Week 8 Reflections

I am now working on revising my plan report. I cannot believe this course will close soon. I have been encouraged by other participants’ comments, discussion and our instructor Donna’s warm and appropriate advice. I hope the participants will keep in touch in some way.

I explored the sites for useful tools to create quizzes, crossword, board games, and so on. I have heard some of them, but I have never used on my own. I enjoyed making questionnaire, comprehension questions though there were some complicated steps to understand and took me time. I am surprised and amazed to know that there are so many helpful tools teachers can use. I am a little confused about how to use, when to use, and what I can use them for as well. I need more experience and time to make myself more familiar with these tools. I want to try to create something with Quizlet and HotPotato now.  

http://quizlet.com/  

http://hotpot.uvic.ca/

                              

As for the draft project report, I changed my report to the plan report. I have some more points to think about in timeline and responses. Anna gave me very thoughtful and helpful checklist this week. I will make changes in my plan report to make it with more details.

Week 7 Learner autonomy / Padlet / Finding partners

I mainly read articles on learner autonomy. I found a lot of similar situations or problems to solve while discussing the topic. Teachers all over the world are wondering how they can motivate students. Utilizing web skills in teaching will have good effect on learner autonomy.

 This week’s task taught me how to use Padlet. It is a very convenient tool to share materials with others in class. I would like to implement Padlet in my class and tell other teachers about it.

 I worked on writing my final project. I first created a blog for my students. But I found  we cannot use the blog in the computer lab at my school. Every blog or SNS related sites are blocked in the lab. I told some of my students to access the blog at their homes. Most of them were able to open the blog, but they did not post their comments because they did not know how to do it or they hesitated to create their account. There must be some way to use the blog in the computer lab. However, my main new technology is Webquest.

I must finish modifying my Webquest. Every participant found partners this week. I will try hard to accomplish the Webquest and the first draft.

Week 6 Creating Student-centered Classes and Interactive PowerPoint

Readings and resources for this week is about engaging students – technology aids and interactive PowerPoint. Both of the topics are helpful to make my class interactive. I focused on interactive PowerPoint because I do not know much about creating my own slides and using effectively.  My class is done with handouts, a white-board, a textbook, a loudspeaker connected to ipod touch for sound materials. Before I read these articles, I thought PowerPoint is mainly for lectures giving the audience main points to follow and have them concentrated. I found that I should realize the usefulness of PowerPoint for increasing the interactive atmosphere in class.

This week I made my own slides with hyperlinks for the first time. I tried to make my own quizzes with buttons at first, but I couldn’t. I will keep trying anyway. In this task my topic was learning English with easy math. Some of the students do not try to read English. I think they will read the questions and try to understand them to answer without translating them into Japanese. It took me a lot of time to choose a topic and to figure out how to make the slides interactive. However, I am sure I will be better as I continue making more slides and using them.

As for implementing technology-related change in my class, I could not begin this week and will not be able to next week for whole the class due to school schedule. I would like to try some of the changes to part of the students while working on my plan.

Resources

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/create-interactive-quiz-powerpoint-masters/

http://www.joe.org/joe/2003april/tt2.php

http://www.unf.edu/~tcavanau/publications/necc/Interactive_PowerPoint.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQra4baNwP8

Week 5 Rubrics, PBL, and WebQuest

After reading Alternative Assessment, I created rubrics using one of the rubrics sites. This is my first time to create my own rubrics. I use evaluation sheet with categories or check lists in evaluating oral presentation. Rubrics is with detailed description for categories and levels. I think implementing rubrics in my lessen will benefit students’ learning. As required accomplishment is clearly written, students will feel secured and make efforts to reach their own goal. They can also feel that they are judged fairly based on the description.

Project Based Learning is a very interesting and useful approach. It also has the aspect of cooperative learning. Though preparing goals and procedures needs time, students themselves will go on working on the project once students start to engage in the project. Students will learn more with less teaching. It is a very effective approach. The problem of implementing PBL is flexibility in time and contents.

A WebQuest is a very significant tool as well. This is also learner-centered and students will proceed guided by procedures designed by teachers.  One of the aims of my  learning web skills is to motivate students to study and learn, I think this WebQuest is a very effective tool. I am not sure I will be able to accomplish creating a lesson with a WebQuest, I will try. I really wish to use it.

Resources

http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/assessing/alternative.htm

http://rubistar.4teachers.org/

http://www.ncsall.net/?id=385

http://susangaer.com/studentprojects/

http://www.webquest.org/search/index.php

http://zunal.com/zunal-help/help-about-whatiswebquest.php

http://www.webquest.org/search/index.php