Rubrics, Webquests,PBL Which to take? None but ALL!!!!

Hello Donna,
Hello course-mates,
I hope you had a wonderful week filled with learning the way I did. It's amazing how the weeks are passing by. This online course has really made me reshape every piece of knowledge I had gained before.
In the broadest sense of the word I have become more and more autonomous in my learning. Learning by Doing is what this course is providing me with. More practise, Less theory.
I feel upset though, as it seems time is never enough for me to learn all the good things offered to me.
Thanks Delicious. NowI can go back there and find what I am looking for. The links i have stored there since last week.
Thanks RUBISTAR for making my life a lot easier. Now I can be fair to my students working with clear rubrics to evaluate their work.
Project Based Learning was one of the components of our readings. It tells how students can acquire all different types of skills while involved in a team work in a very autonomous way.
I did visit Zunal.com but was unable to finish creating my Webquest for now. I am still working on it trying to take into considerartion my students needs in a very attractive way, the way I always hoped for !!!!
Khadija the challenged but DETERMINED.

Week 4 reflection

Dear Donna,
Dear all,

The task of writing a technology enhanced lesson plan made it tough for me this week. It was exhausting
since I am no computer skilled teacher. But thanks to my friends' posts, and after reading about lesson planing and its components, I  managed to write one.
The readings however were rewarding. The two articles I focused on both tackles how the use of technology can enhance and improve reading and writing skills for learners.
Task 3 was to search for some web pages that could work for our classes and write an ABCD objective.
My findings were overwhelming and I was unable to quit browsing different sites.

Khadija, the challenged but determined.     

Week three....Reflection

 Hello all,

Where did week three go? I can’t believe it. At first it seemed to go smooth and all of a sudden time flew by!!  But, I think I am going to say it out loud that I am proud of what I did learn this week!! Creating my Delicious page was a journey in itself. Thanks to this social bookmarking, now I can be very organized. I won’t waste time looking for my favorite links. I will be able to use tags and stacks.

Reading the sample project report of a former course mate gave me clear vision of what we are supposed to end our course with. I identified myself a lot to the author.

Is it because we are both from the same continent?  The one thing I am sure of is that we both have common points: Large sized classes, multi levels of students in relation to learning languages, and above all our educational systems don’t focus on teaching writing while this latter is a huge component of the final national exam our students have to sit for.

Another task was reading three articles about how the integration of technology in the teaching field has revolutionised our career as educators, and made it pleasant to teach the language in all its different aspects and dimensions. A new era of my career is here to stay.

Donna, my course facilitator as well as my course mates have become have become part of my daily life. I am very thankful.

Khadija,

TEFL: Questions to answer

TEFL: Questions to answer: There are threequestions to answer before you start your serach: 1. What are you going to search for? 2. How would select the appropriate ...

Dreams

“Dreams remain dreams until you put them into action”

This is one of my favorite sayings that I used to read each time I would enter or leave GCI (Global Communication Institute) a private school I worked at few years ago.

Before this course, I had always wanted to improve my computer skills. I felt myself lagging behind especially when I would attend a forum or a conference where people took out laptops to take notes or the speakers used some technical jargon related to the computer and Internet. At home, my two young daughters, the young one with her iPod and the elder one with slim notebook, are considered to be digital natives of their classes and therefore not easy to communicate with if you don’t master the tech tools they are using.

Now, that I started this course, I am driven to invest more time in developing my technology skills. I feel I am on the right way to achieve my dream. I have never had an opportunity like this. This will not only help me improve my computer skills but it will also encourage me to apply and integrate them into my teaching. I am a mother whose teenage daughters require my full attention and care, a homemaker who tries hard to provide all the needs of the family, and a full-time teacher who dedicates her time to her students.

Now, I am a student too! That’s wonderful! But I need to struggle with time and find a way to keep up with the required work expected from me. To achieve my main goal, to make my dream come true, to meet my course facilitator’s expectations, I will try my best to organize myself more so as to avoid being overwhelmed.

I wonder if I am the only one in this course having to manage my time efficiently in order to stay up to the level of all the requirements.

From blog to blog!

First of all, I am so happy to embark on this new experience. Here, I would love to tell something about the kind of learner I am.  Because I am not very familiar with using technology, I take my time to grasp what I am supposed to learn. It takes me a while to assimilate and get acquainted with the tools and applications before I can start. That is the biggest challenge that has always been a hindrance to my progress.

Now, being a member of this group, with the help of my course facilitator and my course mates, I hope I can overcome this challenge.

Another factor that kept me away from the first week of this course was the start of the new school year here in Morocco.  It has been tough trying to adjust seven groups each of 45 to 50 students within these last few days.

However, September 30^th, 2011 will always remain vivid in my memory, as I was able to create my first blog ever. This is a new beginning for me! I feel extremely motivated and excited to just go on and on.  This coming week, I will sit down with my students and make them create their own blogs!!!!

I feel so proud. Now I can do it so I can cascade to my students. That has been my dream for years! Thank you so much Donna! My students and myself will be using these blogs to improve their writing skills in an innovative way. I am absolutely certain that this will be a motivating factor for my students as well as a new shift in my teaching career.