2012 was believed to be the final year
But the end is sure unknown and far from near
Methinks too shortsighted was that Mayan seer
Or probably drank too much kefir;-)
Anyway, you and I have gone nowhere yet, but are still here
So, please lend me your ear and bear with me and hear
Every beginning and end of year,
I put all my foibles and follies on a bier;
And solemnly wish to leave them behind and arrear..
To bury them so deep and far away from here.
Oft from the fridge, I get an ice cold yet sweating beer.
Also on the bier, I put matches and a lot of ambeer.
And with every puff I wish my sorrows would disappear.
Puff after puff, but nothing seems to disappear.
So, I immediately crack open another sweating beer
Hoping, this time, all my confusions would become clear.
And glass after glass, I begin to be of good cheer.
And at times, I treat myself like a vizier or even a true emir
For whom loudly are played many a tightly strung “Bendir”.
And as time passes, my eyes begin to blear.
But I continue making wishes for everyone dear
Wherever they are: here, there, so far or so near.
My wishes I hope will dry many a needless tear
My wishes I hope will end many a lingering fear
My wishes I hope will be heard and answered by the Great Puppeteer.
And this time quite soberly, I promise myself, for good, to veer
Off to new and untrodden paths with no more fear.
I know some of you may start at my wishes to fleer
And some others would think this is only the fruit of beer.
Or probably, the man has smoked too much ambeer!
And before I wish everyone of you a Happy New Year
Do pray with me, faithless, Jews, Christians, Moslems and everyone dear
That all our dreams and wishes materialize next year.

Mr. Bulletman

A Motivated Teacher

Amotivated Teacher

Vocaroo Voice Message

Students are coming

Here is another rhyme I was inspired to write by one of Lynn Rosen’s comments on my previous Facebook post “A Rhyme of an Obsolete Teacher”. In that comment, Lynn, a fervent activist and prolific poet, wrote:

“Am I ready for history,

math and writing and computer literacy,

the noise, the joys oh what ecstasy,

So Arbi I promise I promise I do

your students will appear and provide a happier you.whoo hoo”

Below is my lyrical response to her comment above.

Students are coming

Sure, anon students will come

And in crowds they will come

And all teachers shall succumb

For them I shall beat a drum

Till my hands go numb

And awaken the deaf and numb

And why not even the dumb

For boys, the wildest songs I will strum

And with girls I will chew bubble-gum

And teach my lessons with much aplomb

In hope to make school less glum

That way longer I hope to remain young

Before all my kids away they run!

Oh.. was that the bell the janitor has rung?

If so, I myself have to run

To have my guitar newly restrung

And for them, the sweetest of songs will be sung

Till wide open all doors, to them, will be flung

So, be assured you’re always most welcome

A Rhyme of an Obsolete Teacher

This is a rhyme I had much fun writing while waiting for students to show up in the classroom. The school year officially starts September 15^th in Morocco. But I have never been lucky enough to meet my students on neither the first nor the second/third day of school ever since I became a teacher. I just don’t know why students always wish holidays were longer than they already are!

A Rhyme of an Obsolete Teacher

Where have all the kids gone?

September is moving headlong

Yet no students have come along

To the place I believe they belong

Can you imagine a school without a throng?

Why do you ask moron?

Cause I do give a doggone?

Without them, lonely would feel my baton

Desks and even walls anon

Would miss the magic of their crayon

True, as soon as I talk they begin to yawn

But I badly need them to blow my horn

You may think crazy this teacher has gone

And probably far too forlorn

Have I turned too obsolete to con

The students to whom I hate to say “begone!”

Or is it I am no more, to them, an icon?

Some kids I sadly noticed see me even as a con

Though truly my care of them lasts from dawn to dawn

Too obsolete, no doubt, I have gone

Shall I quit or teaching keep on?

Truth be told, I’ve had enough of this “head-on”!

Hey, wait a second you moron!

What you said must quickly be withdrawn

And no need your students be fawned upon

Neither will you need to look hither and yon

Open an account on Facebook headlong

That way, you may perhaps their brains turn on

With “likes” and “comments” posted on their Walls off and on

For your board and chalk, they think, are too bygone

Your dusty words they could no longer take on

Your textbooks and even you and your sweetest song

To a museum they think should belong

So quickly get yourself a tweak if you want to belong

Or students to your classes won’t come along

Another Ode to Dictators

A poem dedicated to all the outgoing dictators of the world.

Hey Mr. Dictator

“Get out, get out” people shout

Gone are the days we were devout

We’ve had enough of your washout

For years, we waited for a way-out

Day in, day out, we expected a fair share-out

But longer and longer the years turned out

And many poor souls you did take out

And you even thought us unable to sprout

Nay, Mr. “Dick-less traitor”

Your funny rules people are beginning to flout

And of like your scum

We’re decided our country to shake out

Now, we have courage to spit it out

Get out, get out, get out!!

If our shouts haven’t yet reached your hangout

We’re sorry, but you must get the fuck out!

An end will surely have your news blackout

And too soon over will be our blackout

You may be sure we’ll never rise from our burnout

But surer we are to win the bout

Because the fire within you’ll never put out

Till you’re out and completely out!

Hey Mr. Dickless-traitor

Won’t you understand and leave your hangout?

Tell us, how long will you stay in your hideout?

For closer and closer is getting your knockout

And sooner or later you’ll be kicked out of your hangout

Sooner or later you’ll be no more than a dropout

Taking part in neither our blowout nor cookout

Don’t you see you’re quickly fading out?

Sorry, Mr. “Dickless-traitor”

But your reign has been a fucking sell-out

So “Get out, get out!” the people shout

Mubarak, the last of the mummies!!

For more than two weeks now, the protesters have been tirelessly and creatively chanting, drawing and painting the removal of Mubarak as well as his bloody and despotic regime. The people can’t take it anymore. Now, their demands, which are unquestionably legitimate, have reached a higher tone. The protestors down the TAHRIR SQUARE and certainly throughout the remotest alleys of Egypt want Mubarak to be tried and even sentenced to death!!

So far, the President has remained strangely and stubbornly unresponsive to the people’s call of his immediate departure. I naively believe he might be thinking he’s a real Pharaoh. In this case, certain rituals must be observed before traveling to the beyond. The protesting people are perhaps asked to show more patience because such rituals take time! Moreover, the process of turning Mubarak into a mummy is very delicate and requires the utmost dexterity. After all, the man’s “corpse” is in its eighties and has been decaying since January 25th. His stink has been smelt all over the world. But, a true Pharaoh, according to Pharaonic tradition, must end in a pyramid. So, the people must make more sacrifices and build their despot a pyramid. The problem is most stone quarries in the surrounding areas of Giza have been completely exhausted by previous Pharaohs. No more stones! But, a pyramid must be built for Mubarak, anyway. If he could turn his 70 billion dollars estimated fortune into red “mallime” coins, I dare say his pyramid would look much bigger and higher than the existing ones. If this is not possible, then throwing a bomb on the protestors in Tahrir Square would be fair enough to serve the purpose. A new pyramid worthy of the last of the mummies, Mubarak, would be built with their dead bodies!!!

The Egypians have thrown up their despot and hopefully broken all the bridges tying them to their unglorious and unfree modern past. A promising future is awaiting them and we do sincerely pray other people be inspired by their unprecedented revolution. Good luck to all.

The RISE of the PEOPLES, the fall of politicians ...

These days are very special to the Arab peoples throughout their huge and varied geography. The world is also watching with much concern what's going on in both Tunisia and Egypt. The former's peoples revolution marked an unprecedented and seismic turning point in modern Arab history. It's repercussions can be felt with different degrees throughout the Arab countries. Egyptians are, now, gathering momentum to break with a long tradition of political corruption and rottenness. I wish them the best of good lucks. They really deserve a much better political regime and leader than the unregretfully out-going ones. The stillness we're witnessing in other neighboring countries is no more than the lull before the storm. So, the fall of other oppresive regimes is almost an inevitability. Stay tuned!!!

I believe there are lessons to be learnt from the spontaneous Tunisian and on-going Egyptian people's revolutions. One of them is that both politics and politicians should entirely reconsider the way they interact with each other. So far, they have gone miles and miles away from the peoples' true interests. It's time they knew politics is at the service of people and without them politicians would have no reason to exist. In fact, I'm tempted to declare the END OF POLITICS in the Fujiyama fashion ( End of History ). But, the idea seems a bit too extremist or may be idealistic. Instead, the END OF ROTTEN AND CORRUPT POLITICIANS would sound more acceptable and conceivable as it seems impossible to without politics.We breathe politics and it's an integral part of our gentic code. Another major lesson is that leaders / oppressors should never underestimate their peoples. There’s always a limit to suffering and humiliation. Oppressors throughout the world have reached that limit and I think they can’t go any further. It’s time for the people to decide on and shape their own future. The message is unequivocally clear and even the dumbest of Presidents would understand it!! So Good bye Mr Presidents !!! And a big SALUTE to the brave Tunisian and Egyptian peoples. May their revolutions inspire more oppressed people to kick their corrupt mis-leadrers out of their countries. Amen

The Beginning of Change

Three months have passed and not a single word has been posted in my blog! Honestly; I’m ashamed of myself… I may come out with excuses to justify my blogging inertia, but I’m afraid, I’d be the first one to doubt their credibility. Procrastination is perhaps the real cause behind my being away for so long from blogging. I’m a BIGGG Procrastinator… It is a fact and I can’t help it. I even think that procrastination is an integral part of my genetic make-up!!!

I did write in my last post that I would consider my graduation as my ticket to bring change into my classes. To some extent, I did. I created three blogs for the three levels and six classes I’m teaching this year. Introducing this tech novelty has been much appreciated by my students despite the confusion they had in the beginning. To clear up the confusion, I had to bring the data show, my laptop and a 3G usb modem to the classroom in order to show them live how to proceed. I thought this would work perfectly fine. It did work, but not in a ”perfectly fine” manner. Still some students came to me saying the link I gave them wasn’t working. In fact, the problem was simply they didn’t type the link correctly. Spelling is the last thing my students ,and probably most of today’s students, would care about. But, in the web, misspelling addresses usually leads navigators to wrong destinations. Well, I ceased that opportunity to re-draw their attention to the gravity of spelling errors and their consequential side-effects they have on one’s web-searching.

I haven’t limited the use of blogs to learning English only. I knew this would attract a very limited number of students. To lure most of them into learning through this new tool, I thought of including links to lessons, exercises and activities that cover most of their school subjects ( Arabic, French, Physics, Philosophy ... ). The results were unexpectedly satisfactory. Some students even asked me to post more links. What they particularly like are the ESL video quizzes I embedded in their blogs.

However, I have to admit they haven’t posted any comments for the past two months. It’s a bit discouraging and demotivating, but when it comes to students, one should show more patience. Two days ago, while checking the Common Core (K- 10 grade) blog, I was happily surprised to see four comments posted by my students. Given where I work and the kind of students I have, I consider that an achievement. Yet, I’m looking forward to reading more of their reactions.

Yipee... I graduated!!!

Checking my mail was a bit different today. It tasted a kind of success reminiscent of my old schooling days. In my inbox, there was a congratulatory email from Delicious Deborah announcing that I had passed the Summer 2010 WebSkills online course with a perfect score (100%). Was that a dream... a hallucination... or was I just being phantasmagorical? No. Absolutely, No! I double-checked the email and I even pinched myself twice to make sure it was real what I was experiencing. So congratulations to all fellow coursemates!

I have to confess that I was emotionally propelled years back to the times when I was still a student. I could say I had almost the same euphoric feelings I used to have whenever I knew of my acing in a test or an exam. But this particular success tastes differently. It has an American flavour I so much wanted to have after I graduated from university years ago. But I didn't have the chance to make it to Uncle Sam's land, then. Nor was I lucky enough to benefit from a scholarship to pursue my studies and learn under the shade of an Ivy League college. I even tried to make it to Australia and study side by side with kangaroos, but it didn’t seem to work either. That was more than twenty years ago, but Deborah’s email managed to melt and put life into those long frozen feelings of mine.

Though ten weeks are a short period of time for a conventional graduation, allow me to rejoice at the idea of considering myself a virtual graduate of Oregon University. Deep inside, I wish I had relived my studenthood experience on campus out there with real people from different walks of life and nationalities. But for the moment, I guess I have to content myself with the virtuality of the experience while hoping someday to meet, learn from and with my coursemates in real life.

While searching the net for quotes related to the theme of graduation, I came across this wonderful site: http://www.iwise.com/. It’s a great find which I highly recommend to anyone who loves wise sayings of reputed philosophers and thinkers of all times. It’s beautifully designed and constantly fed with wisdom quotes suggested by visitors of the website. I like most the visual presentation of the quotes, but there are, of course, other interesting features you’ll discover while exploring the site. The following quote by Tom Brokaw drew my attention

“You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket to the good life. Let me ask you to think of an alternative. Think of it as your ticket to change the world.”

Well, still in the mood of graduation, I thought of another alternative. I will think of it as my ticket to bring change into my classes.

Yours,

Arbi

For more Love Teenage quotes and Humorous quotes please visit iWise home of famous quotes

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

WEEK 5.0: More Teacher 2.0 Add-ons ...

Dear blog anh fellow bloggers,

The up-grade into teacher 2.0 is still going on. This week There were two main add-ons. The first one was creating a rubric on www.rubistar.4teachers.org .In fact, as I’ve already mentioned in my post on Nicenet, I’ve never ever created a rubric before. Honestly, I found the task very difficult in the beginning. So, I had to read many examples to get the inspiration before I wrote mine. All the rubrics seemed to be written with an unbelievable attention to details. I said to myself ‘how come these teachers write their rubrics with such precision and prediction to possible learning outcomes and how to be assessed ?!!’ I thought ‘ those teachers can’t be normal ! They must be super teachers endowed with extra adrenalin and unrivalled stamina !!’ Being of a stubborn character and refusing defeat, I started ‘wordprocessing’ my rubric and trying to condense as much as possible the texts to fit in the different boxes of the rubric. That was really exhausting and made me doubt the utility of this tool. That would be complete insanity to write a detailed rubric for each teaching / learning action happening in the classroom ! It’s just time consuming and and at the end the teacher would perhaps be left no energy to teach ! I was mistaken and the reason was I hadn’t paid attention to the pull-down menu on the left and its capability to generate pre-written texts that fit different levels of learners’ performances. My discovery of that option came very late. I spent a whole afternoon writing my rubric the ‘old-fashioned’ way, that is using Word. But, I’m very happy I made it at last with rubistar and produced my ruby rubric which you can have a look at by clicking on the following link : http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=ShowRubric&rubric_id=1927074&

The second add-on wasn’t as painful as the ‘ruderic’ ! We were assigned the task of creating a webquest. But, before embarking on creating our webquest, we had some articles to read, videos to watch and sites to visit to help us be ready for the task. In fact, all our ‘Delicious’ course facilitator Dr Deborah’s recommended readings proved very helpful and made our task much easier. Personally, the word ‘webquest’ was not new to me. But its significance, yes. This week I learnt how to create a webquest on www.zunal.com. It was an easy thing to do. My webquest was made to help my students review and further practise their English tenses outside the classroom and in their own pace. I think one of the great advantages of this tool is that it is likely to enhance learners’ autonomy. The sites I recommended for my students to visit offer interactive exercises and immediate feedback . They don’t need to be assessed by their teacher. After they submit their answers they can see their score and know where they stand. I also had some fun experimenting with Zunal. I managed to insert photos of mine and cliparts I downloaded from the Web. The following is the link to my baby wequest :

http://www.zunal.com/webquest.php?w=66373

Nevertheless, I think webquests would work much better with content disciplines like social studies, sciences or arts. The range of projects that could be done using webquests with EFL students is very limited , because they most of the time don’t have a good command of the language. This would be much felt with beginning students. Anyway, the virtues of PBL and Webquests are self-evident and should be adopted since primary schools so that students would consider them as a natural way to learn.

We were also asked to describe a technology-related change that will help us with the issues we discussed the previous week. Below is what I wrote .

‘I already noted in a previous post that technology is not a magic wand. But I'm quite sure it does have many benefits on both the quality of learning and teaching. As has already been mentioned, my school is not technologically blessed yet and both my students' computeracy and access to the Net are very limited. The technology-related change that I intend to implement this year is an ambitious dream, but within the possible. My plan is to introduce digital interactivity into the classroom. How ? With my personal laptop, a Wii remote and a data show, I intend to buy very soon, I will turn the whitewashed wall opposite students into an interactive 'smarter' board. Sounds incredible, but TRUE. I won't go into details, but, I invite you, instead, to visit the following youtube link to discover more by yourselves.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ

I know these are extra expenses and I won't be reimbursed ;-), but, deep inside, I believe the effort put in the tech change is worthwhile and will be much appreciated by my students. To make the classroom more interactive at a low cost, I'm also thinking of using mouse mischief instead of costly clickers. The following youtube link will show more how this is possible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrsCatpI62A

As concerns the unwiredness of my school, I don't think it's a big issue. All I can do is get myself a 3G Wireless modem and the class will be connected to the net. Then, I could introduce my students to sites where they could practise their English more interactively while at home or in a cybercafe. I will also try to introduce them to some Web 2.0 tools that would help them interact with each other and their peers worldwide while improving their English.’

Regards,

Arbi

Polonius: What do you read Sir? - Hamlet: Wordle, Wordle, Wordle

Dear Fellow coursemates,

Web 2.0 has revolutionized the Internet . It's constantly offering new tools and applications that are meant to make our surfing as comfortable as possible. They also try to meet our ever changing needs and caprices. One of these tools is Wordle. It is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that one provides. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. These clouds could be tweaked with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle become yours to use in whatever way you like . You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with friends. To me, 'Wordle' would be a good way to present the key points of a lesson. Being visual learners, students would very likely find it easy to remember the 'Wordled' summary of a lesson. Another possible use of this tool is asking students to read a passage or a story and summarize it in a 'Wordle' manner. For language teachers, I think it could be used to recycle previously taught vocabulary and help students remember irregular verbs. There are, of course, other possible uses that teachers could think of depending on their particular teaching situations. Wordle is a fun tool and that's what I like most about it. Well, after I submited all my assignments of Week4.0, I thought to myself why not Wordle all my coursemates names and see how it looks... Hope you like the word cloud below

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2236143/Webskills_coursemates_names

Regards

Arbi