Week 10

I can’t believe this online course finally comes to an end. I can’t remember how many times I said that I have learned so much form this program, either. What’s more, being able to learn and exchange ideas with so many wonderful teachers around the world is just amazing. Without a doubt, I’ll sign up for another course if there is any in the future.

It’s really difficult to say which topic or tool is the most successful because they were so connected to each other. To me, looking back on those past ten weeks, I just enjoyed every assignment I have done, including the readings, discussions, tasks, reflective blog and the final project. For me, this course itself is Project-Based Learning because we kept on leaning something new each week in order to finish the final project step by step along the way.

The way Robert organized this course and guide all the participants to the final project is the best thing I learned. Not only is he so resourceful to provide us many practical and insightful articles and links, but he also did the best he could to solve the problems we encountered and give us constructive feedback every week. As for the final project, all you had to do was connect the dots, combining everything that you learned and did in the past few weeks.

These past ten weeks has truly been hectic and fruitful. Although I have to admit that I didn’t do my best for very few of the assignments because I was busy doing something else, overall, I consider myself a dedicated student actively participating in everything this course demanded. Undoubtedly, I still need some time to fully take in all the abundant knowledge and skills from this course. And then, I will have to think about the real application of what I learned in the classroom.

I wish you all the best and hope all your dreams come true.

Richard Li 

Week 9

Thanks to my peer reading partner, Thin Peng, I have revised some of my draft and also added certain extra information based on his suggestions. The first draft was done in a hurry last week, I found a lot to improve after careful proof reading this week. In addition to some typos and grammatical errors, some paragraphs were also not well-organized enough, and others were wordy and not concise. I really hope I’ve done a better job this time.

Of course, I also quickly went through others’ wonderful works and really admired their great efforts. We have teachers around the world, and some of them are teaching in colleges. Not only are those projects diverse and interesting, but some of them are actually good models for me to follow because of the thought-provoking ideas and good English writing skills. It would be great if we still the access to Robert’s Wiki because I would definitely need to go back and check all the works from each dedicated members of this online course.

 How to give proper individual guidance to every student in a large class has been a very hot topic here. For example, there were several workshops about “Differentiated Teaching” have been held to raise teachers’ awareness of its importance. Therefore, I think this week’s topic of discussion, “Multiple Intelligences, Learning Styles and Technology”, had much in common with it. As usual, we read suggested articles and learned more about it’s basic assumptions and practical resources we can use in the classroom in terms of technology. The most important thing for teachers is to identify each student’s unique learning styles and try to incorporate at least three intelligences when teaching new materials.

Where did the time go? It has been nine weeks already? Looking back on the past weeks, again, I would really like to say that I have learned so much more along the way week by week. With all the readings, tasks and final project each week, I really feel I’m a student again. So, I guess the next question would be how to apply what we have learned into our real classrooms and benefit our students. Also, when given an opportunities to do a presentation next time, I would also like to share this course with other English teachers in Taichung, Taiwan.

Week 8

Without a doubt, the most demanding task this week was the draft project. Not only did we have to finish it in time by Wednesday, but we also had to read our partner’s work and give feedback. We were given a final project template, information about project plan and report, rubrics, peer reading checklist, etc, so I think all the members of this online course must have a clear picture of what to do. Then, there were discussion and task to do as usual, and this week’s topic was about online course sites.

While I was doing the draft project, I thought I could just copy and paste my previous task steps, but then I realized it was not that easy. I found most of them were not organized enough or looked not like a serious academic essay because oftentimes I was just reflecting on my own current teaching practice and wrote down whatever came to my mind. So, I almost had to start all over again to fix the problem, and still I wasn’t quite satisfied with my draft. I wish I could have more time.

It was a pity I didn’t catch up with the online face-to face discussion, but Robert has kindly recorded the whole webinar so that I can check it out later on. Actually, I myself have been practicing speaking English one on one via Skype for five years, and it has really helped me a lot, like giving presentations in English at workshops here in Taiwan. I wonder if there will be another chance for us to exchange ideas of this online course with the teacher and other course members.

With the help of modern technology, language learners have more access to different learning methods and motivating resources, which also makes it much more challenging to be a teacher. Since our students are so exposed to different formats of stimuli, traditional lecturing might not be sufficient just to grab their attention, and that’s why we teachers have to keep on learning and studying. Therefore, I am grateful that I get to know so many online resources because of this course and its tasks.

Week 7

Well, it’s already the end of the seventh week, and that means we’re getting closer to our final project. Again, this week’s topics, learner autonomy and one computer classroom, are quite helpful. First of all, according to many studies, students in Taiwan become less motivated as they study inside the classroom along the way, and they usually sit quietly and listen to what the teacher has to say throughout the whole class. So, how to foster learner autonomy is a big challenge to most teachers in Taiwan.

Then, we do only have one computer in the classroom, and the required readings provide many useful techniques to engage as many students as possible, such as learning center, presentation tool, communication station, simulation center, etc. The idea is to make the most use of the only one computer, and teachers can make the classroom such a wonderful learning environment full of outside and interactive resources with the help of Internet connection.

As for the tasks, we need to find a peer reading partner and create a one computer classroom lesson plan. I was honored to be invited by Thin Peng to be his partner. What’s more, we talked in person through Skype on Thursday night. Not only did we exchange ideas and thoughts about this online course, I also introduced a little bit about Taipei, such as the good food, night markets and the MRT. Following that, I created a lesson plan based on the ideas and techniques of one computer classroom from the suggested articles. When I was in the middle of doing this task, I suddenly realized that I also gained many clues of what I should do for my draft final project.

Now I already have difficulty imagining life after this online course because I’m so used to reading articles, creating posts and doing the tasks every day. They gradually have become a part of my life, especially every time when I feel I learn something new and useful and just can’t wait to give it a try to see if it works in the classroom. Besides, talking to one of your classmates in English is really a good learning experience, and I was already quite impressed by the way he always effectively organizes his thoughts in his posts before talking to him. So, though the course itself is a little demanding and tiring, I do believe I’m also making myself become a more professional teacher.

Week 6

I have learned two things this week. One is teaching large classes, and the other is interactive PowerPoint. I read the suggested articles about how to engage students in large classes and checked the given links that provide resources to help teachers get the job done. Also, I followed the instructions of how to make an interactive presentation step by step, implementing some techniques and adding Action Buttons as well.

Giving proper individual guidance in a large class is extremely challenging. Teachers can easily find excuses of not trying to create a student-centered class simply because lecturing is just a very effective teaching technique if you can ignore the fact that there is no interaction at all. Thus, how to give interactive lecture sounds more plausible for me under the circumstances, and I found Interactive Lecture Techniques,  http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/interactive/typesoftechniqu.html, provides many doable techniques that are worth trying.

Reflective Journal for Week 5

   I don’t think I am good at multitasking, so I was working much harder to finish all the assignments within two days. Why? Because I have a three-hour long presentation to do next Tuesday, and I also don’t think I’ve prepared well enough for it. And, there’s a whole-day workshop about speaking fluent English tomorrow. On top of that, I’ll have to go to Taipei and celebrate Mother’s Day this weekend. Finally, I can be fully concentrated on my presentation after this reflective journal.

   Enough complaining now. Then, what have I learned this week? Well, first of all, I read the suggest articles about PBL, WebQuest, Alternative Assessment and rubrics, and I found not only do they have a much in common, but this online course itself is exactly based on PBL. All of the topics this week are talking about one thing, which is to have learners demonstrate what they can actually DO with the language, instead of showing their mere knowledge on traditional paper-pencil tests. In order to do that, teachers have to develop rubrics in advance, and students are supposed to know the criteria even before they work on the project.

   As for practical web skills, I have learned how to develop rubrics through RubricStar at http://rubistar.4teachers.org/ . Rubrics play a curial role in evaluating students’ speaking and writing performances when a teacher decides to implement PBL in his or her classroom. With the help of the website, teachers can easily develop rubrics that suit their needs. The other skill I learned is to create a WebQuest through Zunal WebQuest Maker at http://www.zunal.com/ , which you can sign up and follow the instructions to create your own WebQuest step by step. To add some failover to your page, you are also allowed to upload pictures, music and videos to make it more appealing.

  I finally spent quite some time organizing and stacking my links on Delicious.com, and I’m going to introduce my page to other teachers at a workshop next Tue. After that, I can finally concrete on this online course without worrying about failing to hand in my homework on time. After the final project, it’ll be drawing even closer to the end of this semester. Being subsidized by the MOE, I can’t wait to go to Australia to study for five weeks this summer. Anyway, all I want to say is learning makes me happy, and being able to study abroad in a English-speaking country and see whether my English is good enough to survive there makes me even happier.

Reflective Journal for Week 4

Reading and writhing in English has become an important part of life since I took this online course, and I feel like I’m a student again. Each week, we’ll have a different topic and several assignments to do that really make time fly even faster. Not only will I gain lots of new ideas and web skills through this course, but I’ll also improve my writing skills by writing in English for all the discussions, tasks and journals, which also is related to this week’s topic, building reading and writing skills.

When I was doing my homework, my daughter was also very curious about the website, Starfll.com, that I surfed because it has vibrant colors and animated games to practice phonics and spelling. She was immediately attracted and wouldn’t let go of my laptop. Watching her getting everything right and laughing while playing those games let me think how lucky this generation is. When I began studying English in junior high school, my teacher just asked us to memorize all the facts and then gave us lots of tests, and many of my classmates have lost interest in learning since then.

Robert mentioned that our goal is to have a need-driven technology project, and we don't what to use technology in the classroom without knowing how the technology is going to satisfy our needs or solve the problems. I couldn’t agree with him more. Three or four years ago, English teachers here were asked to attend many workshops about the interactive whiteboard, telling us it was going to revolutionize the way we teach English in the classroom. But now, we still don’t have any whiteboards in my school. Moreover, a teacher who has used it for quite some time told me that he thought the whiteboards can be replaced by tablets. So, what’s the point of the wasted time when it is just a topic for the workshop, or it might be replaced some day?

Now, I want to talk about something which is irrelevant to this week’s course. I’m thinking that if it is possible some day technology can help all English learners to practice speaking at their computers, and I mean real and meaningful communication, just like you’re talking to a real person and exchanging ideas and thoughts with each other. Of the four language skills, you can always improve yourselves on your own by listening to English-speaking radios, reading English novels or keeping your diary in English. But, when it comes to speaking, you really have to talk to someone in person. With the technology of speech recognition and correction, learners of English can improve their pronunciation and intonation. Then, how about meaningful communication? Can technology like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPIbGnBQcJY ) really be happening in the future? If this is true, it’ll definitely revolutionize the way we, nonnative speakers, learn how to speak English in a much more fun way.