WEEK 10: OUR LAST WEEK

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for sharing all that great amount of knowledge during these ten weeks.  A big door has been opened for all of us, and with all the knowledge we all have shared, we have the tools in our hands to become better teachers everyday.

It was really nice to comment all your posts, I appreciate Donna’s help, She was all the time there for each one of us, encouraging with her comments and pushing us to do a better job.

I’m going to miss being part of this team.  But as we have all the mails just keep in touch to say hi, or ask for help.  I’m pretty sure any of us will be ready to help in any way.

Thanks again.

Best regards,

Alex

Multiple intelligences

We can also call them multiple ways of learning, and it’s not a barrier for us, as teachers, it is an advantage because we use many different kinds of tasks in our classrooms to make everyone learn, it also we’ll keep our students out of boredom  due to the variety of activities. 

Technology is going to be our great partner because it opens up a whole new world of discovery and learning.  It also helps teacher to structure lessons that reach in all the students the ability they need to develop to acquire the new language. 

Technology empowers the students to be part of their own learning developing their strengths thanks to their multiple intelligences.

Alex

WEEK 8 "THE AMAZING WORLD OF ANVILL"

Hello Everyone!!

Busy week, wasn't it????

To me it was a lot of work, trying to complete my project, trying to get into ANVILL, that amazing world, and doing the task, It was really busy, but worthy. ANVILL is huge and full of those technical tools which will help us and our students to improve in the teaching-learning process.  We have to take advantage of ANVILL to develop our students in their speaking and writing skills.

What I think we will have to do in the future is get all the English teachers I work with, and involve all of them with this matter.  Then everyone of us will be able to build our own world, full of interactive tasks to have, as I said, better students, teachers and Institutions. 

This study group, who are now involved into webskills, will  be the ones to start a change in  teaching English in our Institutions. 

So fa we have learned so much and as Katty said in her Discussion, "what else is coming up? Just be prepared.

Best regards
ALEX

One Computer is enough to me!!!

I’m sorry I’m posting on the blog at this time, lots of things to do.  Too much work during the weekend. But finally it has ended.  When I read about just doing one post in either one of the two discussions, I realized that it would be interesting on doing it in both of them.  Two very interesting topics, and as we are learning from all we read and do, it was not difficult to make a reflection about them.

I enjoyed the reading a lot.  That’s is why I did so.  As I said, working with one computer is enough to me, because students can share more when they do tasks about any topic.  I think, I haven’t had any experience with it, working with a computer for each one gives me a sense of selfishness.

The planning was fun and easy to do it, because I already did that activity with my children.  They had a lot of fun when learning and singing the weather song. It helped me a lot; Actually, any activity made up with technology is 10 times better than doing it in the traditional way.

Alex

Dear All!!!

It has been a very long week, of a lot of work, trying to start with my project.  I’m trying to build a blog where there will be a FORUM to practice with my students an activity with listening, as I have realized this is the skill they have problems with. I thought I had finished it, and on Friday I wanted to open it to show my students what was their task, and I couldn’t do it.  When I got home I went all over the blog again and tried to fix it. Till now it is working, let see how is it going to work in class on Monday.  “It has to work”. 

After realizing the blog was not working, and this activity was planned to do that day, I remembered one of the activities Donna made us talk about. “what would you do if technology doesn’t work, when it was supposed to be ready to use it?” I explained my students what I needed them do in our class project. I played the song through my cell phone. As it is a well known song, my students started to sing it.  I was really excited, because they did understood the song and also what they had to do for the project.

I’m learning, I’m so happy and proud about it.

With Regards Alex

Rubrics Project-based Learning WebQuests

This week I have learned a lot, many valid activities to be done in our classrooms.  We have to keep on working with every week's new material.  Rubrics are so important during the teaching learning process and we have to learn how to apply them in the best way so they are not going to be frustrating to our students, but motivating. We have to take advantage of them to assess learners in the whole process.
Web quests is so new for me.  I tried to do the extra task, but honestly, I couldn't do it.  About my project based learning, it took a lot of time from me,  thinking: "what can I do to improve my students' listening skill?" I came up with this idea, hope it works. 
Thanks to all of you, your posts and comments really help to keep on working, feel motivated and leave out the frustation. 
Alex

Reading and Writing

It has been a week of reseach, looking for new web places on how to make our students produce reading and writing skills trhough the web.  I think I got a good link which I have posted for you in our  class discussion. Hope it helps all of you as it is helping me. Making the lesson plan was a little bit difficult but it at last I learned how to go through it.  The class problem or concern, was a problem because I forgot to describe my students.  Well, week after week I have been learning a lot, I guess not only me, but all of us.  Thanks to all of you because you are sharing a lot of your knowledge and also the links you find to use in our classrooms.  We are all together on the way to get our first goal.
Alex

Week 3, More than Delicious

It's incredible how I am learning, I guess I have the same feeling of most of you.  This delicious site is amazing. I have tried some, not all, to be honest, of the URLs you have sent us and there is a lot of information we can use with our students.  It's been a long week of reading.  All the projects are really good, I just chose the one which was closer to my needs to reflect what I feel.  And  when talking about listening and speaking as the main skills in learning how to communicate in the target language was not new for me, but very interesting. I'll be happy to hear from you any comment.  I guess we all are in the same stage.
Regards
Alex

Hard Work Week 2

Searching is the way to get our goals.  All of us have been doing it during these two weeks and our whole lives.  The best thing about it, is that we're sharing what we are learning or what we have known till today. Thanks to all of you for all your ideas and links.  Our job is demanding and we have to learn to be creative to get to our pupils minds.  Nowadays we have a lot of technology around us and learning how to use it, will be profitable for our students. 

My First Week

This first week has been really hard for me because I have done a lot of effort using technology which I usually don't do it.  However, I feel very excited to gain all the knowledge I have been getting along this week.  I'm pretty sure I will learn a lot of useful staff to improve my teaching skills and at the same time my students will take advantage of the new technology that surrounds them.  I hope during this course we can help each other because there may be some other classmates that might be experiencing the same as me.

Regards,
Alex Suarez