Week 10 Reflection

After ten weeks of hard work, the course eventually comes to an end.  However, I think it is just the beginning.  We are now equipped with some skills and knowledge of integrating technology into our teaching.  The next step is to implement them into our class effectively.   The challenge is whether you are willing to take the time and effort to make a change in the classroom when it is not a requirement anymore or assignment of a course.  You might have to spend 10 hours creating and setting up an online activity for your students. In addition to that, you still have to prepare a back-up plan in case technology doesn't work.  With so much work, are you tempted to go back to the basics without technology? Moreover, every time you make a change, especially with technology, you are taking a risk because you don't know how receptive your students will be. 

From time to time I recalled the school years when I was a kid.  I thought I could have done better at school if I were born in this generation.  Lessons I had in the past were lecture-style, having the teacher standing in the middle of the platform, talking with the textbook in hand or reading from the textbook.   What's worse, all classes were conducted in English, except Chinese lesson, and I am a visual learner.

 

 

Having this experience, I always remind myself to consider the learning styles of my students and try to accomodation their needs.  With the advance of technology, I think this is feasible.  Even though it takes extra hours in lesson preparation, it is worthwhile doing it, and it is rewarding when you see your students progress.

The image below is a reminder for myself when I am frustrated.  Hope you like it.

Week 9 Reflection

 

 

I can’t believe that we are in Week 9.  Time flies.  When I went over my notes for the past eight weeks, I am really proud of what I have achieved.   Though difficult, I tried to make some small changes in class and in the curriculum.  It’s rewarding and encouraging to see some progress.  For example, I strongly insist to develop a workable objective and rubric for our writing assignment so as to achieve standardization across multiple sections.  Furthermore, I proposed the idea of teaching students research skills such as evaluating Internet source during the e-learning week and also promote student collaboration using tools like discussion forums.   I understand that some teachers may be reluctant to change because that means they have to move outside of their comfort zone or they may think that the way they teach is the best way for their students to learn because that is the way they learn best  (Groat & Montgomery, 1998).  I think reflecting upon our own teaching methodology regularly is essential. 



 

 

Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences is not a new subject and it is a good thing to review it every now and then.  With the availability of technology, it should be easier to create a range of activities or lessons that can address individual differences in the classroom.  At this point, I recalled what I did last semester with my classes and I must admit that I didn’t do a good job.   Perhaps joining a teachers’ networking group is a good way to keep myself current and motivated because I can get support, ideas and feedback from other teachers like what we did in this Webskills course. 





Week 8 Reflection

 

This quote from Voltaire is exactly how I feel after trying out most of the online tools this week.  With so many resources available, it is difficult to make a decision.  I was tempted to create a class site but I hesitated because I would like to make something that my students can use in class at this time of the course which is tie to their materials.  Therefore, I created a crossword puzzle which will be used as a review of the vocabulary that students have learned.    Actually, I had started to create an exercise using “Worksheet”, one of the applications in SMILE (http://clear.msu.edu/teaching/online/mimea/smile/v2/index.php), but I got stuck.  I created a drag and drop exercise but I couldn’t drag the answer.  With the deadline approaching, I had no choice but to give up.  One interesting feature in this worksheet is to record the pronunciation of vocabulary words and students record their own after listening to yours.  I need more time to learn how to use this application, but I think it is worth it.

 

The most rewarding part of this week’s assignment is to write the first draft of our project report.  The prompts in the project report template guided us to reflect in details about what we have done, why we made certain decision and its impact to our own teaching and students.  I think reflection is essential and that is how we can learn.   Though it is not a huge leap, I did bring about small (new) changes in my teaching and my mind is fed with new ideas.   

 

 



 

Week 7 Reflection

Mobile Learning

 

 

The articles “Mobile apps for language learning” and “Going to the MALL: Mobile Assisted Language Learning” suggest a number of language learning apps and many of them seem very interesting and motivating.   It so happened that this week the Center I work in purchased iPads for class use.  Though the number is just enough for one class, teachers are all very excited about it. Teachers can borrow them for class use but then a lot of questions arise.  What apps should we install?  How can we use them effectively in teaching English?  Whose responsibility is that if it is damaged? There are a lot more questions which we haven’t figured out the answers yet.  I am just afraid that uses of those iPads will be similar to what Kukukska-Hulm and Shield (Godwin-Jones, 2011) stated in their review, that is, “uncreative, and repetitive and did not take advantage of the mobility, peer connectivity, or advanced communication features of mobile devices”.

 

I think students are so used to apps that they expect things to be done by a simple click on the screen of their smart phone.  For example, my students seldom check their school email because they think it is not convenient. They claim that it is too troublesome to first access the university website, then log in to read their emails.  Therefore, bearing that in mind, I will try to use websites where they offer mobile apps as well, such as Quizlet.

 

I watched the webinar, titled “Small Wonder: Cellular Phones and Language Learning”, and I am very interested in “Dragon Dictation” which is a speech-to-text recognition software. However, it is unavailable in my country. I am a little bit disappointed. I believe there are other alternatives, so I have to keep searching.



 

Week 6 Reflection

 

The semester began this Wednesday and I am able to try out what I have learned in this course into practice.  I created an interactive PowerPoint.  I added hyperlinks, action buttons, images and videos, and also used high contrast colour (black and white) as suggested in the article “Creating Interactive PowerPoint Presentations for Teachers and Students” instead of the fancy backgrounds that I found online.  I think it is better because it is less distracting.  Another new thing that I learned is to press the ‘B’ key to blank a screen when I want to draw students’ attention or keep them focus on their discussion. Before reading the articles about creating interactive PowerPoint, I have no idea that PowerPoint can be used in such a creative way.  However, one of the problems I encountered is that if I insert a hyperlink to an external source, e.g. a Youtube video, then it may take a very long time to load the video. 

 

 

For my project, I will use Voxopop to engage students in speaking and listening.  I will create a TalkGroup in Voxopop.  Students will read a passage on ethics, then they share their opinions about the topic and comment on other students’ opinions.  I have this idea because when I reflect upon the reason why students were passive and not very responsive in discussion, I think it might be due to their lack of vocabulary and knowledge of that subject or discussion topic. I hope that with Voxopop, even quiet and shy students will gradually become more confident in using English to express themselves.

I had the first lesson with my students on Thursday so I was not able to implement the change this week.   I will use my interactive PowerPoint next week, though, and will introduce Voxopop to my students by the end of next week.

Week 5 Reflection

Problem-based learning is promising and offers an alternative way to assess students’ skills and capabilities. By coincidence, my cousin asked me to complete a questionnaire for his Geography project. Out of curiosity, I asked him the details of his project.  They worked in small groups and decided on a topic related to a societal issue in Macau.  They chose traffic problem in Macau.  With the guidance of the teacher, they created a questionnaire and completed the survey.  Then they did a presentation about their results.  It sounds like an interesting project. It is related to students’ life and students choose their own topic, but, to my surprise, my cousin commented that it is a boring project.  That night I went home and read Gaer’s article on “Less Teaching and More Learning” again.  I tried to understand and figured out what went wrong with that project. Then I called my cousin to ask for further details.

Here are my guesses:

• Though students are given the freedom to choose a topic, the topic chosen by my cousin is not meaningful to him and his group.  I think if the teacher could describe the project in more details and explain the motive for doing this project, students will see the purpose of it.
• The final step of this project is a presentation of the findings to the students’ own classmates, so they don’t see value in it.  I think if they can use the data and write a proposal to the relevant department about the issue, it will make the project more meaningful.
• The topic chosen is too easy.  Even before doing the survey, students already know the results. 
• There is no rubric so students do not know how they will be evaluated, and thus losing direction and motivation.

I searched on the Internet for more information about problem-based learning and I found this diagram on the cycle of problem-based learning from Virginia Commonwealth University.

After reviewing, I think, if the assessment parts (class reflection, evaluate peers/self, synthesis learning, moderated discussion, evaluate learning) of my cousin’s project can be reinforced, it will become more meaningful.

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I was tempted to create a WebQuest for my final project. Indeed, I started to work on one, then I realized the difficulty in implementing it, so I dropped this idea.  The class that I will implement the change has a very structured curriculum with set standards so there is not much flexibility.  Therefore, I decided to start with something small --- a class blog.  Since it is my first time to create and use a personal blog, I have no idea how to create a class blog.  Classes will start next Thursday, so I have to work faster and have my class blog set up as soon as possible.

Week 4 Reflection

 

There is a vast amount of educational webpages and technological tools available online that can enhance teaching and learning, and they all look exciting and interesting.  However, after this week’s experience, I think finding an appropriate webpage that suits the class may not be that easy.   One has to put in a lot of considerations before adopting a certain technological element into his or her lessons.

The reading “Tips and Advice from your Webskills Team: How to Write a Technology Enhanced Lesson Plan” reminds me of a case study I did before on how multimedia was used in a primary school, and the result was that technology was used more like a “gimmick” than an educational tool to enhance teaching and learning. 

In fact, every now and then, I will question myself why I am using a particular software or website for class.  Is it just for fun or to make the class seems more interesting?  According to the article, technology used in class should aid in achieving the language objective, but not letting the technology drive the lesson.    I totally agree with that.  However, sometimes when I find interesting websites and activities I will just plug them in the lesson without thinking carefully how learning can be enhanced with the use of technology.  When I started to write the ABCD objective for my technology-enhanced lesson plan, I realized that the learning objectives I had before were not clear and some were not met.  I started to understand why some students did not find the technology-enhanced activity useful though they claimed that they liked and enjoyed it very much.

The other issue that I overlooked in the past is evaluation of the success of the technology being incorporated in class.  It is possible to do an informal evaluation, but we may be subjective.  How can we evaluate the success in a more formal way?

 

 

Week 3 Reflection

By the end of each week, I have a lot of questions in my mind about my own teaching practice and the current situation of my work place.  I totally agree with Miller's idea of using authentic materials as described in "Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials" but what if students' proficiency level is really low and their listening skill is poor?  Can we still use authentic materials?  If we slow down the speed of the audio, is that still considered authentic?   

 

I am in favour of using authentic materials because real life conversation is very different from those audios in academic listening textbooks.  Take myself as an example.  I couldn't understand my professors when I was a freshman even though I had had studied English for twelve years by that time.   My question is, having experienced that situation, why am I still creating those "inauthentic" listening materials for my students?  Is it just because I think they may not understand the content?  Am I too subjective?  I think it's time to change.  Perhaps I may start with using videos which can provide more linguistic clues to what the speaker says.  Students may have different reactions to it, but it is still worth trying.

Delicious.com is the panacea to my messy favourites / bookmarks.   Not only can I store all the bookmarks in one place, but also to catergorize them as public or private.  By doing so, it allows me to filter the bookmarks thus saving time when searching for a website.   I think the "Follow" function is also a useful tool.  I am building my Delicious networks and adding in more links gradually.  Overall, it is very fruitful week.   

Week 2 Reflection

I was astonished that there are so many search engines available in the Internet.  Then I start to question myself why I have only been using Google.  Am I influenced by social media, friends, or what?  Then I wonder why many of my Mainland Chinese students use Baidu but not Google.  Does that have to do with culture? 

I selected 7 search engines from the long list of "Choose the Best Search for Your Information Need" that may be useful for students and myself.  They are SurfWax, IDEA Portal, SweetSearch, Infotopia, CIA World Factbook, Social Issues, and Search Engine Colossus.  Some of them are good and can be used as resources for class projects and activiies.  The ones that I would recommend are:

• IDEA Portal
• SweetSearch
• CIA World Factbook
• Social Issues

I will include them as resources in future projects or even create a portal for students.  As I am working on the assignments throughout the week, I understand the importance of clear instructions and guidance.  Sometimes I am reluntant to give students links to resources for projects because all of them will use the same materials without taking a further step of doing some research on the topic even if you told them to. Now, being a student again, I see the need to have those support and resources available, especially when learning a new subject, and to have some assurance in the quality of the content. 

I also try using the search engine "Exalead" which claims to be an excellent alternative to Google according to "Phil Bradley's List of Web Search Engines".  I think the results generated are limited and for some broad terms, such as non verbal communication, Exalead can't find any matches to my search.  

Another reading that I find very useful is the Web Searching Tech Tip by Deborah Healey.  I have had a lot of experience of not being able to find materials that I want from the Internet.  I think it is because I didn't know to use Boolean opeators to limit or expand my search. 

After finished the readings for this week and the online discussion on websearching, I can't wait to get back to the classroom to share these tools with my students.   

The readings about learning objectives and the ABCD model shed some light on me.  I understand the concerns of our new teachers and why they are so confused about the course materials and activities.  I think the terminologies "objectives", "learner outcomes" and "goals" are intepreted differently by teachers so it caused a lot of misunderstanding.  Moreover, the objectives in our course outline are vague and they are not easy to measure. There is a need to revise the objectives and the A.B.C.D. method can be adopted.    Though not many colleagues might wish to take the time and trouble to improve the objectives, I think the clearer the objective, the easier it is for teachers to evaluate. 

 

 

Week 1 Reflection

This is my first time to create a blog and it took so much time to create one.   I have been reflecting on what went wrong and I realize that I spent too much time exploring and trying to make it perfect.  I should have created the basics and then as I am more familiar with it, I can improve the layout and design of the blog.

It is not easy to spend a few hours straight in front of the computer working on the assignments because there are always things happening around which require your attention.  When I am back to the computer, I forget where I stopped and I have to start all over again.  That is not efficient and it causes a lot of frustration. 

During this first week, I notice that I like reading from paper rather than online because I like to take notes while I am reading.  So I printed out the materials in paper, though not environmental friendly, but it works better for me.  I also list out the weekly tasks and write down the usernames and passwords of the websites that we have to visit regularly in my notebook, and carry it with me in my handbag.   When it is not possible to have a computer in front of me, I can read the print out and write my reflection on it, or I can view my course mates' discussions via my phone and write down my comments in the notebook.

 

 

 



Since I have never created a blog, or even comment on a blog, the idea of a blog for class is new to me.   After I read "Blogging for ELT" and "Weblogs for use with ESL Classes", I think concerns I have all the time with my students can be addressed.  Through blogging, students can practise their writing in a more meaningful and authentic way  because they are writing for a real audience. They will probably be more involved and careful about spelling and grammar as well.  Shy students may feel less intimidating instead of sharing their ideas verbally in class.   According to the readings, there are many benefits of using a blog for class but I think I should not be too ambitious at this point since I am also a new blogger.  However, I wonder what I should do if students are not using standard English, correct grammar, and/or correct sentence structure?

 

The author of "Blogging for ELT" states that teachers have to reply to students' posts quickly in order to keep them interested.  I think it is a big challenge for me.  I have around 125 students each semester, how can I comment on each of their posts every week?