A Wrap-up

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it. 

Margaret Fuller

No, no, no. I won’t believe that this is the wrap-up of this fabulous course and that this is the end of the virtual journey. I am a little bit sad, but I am so happy because I learned many constructive things and I have many dear friends from all over the world. What to say about the course? I am so afraid of not missing any word of praise and every word is redundant or if I can say that I do not know which word to use to describe the course. At the very beginning, I want to thank to our dear core instructor Janine for her unselfish support and for her encouraging feedback in every moment. 

 

I also want to thank to the American Embassy in Sarajevo for funding this scholarship and thanks to the University of Oregon AEI for offering such a wonderful course. I would also like to thank to my dear Mum for supporting me.  
Referring to all things we found about during the course, I dare to say that they are all very, very rewarding and very, very helpful. At first, I would like to say a few words about the blog. This is very useful tech tool which I prefer so much. The blog can be used for students as the additional lessons of English. Students can improve many skills which are very important for them to know English better. In this way, students can also become autonomous learners what is the goal of many teachers. We can also share the sites which students can use for their development. Students can participate in creating the blog, too. On the other hand, there is a Nicenet classroom. I simply like this classroom. As I tried the classroom with my students, I would warmly recommend it to all my colleagues. It is very helpful both for teachers and students. A Nicenet classroom can serve as the additional lectures where we can prompt our students to achieve better goals and they can develop their skills of being independent, too. I can say that my students developed their self-confidence and that the *shy* ones make so great progress. I am the happiest teacher in the world when I see this. As regards the WebQuest, I would also recommend this to all teachers. On one side, it is a very good tool where one can write his/hers lessons plans and it will be stored in one place. The lesson plans can be shared with other people too because it will available at any time. A WebQuest is also rewarding for students where they can develop their team skills which often miss during the traditional classes. 

When I think about a *delicious* page, I must say that it is really delicious. The page is very rewarding for teachers. Thus, all our favourite sites can be stored in one place and we can share our URL address and our colleagues can visit it. What I like about the delicious page is that we can enter it wherever we are. I also have to mention many constructive sites which students can use in order to boost many skills, e.g. writing, speaking, listening, vocabulary, grammar skills and so on. To tell the truth, I am fond of all things which we picked up during this great course and this worthy time we all spent jointly sharing our experiences.

A friend should be one in whose understanding and virtue we can equally confide, and whose opinion we can value at once for its justness and its sincerity.

Robert Hall

One of my hobbies is writing the poetry, so I decided to write a poem which is dedicated to Janine and to all my dear classmates. Here it is:

FRIENDSHIP

The sound which can make you happy

And show you everything

It is the sound of friendship

You can feel so much better

Knowing that you will be going through

Everything, together

Every problem you tell will be understood

If you have somebody

Who can feel everything, just like you.

Every true friend will give you the best advice,

If you’re wrong somewhere, or mistaken

In your heart

Sometimes it can be the same heart

Every dream can be made to come true

Together

But in the end it’s the sound of friendship

Which makes you feel better

In these days of misunderstanding.

 

Dear Janine,

Thank you so much for being always our greatest support through the course. It meant a lot. Thank you so much for your encouraging feedback and for sharing your experiences with all of us. I wish you all the best in your future life and career.

Now thanks to all my dear classmates: Fernando, Zun, Davor, Anna, Nasser, Chiyoko, Hilal, Amina, Onesmo, Katya , Wesonga, Kaori, Yasir , Lina, Gladys Yeh, Denise, Celina.

My dear classmates,

Thank you so much for all your feedback and for all your honest comments. I wish you everything the best in your future lives and careers. I hope that you and your students will achieve great goals by using all these rewarding tools which we learned about in this *fabulous* course.

I hope that we will stay an *academic family* and I warmly invite you all to be my dear guests in my country.

P.S. I have to say that I have my LoTI results. Here they are:
 

These are my results:

• Digital – Age work and learning – Mid-level priority
• Digital – Age Learning Experiences and Assessments – Mid-level priority
• Student Learning and Creativity – High-level priority
• Professional Growth and Leadership – Mid-level priority
• Digital Citizenship and Responsibility – Low-level priority

If you want to see your own results, it is available at loticonnection.com/.  

At the very end, I must say that I am the happiest and the richest person and a teacher in the world. I have many friends and I’ve got a lot of knowledge which will help me to move the obstacles of making my dreams to come true.

Almost an end

'Students have different levels of motivation, different attitudes about teaching and learning, and different responses to specific classroom environments and instructional practices. The more thoroughly instructors understand the differences, the better chance they have of meeting the diverse learning needs of all of their students' - RICHARD M. FELDER 

What to say about Week 9? No words to say. I would like to thank to our dear core instructor Janine Sepulveda and to all my classmates for their full cooperation. Learning styles were the topic for this week. I read the available material from our course site. The first site I chose is Tech tools that support multiple intelligences. It is available at http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic68.htm . In this site, I discovered many constructive tips for understanding different learning styles is an important part of effective teaching, with and without technology.

In his 1983 book called Frames of Mind, Howard Gardner of Harvard University identified seven intelligences we all possess. Because our understanding of the brain and human behavior is constantly changing, the number of intelligences is expanding. Two to three new intelligences had been added recently. Gardner claims that we all have all the intelligences, but that no two people are exactly alike.

I completely agree with Gardner that we all have the intelligences. It means that every student has the intelligence but it is our responsibility to discover it in every child. We will discover the intelligence in some students easily, but in some students too slowly. But we should be patient enough and encourage these students to do their best in order to show all their abilities.

Currently, Howard Gardner has identified nine intelligences. The intelligences are the following:

• Verbal-Linguistic
• Logical/Mathematical
• Visual/Spatial
• Bodily/Kinesthetic
• Musical/Rhythmic
• Intrapersonal
• Interpersonal
• Naturalist
• Existentialist

I have to say that I like all these intelligences and they can be applied in all settings. The first Multiple Intelligences I prefer are Verbal-Linguistic. In this way, students learn best through language including speaking, writing, reading, and listening. They are able to verbally or in writing explain, convince, and express themselves. They enjoy writing and creating with words. They would also enjoy e-books, interactive books on CD-ROM, and other text-based software. These students also enjoy the researching, listening, reading, and writing aspects of a research project. 

The other Multiple Intelligences are Interpersonal. Students learn best through interaction with other people through discussions, cooperative work, or social activities. They are able to create synergy in a room by being aware of the feelings and motives of others. They are good at teaching other members of the group and coordinating activities. In a group project, they are good at peer editing.

Here are the technology tools:

• Blogs
• Email projects
• Chat
• Word processing - chain writing, group editing, peer writing, brainstorming
• Listservs
• Forums and discussions
• Video and teleconferencing
• Group decisions software - Tom Snyder's decision
• Social networks
• Webquests with collaborative elements
• Video recording - sharing with others through skits, debates, role plays
• Collaborative computer software or games
• Group presentations (PowerPoint)
• Telecommunications projects - Flat Stanley
• Peer tutoring
• Virtual world

I like Interpersonal Intelligences so much. Why? I have already used them in some classes like a blog and discussions on a Nicenet classroom. Students are very willing to collaborate and they like this way of upgrading their knowledge. They also like to use technology for learning and they think it is never dull for them. They like technology more than course books. Students also like to discuss about a certain topic especially when they are making a project and in this way they also develop many skills, e.g. team skills.  I look forward to use more the Interpersonal intelligences in order to find out all my students’ potentials.

As the extension of finding more about ‘Learning styles’, I read other interesting material from the course site. The first site I read was *Learning styles online quiz - learn about your own learning style*. It is available at http://www.open2.net/survey/learningstyles/. The site is very interesting because everyone can do a test in order to see his/her learning style. The site mentions five different learning styles:

1)      listening/reading (auditory learners)

2)      seeing/visualizing (visual learners)

3)      experiencing/ hand-on learning (kinaesthetic)

4)      feeling/belonging (social/emotional learners)

5)      reflecting/evaluating (meta-cognitive learners)

The second site I visited was - More on learning styles from Richard Felder
http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Learning_Styles.html . There are many rewarding pieces of information. I completely agree with a statement that when mismatches exist between learning styles of most students in a class and the teaching style of the professor, the students may become bored and inattentive in class, do poorly on tests, get discouraged about the courses, the curriculum, and themselves, and in some cases change to other curricula or drop out of school. Professors, confronted by low test grades, unresponsive or hostile classes, poor attendance and dropouts, know something is not working. I think that we should make the balance and then all goals will be achieved and students will be willing to collaborate and they will try to solve the problems.

This site contains resources for a model of learning styles generally referred to as the Felder-Silverman model. The model was originally formulated by Dr. Felder in collaboration with Dr. Linda K. Silverman, an educational psychologist, for use by college instructors and students in engineering and the sciences, although it has subsequently been applied in a broad range of disciplines.

The second thing was to complete our project reports and to add them to the Wiki page. It was really exciting to read from my peers' feedback about my project draft.  I own big gratitude to my friends Fernando and Davor. I found a lot about the projects of my dear friends and I am really proud of having them as my friends.

At the end, I am really glad that I am a part of this wonderful course  and I am glad that I will be able to share this experience with my colleagues and with my students.

 

Week 8 - So great week

This week was so great one. In the very beginning, I would like to thank our core instructor Janine Sepulveda for support and encouraging comments. In this week, we also learned many and new rewarding things which can really help us a lot. The first assignment was to write our projects’ drafts and to add them on Wiki page for peer reviewing. I have to say that it was really interesting and exciting to review my classmates’ project drafts. I found a lot about their technology-related changes. I would also like to thank to my dear friend Fernando for giving me an insight into my project where I need to do more.

The second thing was to read about ‘Teaching with on-line tools’. As we had read and found a lot before, we also discovered other constructive on-line tools which are so helpful both for students and teachers. The first on-line tool that I really prefer is ANVILL. ANVILL is a free Course Management System (CMS) developed by our guest moderator this week, Jeff Magoto, director of the University of Oregon's Yamada Language Center. I have to admit that I really like this tool for learning language. ANVILL (A National Virtual Language Lab) is also a speech-based toolbox for language teachers. This lab is focused on oral/aural language, but at its core are very modern web-based audio and video tools from duber dot com and the University of Oregon: Voiceboards, LiveChat, and Quizzes and Surveys.. What I like about this lab is that it allows teachers to record and place audio and video files anywhere in a lesson – in three easy steps. Creating of lessons is vey simple and straightforward because there are templates for audio, video and image tasks. The sentence that attracted my attention is that ANVILL is aimed at both teachers in traditional face-to-face situations as well as at those who are doing distance or hybrid courses. Its course management tools provide a simple means of enrolling and communicating with students and making curriculum web-accessible.

The only constraint of this is when the schools do not have the Internet and enough computers in order to realize a lesson. The advantage of ANVILL is that this is very rewarding for students and teachers because I think that we can create an ANVILL lesson even if we are not in the classroom. In this way, we can develop students’ autonomy. 

The second article I read is Transforming Language Education across the Internet. It is available at the http://it.uoregon.edu/itconnections/anvill. At the beginning of this article, there is an interesting experience of a teacher from Portland. The part of her work involves giving her Portland-based students learning Japanese time to interact with Japanese students learning English in Hiroshima, Japan. Her students recorded their talks about what they average days look like. When the students finished the recordings, she sent the recordings to Hiroshima. Page, who has taught Japanese going on 16 years, says in the past to have her students interact with other students across time zones and an ocean involved videotaping each student and then sending the tapes back and forth from Japan to the United States. They had to wait for the tapes and answers for a long time. As she says, the things are changing these days. Today, Page and her Portland students communicate with students learning English in Japan using a service created by and hosted at the University of Oregon called ANVILL.

According to this, I have to say that I really like the Voiceboards. This can help students to improve their skills of pronunciation. As in my case, IT classroom is the only classroom which has the Internet connection and computers. I can organize additional classes for my students in order to overcome this problem and to meet my students with this new language lab. I would take my students into IT classroom after all lessons are finished in school. ANVILL also offers many other rewarding tools, e.g. TCasts (teacher broadcasting), Livechat, Forums, Quizzes and Surveys, Practice recorder, Lesson planning, Course management. If you want to find more about all these tools you can read it at http://ylclab.uoregon.edu/groups/anvillhelp/wiki/fb6ef/Core_Tools.html. I really prefer Lesson planning. We, as teachers, can deliver lessons (or curriculum) in a web-based format that looks and acts more like the Web 2.0 tools that students are most familiar with. ANVILL provides a consistent and relatively easy way for teachers to move their lessons into an online environment.

As regards on-line exercises, I read other available materials from our course site. The first site that attracted my attention was Easy Test Maker (paper tests). It is available at http://www.easytestmaker.com/default.aspx. Easy Test Maker is a free online test generator to help you create your tests. You can create multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, matching, short answer and true and false questions all on the same test. You can also insert instructions and divide your test into multiple sections. This is very rewarding because it saves a lot of time and this generator makes the answer key for us and we also do not need to spend time in formatting. The easy-made tests can be published to the web for students to take online at home or in a controlled classroom setting. What I also like is that the tests are graded automatically, so students can see where they often make the mistakes. Students can also develop their skills of independence, especially if they use this site for improving their skills of grammar at home.

The third task was to create an on-line course site or exercise. I must admit that I was really happy to do this. I decided to create a blog. Students will use the blog to improve their skills of grammar and the skills of writing, reading, listening and speaking. I have to say that the blog will be used by students from 7^th to 9^th grade, but I also invited the students from other schools and my dear colleagues to join the site and to help me to keep it alive. I also invite my *dear colleagues*, from the course “Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web – The University of Oregon”, to join the site and give their recommendations.The URL address is: http://studentscornerofenglishgrammar.blogspot.com.

My last thought is that I am really happy to know all these rewarding sites and tools which can facilitate my work and students can benefit a lot. I also look forward to share them with my students and with my dear colleagues.