WEEK TEN REFLECTIONS

It is incredible, but we are ending this course. It is too hard to work and study at the same time.
In this week I have learned something about the levels of technology. I think I am in the first levels because there aren`t technology devices in the place  where I work and we do not have access to Internet in the class. Then, I made a summary about all I have learned in these amazing nine weeks. I have learned a lot for example: I created a Delicious page, I created my Blog, I learned about Call for the Oral and Aural computer communication, I learned ideas for Teaching Writing Genres with the help of the computer components, I learned how to use Planning for Instructions, how to use Webquests, how to teach in Large Classes and Inter Active Power Point, how to be autonomous in learning, how to use ENVILL, Multiple Intelligences and Learning Styles. I used the Blogs to make my project Ecuadorian Culture . It was a pleasure to share information with all my partners, and I want to thank my tutor Donna for her help and  her recommendations.

WEEK NINE REFLECTIONS

This week has been very important because there is  a theme in this course that says ¨less teaching, more learning¨.. Accoding with this we must emphasizes in learning, and how do we teach better? Obviously, students learn better if we can see the differences between them. That is what we have learned in this week, learning styles and multiple intelligences. it is going to help us as teachers to guide better to our students.Then I made some comments about my partenrs´jobs..

 In addition, I worked together with my partner Evelyn to agree and correct the mistakes we have made in our individual projects. I sent it to my tutor. I wish, I had no mistakes. This week has been very hard but we are going on.

WEEK 8-REFLECTIONS

It is incredible but week 8 is ending.

This has been other amazed week because we have made a lot of things and have learned new things, too. First of all, I ended my draft project and sent it. Then, I chose to my partner Evelyn to be my peer. We have to interchangr our projects and have to make suggestions about them according our knowledge and experience. After that I read about ENVILL. This was the first time I have read and learn something about it. I know that it is National Virtual Language Lab, and as its name suggest it is a modern web based replacement for the audio and video consoles of old. To use ANVILL we need three tools, a microphone and / or a webcam, a modern browser and ADOBE.. This is enminent portable and everyone who has web access   can use it to listen to news, watch video clips or submit voice or video-based assigments.                   
Another important thing was that I created a puzzle. It could be solved as a warm up or as a part of the procedure of the class. This is important because classes are more interactive and students could create similar ones in no more than ten or twelve minutes. Then , I made some comments about my partners jobs. I want to tell something for the next participants in other course, it is neccesary to take classes or a course to be updated in technology because in this way we could learn more and participate better than I do.

Week 7 Reflections

It is incredible but we are ending week seven.

This week we have learned something about the learner autonomy. There was an interesting article written by Thanasoulas who explains that learner autonomy does not mean that the teacher becomes redundant abdicating his or her control over what is transpiring in the language learning process.

It is important to understand that the learning autonomy is a perennial dynamic process amenable educational interventions rather than a static product, a state, which is reached once and for all.

The term autonomy has been used in different ways but it includes independence, language awareness, self-direction and andragogy. The autonomous learner takes a proactive role in the learning process. To develop the learner autonomy could involve: learner needs, motivation, learning strategies and language awareness. Autonomy does not mean teacher less learning. It means that the teacher must show the way to use or discover the mental steps or operations that learners use to regulate their effort to learn.

Then, I made a sample of one computer class plan. I followed the steps to make a class which involves a video from you tube called: Ten Things You Need to Know in New York.

In the sample I mentioned general information about the class, theme, duration, number of students, the materials used in class, the introduction to the class, the ABCD objective for this lesson, the procedure, the activities, the way I used technology ( computer, projector, internet, etc, and the final activity.

I made comments about my partners because it is necessary to read and discuss about what we write.

Finally I want to tell you that I made a little change with my students’ activities. First, I divided my class in groups.  Our general theme is Ecuadorian Culture. Every group is going to work about different aspects of our culture. It involves food in the highland region, food in the coastal region, clothes, carnival, folk parades, music, etc. Students created their own blogs and they are going to insert their profiles and some pictures in class about them. I hope to continue with our job the next week.

WEEK SIX - REFLECTIONS

I think week  six has been successful because I have learned a lot about about two important topics related to how to teach in Large Classes and Interactive Power Point.

 As we know teaching in large classes is so difficult but we can solve it by using technology. I guess this is the most important tool to improve knowledge and how to make classes more interactive. Obviously, we can do it if students and teachers have access to modern devices and internet.

 Then, I was required to create a Power Point Interactive exercise or game. I decided to create a contest by using the Simple Present Tense and Present Continuous, because I am teaching these tenses to my new students. They belong to first and second levels.

 I am not good at technology so I have to be helped by a person who helped me to use graphics, illustrations, animation, colors, hyperlinks, slides, action buttons, etc.
  I am working with new students so I will try to begin my project next week.

WEEK-5.REFLECTIONS

Dear classmates:

This week has been successful for me and I think for you too, because we have learned a lot of new things.

 First of all I  read an interesting article written by  Susan Gaer. This is  Less teaching and more learning. It´s a wonderful experience related by this teacher that  teaches us how we can teach a new language by means of a project that serves to foreing people learn English in a different way. I think it´s importants because projects come from needs and the teacher uses  the folktales of the asian inmigrants to make a book and students learn the new language by transmiting their culture.

 Other good project was to make a newspaper for the students and it functioned  like a real enterprise until getting the school newspaper.


Then I learned something about Alternative Learning Alternative Assesment. It was very interesting because we are traditional teachers and we have been evaluating in a traditional way. Here we have other alternatives to change.
I created my own rubrics following the instructions that Rubistar recommends. This is  wonderful because we learned how to  use modern assessment by using technology.
Another thing I learned was how to use Webquests.  It´s an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with from resources on the internet.

Finally I made some comments to my partners.




Regards

WEEK FOUR-REFLECTIONS

Dear classmates


I think this week has been successful because we have read something interesting about reading and writing- building websites.
First of all I´ve read the article Using the Internet in ESL writing Instruction written by Jarek Krajka . One of the most important things is that WEB is the invaluable source of information both for teachers and students. The article tries to explore the issue of the use of the Internet as a teaching aid or as a teaching medium. Here the writer  tries to analyse the most writing genres and he tries to demmonstrate how websites and on-line techniques, writing instruction can be more interesting.

We  find some ideas for Teaching Writing Genres with the Help of the Internet Components. They are: 1.A letter to a friend ;2. A formal Letter:3. A description of a person ,4. A biography , 5. An Argumentative Essay, 6. Notice and Advertisements, 7. A description of a festival or ceremony, 8 . A description or review of a book, film or play, 9. A newspaper report, 10. A personal opinion essay and 11. A description of a place.

Then I read  about Planning for Instruction taken from the University of Tennesse. Here we can see an integral idea of what a Lesson Plan is. This lesson plan contains the most important elements that we must take in consideration for a writing  or reading class.
I read a. Sample Lesson Plan with Technology. It´s important for classes when we use technology.
After that I made a Lesson Plan with Technology following the main steps and suggestions given before to get our goals in this kind of classes.
Regards

WEEK ·THREE.- REFLECTIONS

In this week I mean week three I created my new page, it is about Delicious page. It was very difficult for me because  I don´t have too much knowledge about technology I think it´s important because it could be the easiest way to access to different websites It´s a good pathway to interact with students and it´s a good tool to teach them.
I also learned about CALL. I think it´s important for the oral and aural  computer communication in the learning proccess for the students. This could be only possible if the schools have the equipments necessary and the students have the knowledge to use them.

I inteanract with other teachers from other countries like Aleyda, Iliana, Mariangel,etc and we comment about the two different topics that we learned in this week and I had the chance to review Aleyda´s Project I think it´s very interesting because it could be the starting base to do my project in the future

SAMPLE PROJECT COMMENT

I am  going to comment something about Aleyda Linares 's Project "Building teaching skills though the Interactive Web Report".

She planned her project giving the background about the class and the students. First of all, she describes the class and the students. I like this step because the project informs us about some detalis of the Audience ( students).

Then she describes her settings. I think it's necessary because if we don't have a good classroom or a technology lab, it could be impossible to apply the project.
After that, she explains her goals that involve development of students's skills using technology. I think this is the Behavior.

Next she explains how the students were adapted to the use of blogs by using technology and how the students changed their opinions and their attitude. I think this is the Condition.
Finally, as a result of this project students feel happy, learn better grammar and have fun. I think this is the Deggree.

I guees this could be a good guide for me to do my project in the future.

About my project, I realize that using blogs is very important in the teaching-learning proccess of
acquaintanceship of English. Consequently, I would like to apply the blog system in my students.

The audience: will be the students of the first level of the language school of the Central University.

The behavior: apply the usage of technology at the English teaching proccess. We will teach the use of DO and DOES and short and long answers in the daily life.

The condition: once a week students will post on their blogs some specific information about their daily activities. The topic will be send at the beginning of the week and the deadline of posting the assigments will be on Sunday at noon.

The Degree: the teacher will take in count the grammar learned in class and the well structured sentences. Also, the grade will be asigned by the next rubrics:
Assigment posted on time
Well structured sentence
Quality of work
No plagiarism       

Week 2: Summary Week

Hello classmates.
I think  this week has been succesful, because I have learnt a lot of new things.
First of all, I got information about search engines. Before starting this course, I thaught there were only one or two search engines, but when I looked for information i realized that there are a lot of ways. I was looking for additional information about learning objectives and ABCD model. We have to encourage students to use different kind of on line searchers.
Next, I learnt what ABCD model is. A for Audience, B for Behavior, C for Condition and d for  Degree. I supposed  that there was only one point of view about this model, but when i entered into http://www.bing.com/ I found out  there are a lot information about it, and we can apply it in different ways, according to the necessities, and I discovered that the initials of the ABCD Model could have other meaning, too for example: A for Actions.
Finally, I began with the first step to make a Task Proyect. I have to describe my class,to give information about some details of my class. I told my tutor that I work with 30 students. They take classes four hours a day every Saturday, and they belong from different schools of the university. Their ages are between 22 and 30. They take classes of English as a requirenment before graduation. We don´t have access to Internet in class now, so they have to do on line assigments at home or in a Cafenet. I´m sure that we will have new technology in the future two years later, because there is a  project to  constuct a new building for the Institute of Languages of the Central University of Ecuador.

New Education Law in Ecuador

Ecuador is suffering a huge change in its education system at these current days. One month ago a new law of education was approved by the Assembly of Ecuador.

Nowadays, the new school year began in our coastal region and the problems appeared. It´s necessary to tell you that there are two calendars to study and they are: The Highland Region and the Coastal Region.

According to the new law teachers have to stay at school for eight hours a day. Six hours a day we have to teach students, and the rest of the time we have to do a lot of different activities. For  example , we have to attend to seminaries, training classes for improving knowledge, assist to students with  learning problems , help parents ,  work with the community ,etc.

Most of the teachers make the following questions. What are the teachers going to do eight hours in the schools or high schools? Most of the schools have two or three academic journals, so it means they work in the morning, afternoon and the evening. Consequently, the new law has a logistical problem.

Moreover, our high school educational system was based in six grades the first three called eighth ninth and tenth of basic, and the last three years of baccalaureate, so they are the final three courses of high schools called: First, Second and Third of bachelor´s degree.

In the next year, high schools will have only three courses the First, Second, and the Third courses of baccalaureate, and the rest courses, that means, eighth, ninth and tenth will belong to basic education, so they have to be part of the elementary schools. Therefore, teachers of the basic education have to be relocated at the elementary schools.

Our new schedule will be from 7 am to 4 pm or from 12 noon to 8 pm. That would be a terrible problem especially for teachers who work in two places in a public and a private institution, or teachers that work in a high school and the university.

Consequently, their incomes will be affected because most of the teachers got bank credits for different reasons, and if they do not count with their extra salaries, they could not afford their debts

The government promised teachers increase our salaries to cover that extra salaries, but they did not say the true because it´s good only for the new teachers, young teachers who begin the activity as teachers. The increase for old teachers is just a few dollars. In consequence, the new reforms are really harmful for the majority of teachers here in Ecuador.

Luis

Week 1 The Reflexion of the Week

Hello dear colleagues.

I`m glad to greet every body and tell you that it was a useful week because I had the opportunity to learn a lot of things. First of all, I have to be familiarized with all of the on line sites.It was a pleasure to meet my tutor Donna and I know that we are 20 teachers in this group ready to participate and work together. Then I introduced myself to the group, and  I knew that some partners are from Ecuador and some are from other countries. After that, I set my location in the Google map. This is a good exercise to find people `s locations and information about anyone around the world. Next, I created an account in Google, so I can use the class wiki to share information. In the next step, we share ideas in the forum. At the current time, I`m sure  everyone knows the rules and the rubrics for this course. Most of the colleagues had made comments and suggestions about rules and evaluation.I would like that Donna does not forget to take in consideration our recommendations. Moreover, I learned what a blog is, how can we use it and the importance of this new tool to use it in teaching and learning. At the end, I made a blog with my information,  and I made comments about my partners` opinions. I`m very tired but we have to go ahead.