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.