Week 10: The Final Countdown..

                                                  “The Final Countdown”
                            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcJ-wNmazHQ

“Teachers should give inspiration to their students by the way they do things. Teachers cannot fall behind their students”

JHülya KüçükoğluJ

“Teachers should give inspiration to their students by the way they do things ,..Teachers cannot fall behind their students… Having such ideas in my mind, I found myself falling behind my students in using Web tools. I had to do something, so I am here as a part of the “Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web" (Web Skills) course with the American English Institute in the Linguistics Department at the University of Oregon (UO AEI).”

                   The above words are from my first week post which describe the reason why I am in this course. And this blogpost reflection is the last one that I will be posting in my blog as a part of this 10 week study with the American English Institute in the Linguistics Department at the University of Oregon (UO AEI).

                    Within this course we have shared a lot of great discussions where I have learned many things from my collegues’ knowledge and experiences. I have also learned one important thing that I will never forget as a teacher, the creativity of a teacher does not have an end as long as s/he is ready to learn and produce. As a teacher nothing will be the same for me. At the beginning of the first week, I had concerns about being left behind as I wasn’t familiar with the tools that were introduced by Courtney. However with all the support that I get from our tutor Courtney, great enthusiasm and sharings from my coursemates, I could keep on with the track. I would like to thank everybody in the course for the support they gave to each other with their great sharings. I hope to keep in touch with all of my collegues in different projects that we can conduct together in the future.

                  As I called this course a journey to innovation, it has to reach its destination in its 10th week. However, I don't feel as if it will ever reach its destination as now I belive that this journey will continue once you get started.

I have mixed feelings;

I feel proud of myself as I belive that it is not an easy job to complete a webskills online course successfully.

I feel relief of completeing the 10 week which was full of challenge.

I also feel happy as I learned many useful webtools so that I can use in my classes.

I feel sorry because it is over.

I feel a bit lost because I wouldn’t wake up with this kind of a challenge on a Monday morningJ.

I am very glad to meet my instructor Courtney and my very talented corsemates from all over the World.

I feel lucky to have a chance to get this schoolarship from the US Embassy.

I gained many usefull skills from this course such as;

· Conducting Nicenet discussions,

· Writing about the learning experience reflection on my personal Blog each week,

· Creating a classwiki so that the students can share materials and learning experiences, conduct disscussions, comment on each others work, get their assignments,

· Getting familiar with the social bookmarking activity on Delicious which will help sharing the websites with the students and the colleagues,

· Writing a class objective with ABCD Objective,

· Creating a virtual wall on padlet to gather and share useful websites, files, pictures,

· Setting up assesment rubrics which I belive is one of the most practical part that I will use in my lessons,

· Preparing a technology-enhanced lesson plan,

· Reflecting the observation, preperation, teaching experience for professional development on my collegues blogs,

· Integrating Project-based learning (PBL) approach in my teaching,

· Creating WebQuest in order to conduct inquiry-oriented tasks which my students and I will benefit in my future lessons,

· Learning how to prepare interactive PowerPoint which will enhance my students’ interactions,

· Managing one-computer classrooms by using online websites effectively for practicing reading, listening writing, and speaking skills,

· Creating online and offline exercises and tests using web-based tools,

· Planning and implementing a Project

· Technology and Learning Styles

· Learning styles, multiple intellegence and technology

Wow! Lots of new things… I might have left some things as I feel very excited and emotional at the moment.

                   All the above learning experiences will let me conduct interactive lessons where I integrate numerous Web based tools instead of one-way presentation, traditional lessons. As students generally learn by doing tasks, I will have a chance to give them a chance to conduct various tasks.

                 One very important thing about the tools is that they are very practical and I can easily implement them to my classes. For example, I have created a Padlet for the classes I teach this semester on the first day of my teaching and asked them to post a writing about themselves with a picture or a favorite song. The walls were so colorful and informative that everybody in the classroom enjoyed it a lot and they also learned many things about each other within hours.

                    I’ve learned a lot about teaching and web tools throughout the course. I would like to thank our tutor Courtney and all my coursemates once again for all the support they have given.