacting online.

Vicky

A restrictedly autonomous teacher's weekly reflection

I don't know where to start from. Probably from the very beginning.

I have thought that the more we are getting closer to the grand finale the easier it will be. I was mistaken. I think the esiest task this week was to find a partner. I would like to thank Poncho for expressing his desire to be my partner for our next week's peer reading of our project drafts. 

When it comes to one-computer classroom, it was not difficult as well, just a bit time-consuming. What I want to say is, I thought at first that some random thoughts would do, but then I realized I had to make a more specific lesson plan. But this why we are here: to realize things and ideas, "Reflections into Actions" as Victoria entitled her blog. We do not only learn but actually DO things (I'm too much into Pragmatics, aren't I?).

I would also like to add that we use very often a computer in the classroom. We use it for listening activities, or for watching something, or for making public a presentation. I liked the activities from:

• http://www.susangaer.com/sgaer/onecomputer/wordprocessing.html
• http://www.susangaer.com/sgaer/onecomputer/internet.html
• http://www.lburkhart.com/elem/strat.htm 
• http://www.seirtec.org/present/onecomptr.html

Some of them were new to me, others were not.

The reading for this week mostly dealt with learner autonomy, something that should be ecouraged, cultivated, in our students. I have already shared the existing problems here in Moldova, i.e. the student are too much teacher-dependent. If there is nobody to watch-dog them, they won't do anything. This is a problem we are fighting and trying hard to solve. I think that our schools have to adopt not only verbally but also in practice student-centered teaching and the problem will gradually disappear.

Another issue is the teacher autonomy. I think the teacher should be autonomous within the curriculum he/she has to follow and according to the students' needs.

So these are my reflections for this week

Cheers

Vicky

Partner wanted!

An invitation for collaboration :)

Connected

This week has been very adventurous for me I would say. Yet, what is this life, but an ongoing adventure, where one should take some risks and seize new opportunities. I think this is what we are actually doing here. We discuss, share and discover different views and experiences connected with modern technological ways of TEACHING and seize the opportunity of LEARNING new things.

At the same time, this very week has been very productive as well. I have previously worked with PPT but once again I have discovered many new interactive ways of making a great presentation. Esecially I liked the various activities one could use in a PPT. I have made a PPT in grammar and I avoided using images, as I thought it is more appropriate. In my opinion, a grammar lesson focuses above all on accuracy. I tried to use my PPT as an electronic blackboard where I would explain the theoretical material by involving the students in the process.

Another importand thing is that a teacher should know the students, their personalities, in order to get to them. Very often I make examples using the names of my studetns. In this way they manage to get a better understanding of the studied material.

When it comes to large classes, I work with them only when I have theoretical courses. I am lucky to have 12 students for my practical classes. I would like to share the link of the book I found on the internet:
http://www.cambridge.org/other_files/downloads/esl/booklets/Jones-Student-Centered.pdf
The author explains everything in plain language and it is accessable for everybody.

I also liked the way other techers work with large classes. It is always interesting to discover new things and revise your own methods of teaching.