Week 10: Reflections

This week, we have done the following assignments:
1. Blog: Final Reflection
2. Self-evaluating ourselves with the LoTI framework
3. Overview of the course

• BLOG: FINAL REFLECTION

It's really hard to believe that this is the last week in our course! I am sure everyone of us feels sad about it because we haven't just been learning but also having fun with technology tools on the Internet. I was very excited to work with experienced teachers from all around the world and have learned a lot from reading their posts and comments. I wish we could keep in touch for as long time as possible. For me, I will continue to write on my blog so please make sure you come and comment. I would also welcome the idea of continuing our discussions on Nicenet as we will still be able to have access to the class.

We could swap our students' emails and let the students practice their English by writing emails to each other with a CC to the teachers. I think this practice will improve the students' English and introduce them to other cultures. It's so wonderful that a class in the Middle East for example is working with a class in Europe or any other part of the world.

• SELF-EVALUATING OUR TECHNOLOGY USE
  

The Levels of Technology Innovation (LoTi) framework is a scale of seven levels used to "assess authentic classroom technology use". In this task, we had to read the aforementioned framework and decide which level we are in now and where we would like to be in a year. We also had to include ideas about how we will get to where we want to be in the future.

In my post on Nicenet, I pointed out that my technology integration was in the past limited to finding materials on the Internet to enhance my lectures, which is LoTi Level 1 (Awareness). However, since the start of this online course, I have implemented some technology enhancements in my teaching such as the use of blogger and emailing, which I think puts me now in LoTi Level 2 (Exploration).

I think if my classes were equipped with technology and all of the students were used to using it, I would aim at Level 4a – Integration: Mechanical. Of course this is not the case in the place where I teach and therefore the target level I hope to reach in a year's time is LoTi Level 3 (Infusion).

To achieve this, I would use Task-Based and WebQuest activities that are based on authentic materials to enable my students to apply, analyze, synthesize and evaluate problems.

I would also involve the students in reading activities on Nicenet where they can use their critical thinking skills in their analysis, synthesis and evaluation of the texts. The students would also need to start their own blogs to practice their reflective thinking by writing about what things they do in the course and what they think about them.

• OVERVIEW OF THE COURSE

In this task, we discussed what topics were most successful in the course, which ones were most useful for us and which were not relevant to what we do or will do.

For me, all the subjects were successful and useful, particularly the following:

• Creating class sites and making online exercises.
• Creating a rubric for assessment
• Writing class objectives in the ABCD method
• Technology enhanced lesson plans
• Project-based learning
• Interactive PowerPoint
• Learner autonomy and Teacher autonomy

The less relevant topic to what I do right now was probably Teaching Large Classes. Although some of my colleagues are teaching large classes, there is a tendency towards making the classes smaller (approximately 25 students). However, it was undoubtedly interesting to read about the subject.

Yours,

Mohamed

Week 9: Reflections

This week, we have done the following assignments:

• Submitting the Final Project Report
• Creating Class Sites and Making Online Exercises
• Discussing the Online Tools Explored This Week

1. THE FINAL PROJECT REPORT:
By the end of this week, i.e. Sunday, June 6, 2010, all participants in our online course will have to submit their final project reports to the course coordinator, Deborah Healey. My project, which I started eight weeks ago and have already submitted, examined the usefulness of web blogs in fostering motivation in English writing in students. To do that, I created a class blog for my engineering students at the University of Bahrain in order to encourage them to write more in English. The response and reaction of the students are amazing despite the fact the students have been busy with tests and exams as their course wraps up by June 8, 2010.

Some benefits from using my class blog:

• The students became more confident to write in English.
• Their writings improved from one post to the next.
• They were able to read their peers’ writings and comment on them.
• Silent students in the classroom had the chance to speak out.
• Our physical classroom became a more relaxed and friendly place to be in because we all felt a sense of community resulting from the online interaction on the class blog.

In my final part of the project, I concluded that the experience of incorporating a class blog in my teaching was successful and that it made me value the role of technology in motivating my students to write more in English. I also warned from rushing to blame students for their inability to progress well in English writing and suggested that a change in the way we teach, especially using blogs, would greatly help to improve the writings of students.

2. CREATING CLASS SITES AND MAKING ONLINE EXERCISES:
In addition to the class blog that I created for my engineering students, I have created Nicenet and Wiki classes for my business students.

The purpose of the Nicenet class is to enhance the students' reading skills by posting reading texts and asking the students to comment on what they think about the way the problems in the texts are probed and what they suggest as a solution. They will also be required to research for some terminologies in the readings and do exercises, such as matching, cloze and crosswords activities that will be uploaded on the class Wiki.

I have used Easy Test Maker to make a paper cloze exercise for my General English students and Hot Potatoes to make a crossword puzzle for my business students. The latter activity is called Vocabulary in Context which is done after reading an article titled Learning to Cope with Corporate Culture Clashes to help the students find the answers.

The most interesting online exercise maker that I have explored this week is Hot Potatoes. It is an essay tool to use. First, you need to download the program on your computer and then follow the steps in this file here to get started.

3.DISCUSSING THE ONLINE TOOLS EXPLORED THIS WEEK:
In the discussion part on Nicenet, we shared our ideas about how the tools we explored this week, such as the ones in 2 above, might change the way we teach and the way that our students learn. In addition, we discussed how using these tools could promote learner autonomy as well as the constraints that would make it difficult to use the tools and how we will overcome these difficulties.

For me, using these tools would enable me to create materials that are tailored for my students instead of adapting ready-made ones. The activities that I make can be posted on the class wiki where students can download them and do them at home.

In my view, the tools we explored this week can promote learner autonomy, as students will use most of them outside the classroom boundaries where there is no direct help from the teacher and this will provide the opportunity for the students to take more control over their learning.

The one thing that could constrain my using of some of the tools is the fact that I have no Internet connectivity in many of my classes. Some students find it difficult to use online tools unless someone shows them how to do it. Without Internet access in the classroom, this will not be possible.

To overcome this problem, I would create How-To files (documents with instructions and pictures) to help my students to acquaint themselves with the online tools that we plan to use.

Yours,

Mohamed

Reflection: Week 8

This week, we have done the following assignments:

i. Swapping first draft Project Reports with a peer for a review
ii. Discussing Learner Autonomy
iii. Creating a One-Computer Activity

1- Project Report:
This week, I swapped my project draft report with my partner's, Mana Al-Masri, for a peer review and comments. She kindly made some very useful comments and suggestions on my project, which will definitely be taken into consideration before I submit the final version of the report on June 6, 2010.

I think this activity, i.e. peer reviewing, is very important because when we write, we sometimes digress from the main subject or we do not get down immediately to the point, which makes our writings long-winded. A good peer review can help us refine our writings indeed. It is an indirect lesson to us that we should do this activity with our students as we now have a hands-on experience with it. Thanks Deborah for this great lesson!

2- Discussion: Learner Autonomy
Our discussion this week has been about how we could encourage greater autonomy in students, with and without technology. In my posts on Nicenet, I pointed out that both Dimitrios Thanasoulas’s article What is Learner Autonomy and How Can It Be Fostered, and Samuel Sheu’s article Learner Autonomy: Bird-in-the-hand or Bird-in-the-bush? emphasize the relationship between learner autonomy and teacher autonomy. In other words, in order for teachers to foster the learner autonomy, they need to learn how to be autonomous in developing their own teaching strategies.

To make my students more self-directed, I have recently begun to implement some strategies such as the use of blogs and task-based activities. I also suggested that we should expose students to authentic materials (in and outside the class) such as reading newspapers, magazines and listening to the BBC. Students should keep in mind that "a successful learner is a long life learner".

I also argued that the role of the teacher in a learner-centered approach should not be undermined because he or she will have crucial responsibilities such as guiding the students to the right direction and observing their progress.

3- Creating a One-Computer Activity:
After reading Susan Gaer and Donna Price-Machado’s article Teaching in a One Computer Classroom, I created a speaking activity benefiting from a map of the United States that has been grabbed off the Internet and will be shown through the overhead projector to the students in the class.

The behavioral objective: After studying the direction expressions and the Comparative (Condition) my General English university students (Audience) will be able to locate a certain state on the map of the United States that is shown through the overhead projector in the class, say in which part of the United States it is and compare it with two other states (Behavior) with 100% accuracy in grammar and pronunciation (Degree).

For example, the teacher will ask individual students "Where is Oregon?"

The expected answer will be something like "It is in the northeastern part of the United States. It is between Washington State and California. It is bigger than Iowa but smaller that Montana".

Yours,

Mohamed

Week 7: Reflections

This week, we have done the following assignments:

i- PROJECT TASK: SUGGESTING A PARTNER TO REVIEW OUR PROJECT REPORT
ii- CREATING AN INTERACTIVE POWER POINT DOCUMENT
iii- DISCUSSION (1): INTERACTIVE POWER POINT
iv- DISCUSSION (2): TECHNOLOGY FOR INTERACTIVE CLASSES

1) PROJECT TASK: SUGGESTING A PARTNER TO REVIEW OUR PROJECT REPORT
On Wednesday next week, May 26, I have to submit my raw project report regarding the technology-related change in my class to a partner in the online course for review and suggestions. Maha Al-Masri, a classmate, has kindly accepted my suggestion that we swap our first draft reports next week for peer-review.

As for the project itself, I have continued implementing my technology-related change that I started last week. My technology change as you can remember is the introduction of blogs in my English 101 (Reading and Writing) course. Last week I asked my students to post their writing assignments (about the pressures of being a student) and this week, I have started discussing some opinion questions related to a reading passage about Information Technology that we have done in class.

Although the responses are good, I feel that it could have been better if I had introduced this project at the start of the course. So far, only six to seven students out of 22 have posted their comments on the blog. I know that that are at least six others who wish to participate but they don't know how to post a comment on a blog! I explained to them in class but it seems that they're still facing a problem.

2) CREATING AN INTERACTIVE POWER POINT DOCUMENT
For this task, I have created an interactive quick vocabulary quiz using the Power Point for my Business students. As you can see in the presentation below, there are ten slides, each of which has a question with three multiple-choice answers. If you click on the right answer, a "Correct Answer!!!" message appears, but if you get the wrong answer, an "Incorrect Answer, Please Try Again" message appears. I can divide the class into two groups and have the students compete with each other. I think this interactive exercise would bring some excitement to the lesson and break the routine.

Vocabulary Quiz1

See more presentations by mohamedhasanuob | Upload your own PowerPoint presentations

3) DISCUSSION (1): INTERACTIVE POWER POINT
After reading the article Unleashing the Power of PowerPoint and viewing Deborah's presentation on Interactive Power Point, I came to know so many interesting things in the Power Point program, which could help English teachers to deliver their lectures more effectively. However, in order to make any success with the Power Point, teachers need to know how to use it interactively. For example:

• There should be as few words as possible in each slide.
• The number of slides should be kept to the minimum.
• The font of the text, its color and size should be appropriate.
• Use animation, hyperlinks, and action buttons in your PPP.
• Do not read from the slide as if you are reading a textbook.
• Do look at students 99% of the time.
• Make your argument is compelling to get the students' attention.
• Allow some time for students to see the slide before you discuss it.

4) DISCUSSION (2): TECHNOLOGY FOR INTERACTIVE CLASSES
In my post on NiceNet, I suggested a number of technology tools that I could use to make my classes interactive. One technique is the use of Interactive Power Point presentations with blank slides as a way of transition to class discussion, where students work in pairs or small groups to discuss concepts outlined in the PPT presentation. This technique, as Heather Macdonald puts it, "provide[s] feedback to the instructor on student understanding".

Other tools included a WebQuest or a Project-task based (benefiting from online materials) that contains interesting subjects to students and the Just-in-Time technique. For the latter, I could post questions related to the subject of the lesson on my blog and use the responses of students to tailor a lesson based on the students' needs. I think the Just-in-Time technique is a great way to engage students in deciding what the focus of the lecture will be and prepare them to the lecture very well. However, I think it will be an overwhelming task for my students and will need a lot of effort from my part to motivate students to post their opinions.


Yours,

Mohamed

Week 6: Reflections

This week, we have discussed Learning styles, have created a Rubric for a lesson and begun implementing a Technology-Related change in one of our classes (Project Task). Please note that all discussions I refer to in my reflections below take place in our Online Class on Nicenet.

Learning Styles (Discussion 1):
After arguing that knowing the learning styles of students is equally important to knowing what learning styles are, I provided two links to learning style questionnaires that aim at identifying the learning styles of learners. The first questionnaire classifies students into Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic learners. Teachers can print out this questionnaire and let their students complete it in class. It would give the teacher a good idea about how his or her students learn. The second learning style questionnaire tries to identify the learning styles found in Richard M. Felder and Barbara A. Soloman's article LEARNING STYLES AND STRATEGIES. This would be good to use in a lab that has access to the Internet, where each student completes the questionnaire on his or her computer and then reports the result to the teacher.

In the same post above, I selected some technology-related ideas, which the reading of this week, Technology and Multiple Intelligences, suggests, to address different learning styles in my class. For example, I chose using Emails, Blogging and Chatting to cater for the needs of visual-linguistic learners, who enjoy writing and creating words, and the needs of Interpersonal learners, who like to get in touch and interact with other people. Other techniques included a WebQuest for Logical Learners; Pictures, Graphs, Tables for Visual-Spatial Learners, and the use of Computers in the class to do exercises for Bodily/Kinesthetic Learners.

Alternative Assessment (Discussion 2):
After reading the article Enhancing Learning by Engaging Students by Rick Finnan and Donna Shaw, I outlined how I would use the technology to enable some of the techniques suggested in the aforementioned article. For example, I would add Minute Papers to a Power Point show to ask students questions that aim at checking their understanding at the beginning and end of the lesson. At the start of the lesson, the questions would be related to the previous lesson. It is important to make a logical connection between what the students did and what they are going to do so that it makes sense to the students. On the other hand, the questions at the end of the lesson would investigate if the students are aware of the most important thing they learned in the lesson and what issues they haven't understood. That would determine if I need to reinforce some ideas in the next lesson.

For a Think-Pair-Share activity, I would download pictures from the Internet and use them to practice speaking in the class. I would give each pair of students a picture and ask them to think about what is going on in the pictures individually. Then I would ask the students to work in pairs and talk about the pictures before we discuss them as a class.

Creating a Rubric:
After reading about Rubrics and viewing some examples, we had to create a rubric for a lesson. My rubric has been created to assess a Five-Paragraph essay that my English Course 101 (Reading and Writing) are writing now.

A Log on the Technology-related Change in my class:
I have begun implementing the technology related-changed that I suggested in week 5, that's blogging. I have launched a blog, Enhance Your Writing on Our Blog, for my English Course 101. We have already stated our first activity, Writing a five-paragraph essay about the Pressures of Being a Student. The responses from my students are impressive! In just four days so far, the comments have reached 51 and expected to rise as not all students have posted their essays, yet.

As show in the link of our blog above, I have shared with the students the objective of the activity (in ABCD) and the rubric for the assessment. The purpose of this is to enable the students to know what they are required to do and how they will be assessed.

This activity will run for one week. The next activity will be posted on Tuesday next week. I will keep a log on the changes that I have witnessed in class in the coming days on this blog.

Yours,

Mohamed

Week 5: Reflections

In addition to blogging, we have had three assignments this week:

1- Discussion: Project-based learning and WebQuests:
After reading Susan Gaer's article Less Teaching and More Learning, which supports project-based learning; reading about WebQuests, and viewing some examples of these, we discussed, on Nicenet, how could project-based learning (including WebQuests) help students become more autonomous learners. In addition, we also discussed how could project-based learning change the teacher-student relationship in class in general.

In my post in the Discussion section on Nicenet, I pointed out that project-based learning can help students to become more autonomous because it pushes towards a learner-based approach, where learners do most of the work. The teacher's role here is limited to facilitating learning and prompting students. In a teacher-based approach, on the other hand, the teacher dominates almost every aspect of learning, leaving little space of freedom to learners.

I think the learner-basted approach promotes creativity and independence among students. The opposite is true with the teacher-based approach, where the teacher spoon-feeds learners.

2- Task: Project-based learning and WebQuests:

In this task, we had to share a project-based lesson or the outline for a WebQuest that might work in one of our classes. We had to mention the target students to whom the lesson will be taught, the topic of the lesson, its objectives (in ABCD format), and why we think this lesson would work.

I actually wanted to create a WebQuest but because I have been quite busy with other things this week, I chose to design a project-based lesson. However, I definitely intend to create a WebQuest when time permits.

My project-based lesson, which is titled Analyzing a Short Story to Write a Five Paragraph Essay, targets my English Reading and Writing students and has the following objectives:

1- After reading the short story, The Diamond Necklace, and finding the MAIN theme of the story with three examples on it (Condition), Students in my English Course 101 (Audience) will write and re-write a five-paragraph essay on the story's MAIN theme, focusing on the three examples they found (Behavior) with 100% accuracy, in a period of two weeks (Degree).

2- After reading the short story, The Diamond Necklace (Condition) Students in my English Course 101 (Audience) will discuss on our blog one of the other themes in the story, such as, Envy, Content and Borrowing and Lending (Behavior) in at least one post and a comment on another person's participation (Degree).

In order for students to meet the above mentioned objectives, they have to go through eight steps as shown in the link of the project-based lesson plan above.

I think this lesson would work because it relates to what the students have studied in the previous weeks, i.e. studying all aspects relating to the five-paragraph essay. In addition, the short story is simple and interesting, and discusses a universal theme that can be found in any society in the world. Most importantly, students will probably welcome the idea of reading and searching online and discussing their opinions on a blog with the teacher and other peers.

3- Project Task:
Having written some issues with one of our classes last week, this week we have had to describe a technology-related change that could help to tackle these issues.

As I illustrated in my reflections last week, I have problems with motivating students to write in English. The technology-related change that I would like to implement is the use of a weblog. I hope that by seeing their writing products published, read and commented on by others, the students will get motivated to write more.

Note: please participate in the poll above.

Yours,

Mohamed

Week 4: Reflections

This week we have had four assignments:

1- Discussing the Impact of Technology on improving Reading and Writing skills:

A) Reading Articles
The reading articles this week have been interesting as usual. On Nicenet, where our course discussions are taking place, I summarized and commented on some points in Jarek Krajka's article on Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instruction.

One issue raised in this article is that writing on a blog puts students at ease, because they are not restricted by the classical writing rules. It adds that students get more excited and motivated when their works are displayed on the Internet, read and commented on by other people.

Jarek points out that one advantage of using online materials is that they are up-to-date, unlike textbooks, which may have been in use for several years. Moreover, online materials are authentic and unintended to be used in classrooms, which makes them more exciting for students.

Jarek also warns that if students and teachers are not technology-literate, then it is absurd to use technology as an aid in teaching. At least students need to know how to surf the Internet, have typing skills, and a reasonable level in English that enables them to comprehend and interact with online materials. Teachers also need to be able to solve minor technical problems with computers and have another lesson plan ready to use in case there was a breakdown in connection with the Internet during the lesson.

Additional Articles this week:
In his article E-mailing to Improve EFL Learners' Reading and Writing Abilities: Taiwan Experience, Chao-chih Liao presented his experience with using emails to improve students' writing skills. I liked the idea of swapping emails where a group of English language students in some part of the world exchange emails with students from another part of the world. Not only this activity improves the writing skills, but it also enhances students' awareness of other cultures. Therefore, I suggest that we try it out here! What do you think?

Another interesting reading article this week was Andreea I. Constantinescu's paper on Using Technology to Assist in Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading Comprehension. She argues that reading is interrelated with vocabulary, claiming that students need to know at least 95% of the vocabulary in a reading passage in order for them to comprehend it well. Andreea also emphasizes the importance of developing students' reading strategies through the use of multimedia.

B) Discussing skill-building websites (Reading and Writing):
After discussing the impact of technology on improving the skills of Speaking and Listening last week, this week we have started discussing the influence of technology on Reading and Writing. In this task, we had to go through a list of websites and find two or more specific web pages that would work for us in our class. You could find the links of these websites on my Delicious page.

The websites that I was interested in most were the TV411 website and the Breaking News English website.

From the TV411 website, I chose a writing activity that would work perfectly with my business students (intermediate), who will soon have to write a job cover letter. The good thing about this web page is that it helps students to gather and organize the information needed in a job cover letter in a nice step-by-step presentation. The final stage of this activity is free writing. Students should find no difficulty here because the pre-writing activities, i.e. gathering and organizing information, have done a great deal of the work.

Another activity I selected was from Breaking News English, which offers interesting lesson plans about recent stories in the world. For my General English students (intermediate), I have chosen an up-to-date lesson about the recent Internet censorship problem between Google and China. This is really a useful activity because it tries to address all four skills, i.e. reading, writing, listening and speaking. What is more, the story of the dispute between Google and China has been a point of focus in the world media recently, particularly on the BBC. Students may already have heard about this problem in their mother tongue language, and therefore, they should have no problem with digesting the subject.

2- Preparing a technology-enhanced lesson plan:
After reading about technology-enhanced lesson plans from the website of the University of Tennessee, we had to prepare a technology lesson plan based on the model template that our course teacher, Dr Deborah Healey, has suggested.

In my lesson plan, I prepared a lesson for my English Course (Reading & Writing). The lesson, which is titled: Introducing the Five-paragraph Essay, has capitalized on some materials printed out from the Internet. The reason I printed out the materials is that I can't get access to them from my class since it is not accommodated with technology.

3- Describing issues in class that technology might tackle:
After briefly describing who my students are (so that readers will have the necessary context), I outlined two issues with one of my classes this semester, hoping that technology will help to tackle these issues:

- I have difficulty finding and organizing materials. I spend a great deal of time thinking about ideas that could be used in the writing session. I often end up having a headache and feeling disappointed!

- I feel that many of my students are not quite motivated. In the class, there is no good interaction between students and teacher, and some students seem to be uninterested. In addition, many students skip classes!

4- Blogging:
This is a weekly task that we have to do in this course. Dr Deborah suggested that we should write our reflections on Friday so that other participants will have the chance to comment on them. I usually write my reflections on Thursday but this week I have been slow because I have had a lot to do at work. Let's hope things will be better next week!

Finally, I hope you enjoyed reading my blog and look forward to seeing your comments here.

Note: please cast your voice in the poll above. Thank you!

Yours,

Mohamed