WEEK 10.0: A GRAND FINALE

Dear fellow bloggers,

The title I chose for my week 10 course reflections may suggest I am into classical music. I'm not and I am all thumbs when it comes to playing a musical instrument. But at a point in my life, I used to be an avid listener to classical compositions whether they are sonatas, operas … or symphonies. Beethoven was my favourite. He composed ten wonderful symphonies. And just like a great maestro, Delicious Deborah orchestrated the ten weeks online course with unequalled beauty and dexterity. Harmony and symbiosis were easily and successfully established between the maestro and the orchestra. I enjoyed the crescendo and dolcissimo modes with which our webskill symphonies were conducted. Yet, at certain times of the course, I wished Delicious Deborah had opted for an Andante tempo. I’m a slow learner!

During this wonderful ten weeks learning journey, we were gradually introduced to a number of useful web2ools that will certainly bring about substantial and positive change into our teaching practices. Tuned and tweaked our approaches to teaching have certainly become. Much more important than this, we’ve learnt many valuable tips and tricks that would help us self-tune and tweak our teaching practices whenever we feel they no longer provoke our students for more learning. I consider the course a giant leap towards greater learner/teacher autonomy. Equipped with an impressive arsenal of web2ools coupled with our enthusiasm to go tech teaching, I believe our status of web resource consumers will change into producers and contributors to the ever growing wealth of ELT material on the web. I hope our students and fellow teachers around the globe will find our future contributions useful and conducive to learning.

Perhaps, one of the major principles of Web 2.O religion is ‘sharing’. It’s a truism that ‘Sharing is caring’ is at the core of social networking philosophy. But, let us not remain at the virtual level of social networking. A lot of teachers as well as schools are still immune to educational technology and its implications on both teaching and learning. It’s a fact and a sad one, but not impossible to change! Being a group of lucky teachers who were selected to take part in the E-teacher course, I think we have a moral obligation to disseminate the valuable knowledge and tech know-how we have gained among fellow teachers on the ground. A possible way I thought of would be organizing an ICT Day in the school where you work. In such a day, we could introduce our colleagues to a tool or two that would help them teach in better and effective ways. The staff room could also serve as a place where you could briefly tell a colleague about an interesting website or a useful tool you learnt about. I’m sure, creative teachers like you won’t run out of ideas. But don’t forget to apply the precious tips Delicious Deborah showed us while using PowerPoint as a presentational tool ;-) Always remember, Less is More!

Now, allow me to express my deep gratitude to our Most Respected and Delicious Mentor and Instructor Dr. Deborah Healey for facilitating our upgrade from teacher 1.O into teacher 2.0. You are simply a great teacher! Thank you.

My sincere thanks should, also, go to the University of Oregon, namely the American English Institute for designing and offering such a wonderful course.

Special thanks should equally go to Dr. Ruth E. Petzold, the Regional English Language Officer at the US Embassy in Morocco.

I’m also very grateful to both my wife Najia and my sonny Akram for being exceptionally understanding and less demanding throughout the period of the course.

Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank all my classmates for the sophistication, professionalism and most importantly the humaneness they have shown at the Nicenet discussion arena and their wonderful Blogs. I’m so happy to have virtually known and learnt from you.

God Bless You ALL

Arbi

WEEK 9.0 : STYLISH TEACHING

Dear fellow bloggers,

First, have a look at the video below. It is meant to help you recycle and further digest Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences. Whether you are a visual, auditory or kinesthetic learner, the video will certainly cater for you learning styles. Enjoy and don't forget to read my reflections on week 9.0 below!

Multiple Intelligences and Learning Styles were the two starring concepts of the week before the last of this wonderful online learning experience. I have to confess that I'm already starting to miss the ambience of the heated and insightful discussions we've been having on the Nicenet arena . Delicious Deborah's assigned readings and those suggested by coursemates did immenseley illuminate me on these concepts and made me pause for a while and rethink my teaching practices. In fact, every single article I read in this course was an invitation to question and re-evaluate what I do in the classroom. Are the ways I teach conducive to learning? Do I meet my students' learning needs? Do students really enjoy and learn in my classes? Do I have enough intelligences to address my students' various ones? Do I appropriately use technology in my teaching ?... and many more questions.

I knew about Multiple Intelligenes and Learning styles before, but superficially. I used to jokingly think that teachers might need genetics engineering help to be capable of adopting a teaching approach that caters for students' different learning styles. I thought to myself maybe every teacher needs to have, at least, seven of his clones to assist him in addressing students' multiple intelligences and learning styles. That would be "funtastic', but, too bad, impossible so far. Anyway, teachers, as a rule, don't run out of innovative ideas that would enhance 'the marketability of their products' . Based on this week's readings and classroom experience, fellow coursemates suggested a variety of ways technology could be used to engage all types of learners. We seemed to unanimously agree upon the fact that the multimedia feature of technology would greatly help us customize our teaching styles to match students' learning styles and multiple intelligences. Connectivity and interactivity are also two important features of technology that would very likely result in students being hooked after learning. They are 'digital natives', after all, and binary language is perhaps much closer to them than we are to it. I italicised and put between quotes 'digital natives' just to draw your attention to the misleading generalisation with which the phrase is commonly used. Not all our students are digiatl natives. Only a few of them are. And for the great unlucky majority, computers and the Web are no more than science fiction! Well, this is another issue. I may write about it in future posts.

This week, we had also to submit the final versions of our project plans. I had a great pleasure to have Khuloud Assad as my peer project partner and reviewer. We did help each other a lot with pertinent remarks and suggestions that were vey helpful in rewriting and improving our projects drafts. Having a look at my coursemates projects that were uploaded early this week equally assisted me in finalising my project plan. I'm so grateful to you all. You're simply inspiring! Needless to say, I am to be held responsible for any imperfection in my product.

Regards,

Arbi

WEEK 8.0: What's on the menu?_ Hot Potatoes and....

Week 8.0 is a bit different from the previous ones. Reading assignments were missing and the focus was more on practical things. Learning by doing seems to be the motto of the week. We were introduced to a plethora of tools that are meant to facilitate our tasks and eventually boost our students' learning. In the first task, we were asked to create a Wiki site or an exercise using one of the recommended tools. Hot Potatatoes was the program I chose to experiment and create a few exercises with. In fact, I knew of the progarm years ago, but I haven't used it at all. So, this week our Guru Deborah made me rediscover this app and explore its hidden potentials. I'm grateful to you, Deborah. The tool is user-friendly and versatile at the same time. My Hot Potatoes creations consisted of three exercises: a JQuiz, JMatch and a JCross. My colleague and project partner Khuloud was the star of my JCross creation as all the clues were inspired by how I imagined her trip to Germany was. That's why I named it "Khuloud's Odyssey". I hope this won't make her angry. Anyway, explorong this tool and seeing what my coursemates did with it gave me lots of hints on how I could use it myself to positively impact my students' learning.

Looking at Arjana's and Cami's nicely and professionally designed class blogs convinced me of its educational uses even with beginner students. Before, I thought it would work only for advanced and mature learners. I was thankfully proven wrong. So, I created a class blog which I intend to incorporatre in my teaching this year. The link to it is as follows:

http://mirleftenglish.blogspot.com/

One of the ways I think I might use this tool is to give my students assignments and show them links that may help them consoloidate, review and further study issues related to each unit. We'll see what will unfold in two months' time.

Many of my coursemates created Wikis or course sites on Nicenet. I didn't, but I will give them a try in the future, though most coursemates confessed they experienced different difficulties while experimenting with those tools. This might sound a bit discouraging, but I will create a Wiki sooner or later. I'm a Capricorn and capricorn people are known to be stubborn.

This week, we were also shown links to three wonderful sites that any teacher must bookmark. The sites offers teachers an array of tools that would save them much efforts and time creating tests, exercises, games, wordsearch puzzles ... and even certificates, gratis! I had fun experimenting with some and I will certainly use them to prepare extra activities for my beginner students. The links to the aforementioned sites are to be found below.

Learner autonomy and how these tools could enhance it was the topic we had to discuss. The following is the post I wrote:

"Week 8.0 has brought with it a number of tools that will impact my teaching as well as students' learning tremendously. The lesson delivery and particularly exercises, tests and tasks meant to review and recycle language points will be done in different and more effective ways. Besides, learning won't be limited to classroom space only. Students, mainly willing ones, will have an opportunity to learn beyond the classroom boundaries and ultimately become masters of their learning. Change, I believe, is synonymous to the introduction of these tools in one's classroom be it on the levels of teaching or leaning.

Using such cool tools will considerably promote learner autonomy. A class blog, for instance, will hopefully maintain students' motivation and give them a chance to further study things that weren't thoroughly covered in the classroom. Students could be shown links to sites where they could practise more a particular language point, given tasks related to a unit to do before coming to class or even a set of mock tests to help them perform well in their exams. Wiki sites and Webquests, also, serve the same purposes and encourage students to learn in a variety of modes, in pairs, collaboratively and more importantly individually. Another plus of these tools is that students, while at home working on their own, can do a particular task over and over till mastery, a thing almost impossible in traditional teaching circumstances. Again, the interactive nature of these tools will make learning more appealing and enjoyable even when students are working in isolation yet in communion with the virtual learning reality created by their teachers.

Constraints, I have already mentioned them in previous posts, especially when we had to write about class issues. As my school is unwired and having no computer lab, I have to get myself a 3G internet modem to use in the classroom to be able to demonstrate to students how to work online while at home or in a cybercafé. A data show, which I will buy soon, will make my task much easier. However, uncooperative students are an inevitable reality teachers have to deal with worldwide. I hope to lure these students to learn trying these new tools with extra marks if they accomplish their online tasks with reasonable success. I know this is not the desired intrinsic motivation every teacher aspires to instill in his/her students, but I'm confident it will work. And who knows, it might develop into a true intrinsic motivation by the time!"

Regards,

Arbi

Links

http://www.techtrain.org/teacher_tools.htm

http://www.theteacherscorner.net/

http://www.toolsforeducators.com/

http://www.educationalpress.org/index.asp/

http://www.easytestmaker.com/

Hey, teacher, leave them kids alone!! or Learner Autonomy

Dear fellow bloggers,

"Another Brick in The Wall" is an iconic song and most teachers, I believe, must be familiar with. I've been teaching this particular song to my students since I became a teacher. Students' responses have always been unbelievably amazing. Even the most taciturn and reserved students get excited and join the choral singing with which I usually end my EFL "musical" lessons. One common and funny but profound reaction I noticed among all my different classes is the students' pointing at me when we reach the line:

" Hey, teacher, leave them kids alone!"

In the light of this week readings and discussions, such reaction could be interpreted as the students' cry for more autonomy and less teacher "thought" control. If I were a teacher trainer, I wouldn't hesitate to invite the trainees to watch this video clip, if not the whole movie, as a starting basis for a discussion of teacher-centered and learner centered approaches. What do you think? While thinking about that, please, do watch and enjoy the video clips below. They are my special treat for special folks!

Yours,

Arbi

Computer Pre-history

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WEEK 7.O: Learner Autonomy and the Potentials of One Computer Class

Hello fellow bloggers,

Well, I ended my last week post expressing an urgent need to go the beach. I had to go there to forget, for a while, about the excruciating tasks and assignments of the webskills course. I had to go there to recharge the batteries and interact with the cosmos! As you can see in the picture above, I look very distressed and happy, but, honestly, I manage to keep the smile and the good spirit throughout the course.

Week seven has brought with it two wonderful topics to discuss and a practical task to do, which I haven't completed so far. We were required to discuss the notion of learner autonomy in the light of our readings of the recommended articles. The latters and particualrly Thanasoulas were, in fact, very useful in the sense that they provide the reader with a summary of what different authors meant by learner autonomy. As I mentioned in my post on Nicenet, learner autonomy is a slippery notion and doesn't seem to lead itself to a unanimously agreed-upon definition. Logically, autonomy is synonymous to freedom and independence. And the essence of these concepts goes counter any type of limitations and constrictions usually imposed by definitions. Consistently perhaps, learner autonomy wants to remain autonomous and independent from the boundaries set by definitions.

Much of the skepticism I had about either learner or teacher autonomy, I found out, was echoed, in a way or another, in the different articles, assigned and unassigned, I read this week. In my humble opinion, there is a kind of redundance in the phrase "learner autonomy". It is redundant in the sense that learning as a cognitive processs occurs internally and individually though within a group of people. A number of students may be exposed to the same input but there is no guarantee it will be processed in the same way. Parts of a lesson would be learnt by some and likely mislearnt by some others because the act of learning occurs inside and independently from their peers.

Learner/teacher autonomy is not only slippery, but illusory as well. Teaching within an official educational system implies that one must opearte within a set of pre-established curricula that usually neither students nor teachers contributed in their making. Manoeuvering within such teaching/ learning environments becomes very difficult for teachers due to the various constraints they encounter ( financial, equipment, managerial bureacracy...) However, if teachers cease to see themselves merely as instruments within the system, things would look differently and learner and teacher independence would become a reality.

Fostering learner autonomy is not the school responsibility only. Before coming to and while in school, children should be trained gradually to be autonomous learners. This could be done if parents treat their children as responsible individuals who can be assigned tasks to be done without adults' assistance and overprotection. Raising children that way would undoubtedly make school mission to turn them into autonomous and long-life learners much easier than it is now.

The other assignment was to discuss the possible uses of one computer in a classroom. What follows is what I wrote:

" It should be noted that having and using one computer in a class is a plus in itself. Though my school has neither a computer lab nor one computer classrooms, I have been using my desktop first and my laptop later for different teaching and learning purposes.

I've been mainly using my computer to help me prepare extra exercises, quizzes, tests and customize certificates for my students. With small-sized classes, it's possible to use one computer to involve students in interactive games and cultural quizzes. Students' representatives should be chosen to use the mouse to click on the right answers. This, I noticed, involves all students in learning and further boosts their motivation. Noise resulting from students' answer negotiations is inevitable, but it's a healthy noise. I very often use my laptop with extra speakers to teach listening and speaking skills. For instance, I give students the printed lyrics of a song with blanks to fill in and other questions and ask them to accomplish the required tasks while listening. The song could be either audio or a video clip which they tend to prefer more. I used my laptop as a presentational tool to effectively teach vocabulary with pictures or videos downloaded from the Web or included in CDroms. This proved to be much more time-saving than traditional methods of dealing with new lexis. Grammar points could also be effectively taught through colourful PowerPoint presentations that you create or the ones that you download from the net and edit for your particular teaching context. Last but not least, one of the greatest pluses of using one computer in the classrooms is that is DUST-FREE;-)"

Yours,

Arbi

WEEK 6.0: From "PowerPeaching" to "PowerTeaching". A New Upgrade!

Dear fellow bloggers,

Just like our coursemate Bella “bellissima”, I was misled by the seeming easiness of this week tasks. I was particularly mistaken to think that creating an interactive quiz using PowerPoint would be the least challenging of all tasks. No! It was unexpectedly difficult and stressful. But I’m so happy I had to rediscover this software (PPT) which I thought I was reasonably familiar with. The tool has great potentials and it will positively transform teaching if used wisely. Delicious Deborah provided us, as usual, with some very interesting articles to read about PowerPoint and how to use it effectively to add more interactivity to our lessons. But “interactivity is not simply watching the screen!” rightly says our course facilitator. There’s more to it than that. Interactivity, I came to learn, is putting life in ones’ lessons, kicking boredom out of the classroom windows, engaging students in and enjoying the learning process to the max. PowerPoint, in fact, is an empowering tool within the teachers’ hand to do wonder with in their classrooms. However, alone PowerPoint is powerless and would likely be just a redundant way of using the teachers’ old and true companion, the blackboard. There are tips and tricks that teachers should acquaint themselves with to optimize interactivity and learning using PowerPoint or any other presentational tool. Future teachers must be trained to get the most of these tools to make their teaching more effective and livelier. Us, digital immigrants, we need to have more trainings, like this web skills online course, to further tune up our teaching practices and boost the marketability of our products, so to speak. Alas, such trainings are very few and the ones available on the net are very often un-affordable. Fortunately, the Web abounds with all sorts of tutorials that demystify almost anything. Youtube, I believe, is like Aladin’s magic lantern. Once rubbed, the blue Genie appears with tailor-made videos to help us learn and master the ever-changing skills of today’s information society. But, of course, one must have the right magic formula; that is, a concise and precise querry.

Well, this week I began to learn how to make my PowerPoint presentations interactive. I opted for creating a language quiz in the “jeopardy” manner. That was the first time I heard of such a threatening appellation! In fact, the process of creating my jeopardy has exhausted me as I’m a slow learner. At one point, I even considered trying something else with PowerPoint and forget about jeopardy. But, again patience and stiff-neckedness whispered into my ear and encouraged me to keep on experimenting with the tool and, sooner or later, I will be capable of creating decent and attractive “jeopardies”. So, I consider my PowerPoint Language Quiz as just a first draft that needs further improvement. I’m learning a lot, folks, and I’m enjoying your company through your inspiring posts to the full. One more compound truth I learnt from my various readings on PowerPoint could be summarized in the following: Less is more and the simpler and briefer the slides are the more effective, persuasive and compelling they are. Powerpoint should neither be used in a way to eclipse the teacher, nor in a presentation-centered manner emphasizing visuals more than content. Learners, our VIP customers, must always come first and be at the center. Teaching with PowerPoint empowers teaching. Unwise use of this tool will result in what I call “PowerPeaching”;-) And mind you, the “peaches” will certainly be rotten!!

That’s it for now. I have to go to the beach, right now.

Regards,

Arbi

Useful links to articles on PowerPoint:

PowerPoint in the Classroom; Is It Really Necessary? Diana Voss

http://tinyurl.com/39cwmtv

PowerPoint misuse raises threat of losing audiences, Hilari Weinstein

http://tinyurl.com/2bfoyh4

Recommended Websites and Articles about the Uses and Misuses of PowerPoint

http://tinyurl.com/36znd38

Engaging Large Classes: Strategies and Techniques for College Faculty

http://tinyurl.com/2vgpcf5

Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom

http://tinyurl.com/2wdx2m3

Actively Engaging Students in Large Classes

http://tinyurl.com/2w9hstl