Week 5: Endless Opportunities of the Digital World; As long As you Share Them !

“It is not about the technology; it’s about sharing knowledge and information, communicating efficiently, building learning communities and creating a culture of professionalism in schools. These are the key responsibilities of all educational leaders”.

 Marion Ginapolis

In these days people say that the newborns come to this World with a special chip in their minds as they know so many things about technology starting almost from birth J . It is for this reason that it is not suprising for our students, especially young learners, to be familiar with using technology.  Another point which is not a suprise is that most of the teachers today, including myself J,  are not as familiar to technology as their students. But still as being a teacher, there is a mission to be completed J  Although the students know many things about technological tools, they are not much familiar with the use of these tools for the purpose of their learning.   We, as educators, are responsible to guide our students to the point where they can benefit from technology for educational purposes. It is for this reason that we have met in this platform with the support of University of Oregon.

This week’s first study was to create a rubric for a lesson as an alternative assessment tool. In order to do this, the programme called  “Rubistar” was introduced to us by our coach, Courtney. It is another magical tool to be used for the sake of our language classrooms. This tool brings out a solution to one of the mostly discussed topics in Language departments; “rubrics”. At the beginning, I found it to be a bit confusing but as everything else in the programme, once getting use to doing it, you will find it as one of the easiest things to prepare as long as you know your needs. Creating a rubric is important as it gives you a chance to meet your personal classroom needs. 

Our second task for the week was to read about rubrics, project-based learning (PBL) and WebQuests. PBL is a very popular approach of the contemprary language classrooms. Project Based Learning is an instructional approach built upon authentic learning activities that engage student interest and motivation. The main idea of Project Based Learning is generally to have students in groups, working together toward a common goal. Performance is assessed on an individual basis by the quality of the product produced. It is when alternative assessment tools start to get into our classrooms. As the tutor is different from the traditional method, the assessment will also be diffrent. At this point the article The article "'Practical Ideas On Alternative Assessment for ESL Students" by Jo-Ellen Tannenbaum. The article introduces alternative assessment models and I highly recommend the article to my colleagues who will visit my page.  

Brainstorming on a “Technology Related Change” in our Project Classroom was another task we needed to complete as part of Week 5’s study. When used properly, technology can be an interesting and motivating tool for our students. With a touch of well -prepared and organized lesson, the teachers have a chance to “make a difference”. Technology is a great tool to create that “difference” in an ordinary language classroom. At this point, in this week’s study everyone in the programme came up with many interesting ideas that can easily be applied in language classrooms. Sometimes it is the small details that changes everything. With a small “magical touch” we can engage our students to our classrooms.

Creating a WebQuets, was another challange of the week. It was a great experience. I think it is true that we feel afraid of the things that we don’t know. Once you become familiar, you also become friends with the new things which was once a threat. As the below quote indicates, the best part is not the technology in WebQuest, it is the sharing of knowledge and information, it is about building learning communities and creating a culture of professionalism among each other without having borders in our minds.

It is really suprising to face the fact that it is our 5th week in the course. It is also suprising to find out so many tools within those 5 weeks. As everyone else in the course, I am also excited about the tasks for the coming weeks.J

 

 

Week 4: Reading & Writing classes Enhanced with Technology

“There can be infinite uses of the computer and of new age technology, but if the teachers themselves are not able to bring it into the classroom and make it work, then it fails.”

Nancy Kassebaum, US. Senator

             Use of technology in language classrooms has been the main concern of this study that is being conducted by the university of Oregon, as well as the rest of the ELT World. Having technology in language classrooms supports learning when used efficiently. In my opinion there are a number of key components of using technology in learning: the first one is the active engagement of the learners. Others are; participation in groups, frequent interaction and feedback, and connection to real-world experts. In order to use these key components, learners need proper guidance and support. As teachers, we are the ones to guide and support our students to use the net which has “infinite uses”. One of my professors at University said, “You cannot teach something you don’t know”. It is for this reason that we, as teachers, improve our teaching by not only reading books or articles but also trying to find ways to integrate ourselves to the rapidly changing World. Having all these things in my mind, I am moving on in my journey to “Building Teacher Skills Through the Interactive Web”.

            The first challange of this week was the discussion conducted on the articles which are about using web in teaching reading and writing. The article that we read written by Jarek Krajka was about an interesting way to use CALL in language classrooms to enhance learning and teaching goals. By using web pages, e-mail connection and creating class websites, the researcher conducted a study which shows us how on-line component could be incorporated into the curriculum. One other study was by Mei-Ya Liang, who gives an example of an application in which the teacher centralizes the learning activities in the learners within a classroom. Having the learners as the center of the learning environment and using the internet are the main concerns of his study.

           Preparing a technology enhanced lesson is the second challange of 4th week. Although, as most of us in the program, I am use to preparing lesson plans, the term “technology enhanced lesson plan” was new to me. But with correct instructions and positive reinforcement, I could write my “technology enhenced lasson plan”. I belive that there is nothing that a teacher can’t do when properly guided.

             We are also moving on in our studies for the Final Project. For the “Third Step” of our Project, we have pointed out the problems, needs or other issues about our classes. In order to solve a problem, the first thing to do is to identify the problem. That was what we did at this part of our study. I am very excited about the next step..

                 All the sharing and ideas on this weeks’ discussion topic opened new horizons to our writing and reading classes. The steps we have taken since the beginning of the course, make me feel very positive about guiding my students and my colleagues properly about using web tools in my classrooms.

 

Week 3: Improving Speaking, Listening Skills and Pronunciation Through Web Tools

"Education is Not the Filling of a Pail, But the Lighting of a Fire"

William Butlet Yeats

My personal classroom experience and the researches show that lack of participation in Speaking, Pronunciation and Listening parts of EFL classrooms is a common problem for most of the English Language classrooms all around the world. As Burely-Allen mentions, more than forty percent of our daily communication time is spent on listening, thirty-five percent on speaking, sixteen percent on reading, and only nine percent on writing (1995). In the classrooms, however, the general aim is usually on other skills. Students try not to participate in listening and speaking parts of the lesson. Without enough participation, these skills stay as the most problematic parts of language classes. It is for this reason that the teachers need to think twice about the ways of increasing students’ aural/oral participation in these two skills. Third week’s study in "Building Teacher Skills through the Interactive Web” helped me a lot in organizing my ideas about how to cope with unmotivated students in aural/oral skills.

Reading the articles recommended by our tutors was the first part of our study. Among many other articles on the issue, I found http://www.elthillside.com/up/files/article4.doc and www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/research/resources/student_res/postscriptfiles/vol3/vol3_1_gong1.pdf as the most beneficial ones in understanding the importance of using the right materials for these two important skills and where to find them.

“The Employment of Call in Teaching Second Foreign Language Speaking Skills” by Julia Gong enlightens the readers about the use of CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) in language classes by giving the advantages and the disadvantages. It also gives ideas on the applications of CALL in teaching spoken language.

 “Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials” by Lindsay Miller shows the teachers that there are many “easy to access” internet tools to be used in language classrooms. She also leads her readers the importance of Pre-, While-, and Post- activity strategies in teaching. As teachers of English, the first thing to be done to reduce the anxiety of our students, I belive, is to use these strategies. With the correct use of strategies, the students might feel more self confident about the material used in the classroom.

One other thing that makes a difference in a language classroom is to find the right material for your students’ use. At this point, the number and the variety of the Websites and the Web tools shared by our colleagues were enormous. Learning about these sites, which were mostly new to me, was a great experience. Among these sites that are there for English Language teachers to use, I found the following sites as the most interesting ones;

http://www.shortstoryradio.com/index.htm,

http://www.artofstorytelling.org/

http://www.starfall.com

http://www.eslfast.com/robot/

not to mention http://www.esl-lab.com/

 and http://learningenglish.voanews.com/

I highly recommend the language teachers who visit my blog to visit these sites and search for the opportunities to make their language classes more interesting.

Creating my Delicious page was another challenge of this week. I have created my own "Delicious" page and started adding links. The URL of my page is (https://delicious.com/#hulyaku). This is a free service and it is designed for the users to save their favorite web pages. The best part of it is that you can have an access to your favorites even if you are away from your personal computer. You can also develop a network in which you share your intrests with other people all around the world or just with friends.  It is easy to create, I did it within a few minutes, so I belive that everybody can do it J

Reading a final Project and commeting on that report was another task of the week. It was an experience which made me feel excited as it is the final part of this 10-week marathon. Even the vision of a finished final project which has my name on it made my day J.  The variety of the projects I have read made me understand that I need some more time to decide on what and how to study in my Project class.

Just like the second part of Yeats quote, with the new tools I met by the help of my tutors and my colleagues, I feel myself lighted up and this gives me the power to make my students feel the same.

 

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Burely-Allen, M. 1995. Listening: The forgotten skill. New York: John Wily & Sons, Inc.

 

Week 2: The Journey to Improve Teaching Skills

Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I will remember. Involve me and I will understand

Chinese Proverb

The proverb above can be considered as the main idea of the whole course that has been conducted by American English Institute in the Linguistics Department at the University of Oregon (UO AEI).  In our first week, most of us were nervous about creating a blog and posting messages and every other thing that we were supposed to do.  After getting involved in the process, I personally started to become more integrated to what we are doing and felt like I was becoming part of a bigger team with the support given by our tutor and colleagues.

As almost everybody, I have a long history in web searching. I have been searching on the internet for both personal and professional use since 1998, -it is when Google was first established J-. Starting from the first day till now I was a very “obedient” user of that search engine. However, this week I was amazed with all the other options that I was unaware of.  

At the beginning of the week I met this new link shared by Courtney which opened a window which I started to call “WSSP” : Web Searching For Specific Purpose. The link shared by Courtney was http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/information/5locate/adviceengine.html

Another link which I found to be a key element to all searches that we can do is, I belive, http://pages.uoregon.edu/dhealey/techtips/june2009.html . In this link you can find an article by Deborah Healey where she gives almost all the tips to be used for a  “Better Web Searching”

I highly recommend these two sites especially for all the academicians and practitioners as they will bring different colors to their classrooms and researches.

Other two tasks for the second week were to write an ABCD course objective and start a Final Project task. Both of those tasks gave me a chance to “turn around” and look at myself as a teacher and a learner at the same time. By these tasks I had to verbalize what I had been doing and what I will be doing and present it my colleagues from different parts of the World. Getting reflections from experts from different environments is a great opportunity for a teacher. Also reading about ABCD objectives and Project Tasks of other colleagues was a great experince. I was amazed by the variety of the classes that they teach and the projects that they are planning to apply.

Doing reading that Courtney provided on web search and checking for the useful sites were other tasks of the week. Although doing research is not something new to me, this study captured me as it showed me things that was near me but I wasn’t aware of. I have been looking for the answers of different questions which gives me the feeling of renewal.  

As a  “lifelong learner” I am very much satisfied by all the new information I am getting from this 10-week course. I am also very happy with the sharing that has been going on among learner-teachers J . I hope we can have a chance to share the information we gain from this course with our colleagues in our institutions.

 

 

Week 1: "Building Teacher Skills Through the Interactive Web "

Not the cry, but the flight of a wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow.

Chinese Proverb

This well-known Chinese proverb is one of the most enchanting one which shaped my career as a teacher. I belive that teachers are the leaders with a lot of responsibilities. As being the leader of the learning environment, the responsibilities of a teacher has increased especially in the last decade. Having a good “subject-matter knowledge” is not enough for a successful teaching anymore. Being a teacher means a lot more than that in these days. 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).

It is going to be a 10 week course and during this course, I am going to publish my reflections about the course in a blog that I have created. Creating this reflective blog is one of the first week tasks. Every week I am going to write my reflections about that specific week.

The first week of our journey started with excitement and curiosity. When I got the first task, I felt nervous as blogging was something new for me. Although I was very well supported by our trainers, still I had to do some extra research and reading about how to create a blog. I also visited many blog pages including the ones which were created by my coursemates.

One other task in our first week was to get as much information about the course as possible, so I also had to do online research about the course and do other related readings.

To be honest creating a new blog wasn’t as difficult as I thought. I have lots of other things that I have to learn but I am very positive about being creative on the studies I will be conducting during this course.

 

Hi, I am very much pleased about my first day experience. I hope everything goes well.