I have to convince myself this week that the tasks are quite difficult but very effective. I was worry at first that I will not have enough time to accomplish everything in time (The power has gone out for 16 to 20 hours everyday and we have a long 4-day off for national holidays).
I commented on a friend's post about the issues in teaching language which share a lot of similarities with the context of language teaching in my country. I have been suffer for those situations even when I was student at university. My friend's issues again give me a broader overview of the Asian viewpoints and attitudes to language learning.
I have not spent time to read my friends' blogs yet this week. I will do it soon and give comments tomorrow. After what I have done, I think I should reflect what I learned first. And the lesson plan is still waiting for me to do it.
Basically, I have learned that when I focus on writing the issues and the ABCD objective for my class, it seems that I understand my students even more. The actions give me more opportunities to think thouroughly about what I should plan and teach for every lesson. I find that learning more about the course which I am going to teach and what I have practiced for planning every week trains me how to do my job better. The tasks always raise my awareness on what should be done and planned.
I also tried to access and register to a free domain in the free pages that Deborah suggested me. The web page is useful when it introduces many free hosting domains. I will be back soon to this one and figure out how to create my own sources.
Again, everything is fine with me although finding some websites for my course of "problem-solving skills", particularly for reading and writing, costs me a lot of time.
Khang
KGCC
Friday, April 30, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
A long great and fruitful night of learning!
It is never too late to learn. This week brings me a lot of new information and useful solutions for using technology in teaching.
I have learned and created a place for keeping the bookmarks which could be shared to many students and colleagues later. Delicious is an interesting place for posting the good and useful links as easy as my account to be created. This website resolve a disadvantage of the saved bookmarks on other web-browsers that the bookmarks will be deleted after a certain period of time. It is very useful when we can see that the Delicious account can be accessed at any time and anywhere while the bookmarks I stored on my laptop could not be opened when I used another computers during a working trip. Many useful and interesting URL have been shared and posted. I think that these useful tools would help me even more in my real teaching in the coming time after I explore them.
It could be seen that most of the participants this week showed their experiences in using technology as a useful tool for EFL teaching. I have learned many different ways of using, teaching, or integrating the skills to the web sites. Hundreds of excellent web-sites have been introduced. For further learning objective, I would prefer to learn from anyone of this class a way to post the MP3, wav. files, or videos to a free web host. This could help me create my own sources for listening courses in the future.
In addition, the readings are also very interesting and I could see different perspectives from their writings. For all what I found, the most valuable thing from their articles is the confirmation about the philosophy of using technology as a tool of EFL language teaching. It is not a teacher, but a tool. Using this tool with a clear purpose or objective brings us the most effective results.
It has been useful a lot after a week of reading the discussion. It is unfair for me this week that I do not have enough time to read and give comments to all of my friends' posts. I will continue doing that and hope that my friends pay some attention to my posts as well.
Khang
KGCC
I have learned and created a place for keeping the bookmarks which could be shared to many students and colleagues later. Delicious is an interesting place for posting the good and useful links as easy as my account to be created. This website resolve a disadvantage of the saved bookmarks on other web-browsers that the bookmarks will be deleted after a certain period of time. It is very useful when we can see that the Delicious account can be accessed at any time and anywhere while the bookmarks I stored on my laptop could not be opened when I used another computers during a working trip. Many useful and interesting URL have been shared and posted. I think that these useful tools would help me even more in my real teaching in the coming time after I explore them.
It could be seen that most of the participants this week showed their experiences in using technology as a useful tool for EFL teaching. I have learned many different ways of using, teaching, or integrating the skills to the web sites. Hundreds of excellent web-sites have been introduced. For further learning objective, I would prefer to learn from anyone of this class a way to post the MP3, wav. files, or videos to a free web host. This could help me create my own sources for listening courses in the future.
In addition, the readings are also very interesting and I could see different perspectives from their writings. For all what I found, the most valuable thing from their articles is the confirmation about the philosophy of using technology as a tool of EFL language teaching. It is not a teacher, but a tool. Using this tool with a clear purpose or objective brings us the most effective results.
It has been useful a lot after a week of reading the discussion. It is unfair for me this week that I do not have enough time to read and give comments to all of my friends' posts. I will continue doing that and hope that my friends pay some attention to my posts as well.
Khang
KGCC
Friday, April 16, 2010
It is effective!
It could be seen that this week task focuses me on starting and refining my teaching course which I tried last week. After one more week, I think that we have done very well the class requirements - discussion - which it is quite difficult of may not work well in my college where nobody has started it.
I actually learned from different class situations and settings from different classmates. Every of them brings me the different senses.
At first, I think it is also weird that the professor ask me to discuss about different searching engines since most of my friends use GOOGLE.COM. It is great when we know and share to the group more useful search engines; however, passive students in my college may only use the search engines that I recommend to them.
I also see more meaningful tasks in the way that I will work on my objectives and soon will be the teaching project at the same time of learning the course. This idea is significant to my teaching philosophy. We teach students what they can learn and apply as a trial when they are learning. This level of acquisition could be seen as one of the highest one in the Bloom's Taxonomy. We do what we learned and we learn from what we have done.
Khang
KGCC
I actually learned from different class situations and settings from different classmates. Every of them brings me the different senses.
At first, I think it is also weird that the professor ask me to discuss about different searching engines since most of my friends use GOOGLE.COM. It is great when we know and share to the group more useful search engines; however, passive students in my college may only use the search engines that I recommend to them.
I also see more meaningful tasks in the way that I will work on my objectives and soon will be the teaching project at the same time of learning the course. This idea is significant to my teaching philosophy. We teach students what they can learn and apply as a trial when they are learning. This level of acquisition could be seen as one of the highest one in the Bloom's Taxonomy. We do what we learned and we learn from what we have done.
Khang
KGCC
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Great Opportunity!
It could be nothing to everyone, but this class means a lot to me. I have actually learned about the design of this course. It seems a little bit easy, friendly, but professional. I have chances to learn from the excellent ideas of the participants as I am.
I also made an important decision today that I am going to create a class account. This class will start soon next week. This is the first time that I try to do something new at the same time that I am learning how to do it.
Khang
I also made an important decision today that I am going to create a class account. This class will start soon next week. This is the first time that I try to do something new at the same time that I am learning how to do it.
Khang
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Obvious objectives and preparation for the learners
Up to now, what I could see from the course is the obvious set of objectives, rubrics, guides, and samples for the learners. It's great. I have tried like that before but it was still not that far.
I am confusing about the actually time for doing things or accomplishing the tasks of this week. Time flies and I am not sure where I have enough time to read all my classmates' excellent ideas and respond to them before April 4th or not.
I am happy that I am studying with many people from different countries. I hope that we can learn from each other not only the content of the course but also our differences.
Khang
KGCC
I am confusing about the actually time for doing things or accomplishing the tasks of this week. Time flies and I am not sure where I have enough time to read all my classmates' excellent ideas and respond to them before April 4th or not.
I am happy that I am studying with many people from different countries. I hope that we can learn from each other not only the content of the course but also our differences.
Khang
KGCC
Friday, April 2, 2010
Online Teaching & Learning
Online teaching and learning currently holds a positive and solid position in the new era of EFL classrooms. Questions have been raised for the reasons that Internet becomes a useful tool for EFL teaching as well as many other different aspects of life.
I always try to convince myself and my colleages that applying IT in teaching English should be considered for the broader uses. The reason for this idea is that IT is a tool for everyone to explore oneself and the world of knowledge in the good side.
"I don't know how to use a computer and I think it is difficult for me," a friend of mine try not to follow the running stream of using a different tool for his career.
"I like IT, but when I apply IT in my new powerpoint lesson, I don't have enough time for the teaching," another friend complains.
From these examples, I just want to stress on the function of trying something new as IT for teaching. It is even clearer in this situation of online learning and teaching.
My first online class for my students was in 2007 using http://gainsuccess.wetpaint.com for some parts of writing and translation. At that time, I believed that this webpage give my students a chance to access to more than one assigned paper, but the whole population. The first trial webpage was a kind of burdens and challenges for my students when no teacher has asked them to do so before. I gave them money for computer using fee in the Internet Cafe around the school. They learned something for real.
My second online class is for a group of volunteer students. It started last month using www.dimdim.com. It is different from what I have learned before. My students can hear and see me through the webcam. Some students can say something or answer my questions orally when I give them the permission. Of course, there is a chat room in one corner of the webpage so that we can chat during the lessons. I can use the Whiteboard as in the real classroom or share the sources and the links that I have. Everything has gone well except for the part that all members must be online at the same time.
I also have a personal blog but for a teaching purpose as well. I wrote the blog
because I try to encourage my students to spend their time on something they like to do rather than on the similar kinds of blog in their mother tongue. I realized that most of my students had their own blogs and all of them were in their language, not English. Two days after that, I tried the blog http://eaiafivens.blogspot.com and tell my students to write their own step by step in English.
Actually, I am just a new learner in this field. I have done not much yet for the online teaching. However, I should say that I have learned a lot from my students, more than what I expected. That is why I wrote a slogan for my blog "Sharing life is one of the best ways to find yourself"
Khang
KGCC
I always try to convince myself and my colleages that applying IT in teaching English should be considered for the broader uses. The reason for this idea is that IT is a tool for everyone to explore oneself and the world of knowledge in the good side.
"I don't know how to use a computer and I think it is difficult for me," a friend of mine try not to follow the running stream of using a different tool for his career.
"I like IT, but when I apply IT in my new powerpoint lesson, I don't have enough time for the teaching," another friend complains.
From these examples, I just want to stress on the function of trying something new as IT for teaching. It is even clearer in this situation of online learning and teaching.
My first online class for my students was in 2007 using http://gainsuccess.wetpaint.com for some parts of writing and translation. At that time, I believed that this webpage give my students a chance to access to more than one assigned paper, but the whole population. The first trial webpage was a kind of burdens and challenges for my students when no teacher has asked them to do so before. I gave them money for computer using fee in the Internet Cafe around the school. They learned something for real.
My second online class is for a group of volunteer students. It started last month using www.dimdim.com. It is different from what I have learned before. My students can hear and see me through the webcam. Some students can say something or answer my questions orally when I give them the permission. Of course, there is a chat room in one corner of the webpage so that we can chat during the lessons. I can use the Whiteboard as in the real classroom or share the sources and the links that I have. Everything has gone well except for the part that all members must be online at the same time.
I also have a personal blog but for a teaching purpose as well. I wrote the blog
because I try to encourage my students to spend their time on something they like to do rather than on the similar kinds of blog in their mother tongue. I realized that most of my students had their own blogs and all of them were in their language, not English. Two days after that, I tried the blog http://eaiafivens.blogspot.com and tell my students to write their own step by step in English.
Actually, I am just a new learner in this field. I have done not much yet for the online teaching. However, I should say that I have learned a lot from my students, more than what I expected. That is why I wrote a slogan for my blog "Sharing life is one of the best ways to find yourself"
Khang
KGCC
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