Week 10 - Just a "Click" away...

I leave you with my sunset. Ready for a new beginning. Ready to implement new ideas.

It has been a pleasure to share with so many colleagues from around the world. So many teachers who want the same thing “become better educators each day”.

Each one of us has a different experience every day, we all face different situations, cultural backgrounds and number of solutions we create for various issues that arise in class.

From a kindergarten kid up to teacher training courses, from language classes to university subjects we have created a system in which we could discuss, share and learn from each other.

Thank you Robert for all your support, for guiding us and trusting that we were going to be able to get to the objectives. For knowing that we were going to find different ways to accomplishing the objectives proposed.

Now I feel my hand full of tools, like Ceci mentioned. My mind is full of ideas, a bit overwhelmed to be honest, but it feels good. Good because now I don’t fear the technological tools that were far from me. Now I feel them close and know that I can explore them and apply them into my profession.

To the newcomers, I suggest you all to enjoy the courses you take. Take your time, set up an agenda, try to implement as much as you can while you are actually reading the articles and doing the assignments. Everything is useful and beneficial for you and your students.

Thanks to the University of Oregon to providing us with this opportunity to meet professionals who shared their expertise in the field of education. I do hope to continue having the possibility to take more classes helping me to become a better professional.

And thank you all, my peers, my colleagues, for being there, for sharing, for being part of this wonderful educational field. We are just a Click away J That feels good, doesn’t it?

A big hug from Paraguay – Heart of South America

Carolina Ortiz Ruffinelli

Week 9 - Becoming more concious about myself

This was an exiting week reading more about Multiple Intelligence and Learning Styles. I found myself thinking about my childhood and how many times I could feel that teachers would impose a certain way of teaching and I basically "accepted" their rules or concepts presented but classes were not meaningful for me.
Now, I find myself reading these articles, sharing my thoughts and opinions with such a nice group of professionals, and I see myself invited to look for better options to share knowledge and learning experiences for my students and for teachers who share this experience with me as a coordinator.
I am committed and invited to share about a number of tools that will make learning more beneficial to others, guiding colleagues to be aware of their own learning styles and helping them to become conscious about ways in reaching kids with different interests or priorities. Why favor only verbal and spatial students most of the time? What happens with kinesthetic kids? Do they need to be told to stay still all the time? Isn't it about time to let them express themselves? Or auditory learners, intrapersonal ones. They also have their needs, and they can share so much with their own perspectives.
Learning more about Project Based Learning, Learner Autonomy, models of creating objectives, creating presentations and being able to upload things I created by myself gave me a lot of confidence to continue searching more about education. Now I find myself thinking about ways I could share this materials with colleagues and how I can influence to make an impact at the institutions I work at implementing more technology. Creating a blog with my students was something I honestly did not think about before. Now, they ask about it and they want to continue sharing thoughts. I know this will be a great way to continue improving their language skills.
I will continue fining out more about getting connected to webminars. For some of you this may be something too easy, but I need to be honest. I still have a lot to learn, which is good. I still have so many things to continue discovering and by taking the risk and trying out new things I know I will be able to make my classes more interesting and make my students’ learning an unforgettable experience, sharing tools with them that they will be able to use in their lives. I think that this is my mission. Give them tools for life!

Online Tools for Enhacing Learning

This week is hard for me. I need to be honest. Being exposed to so many tools, and links that opened my perspectives on the web made me feel overwhelmed.
Part of it is because I do not have the necessary tools to explore, listen to forums, record my voice, get in different options.
I do not feel confident signing up to so many pages at the same time because I feel a commitment to continue posting things, other wise the account will be closed and I do not want to lose this opportunity.

On the other side, I also feel this experience is extremely important. I feel what my students might feel when I ask them to sign up for a blog for the first time. I am feeling what they might feel by expecting them to post comments, complete tests and fullfill my expectations.

In our teacher training program at our institution we do have "Unknown Language" as a subject. This experience is for future teachers to be able to understand what students migh go through when learning a new language.

For me, this week was like being a trainee again. I felt I was seating on the chair, feeling little and overwhelmed with so much information.
Now, I have to digest it and continue learning, exploring, trying, sharing.

Not stay still.... continue learning

Week 7 - Encouraging Learner Autonomy

Creating a learning environment in a classroom can be challenging. It is not an easy task. Of course it also depends on how flexible the group is but a big part of it depends on how the instructor trusts in the members of this community and knows where he or she is going by having a clear objective set up in his/her mind.
And we talk about "objectives" we are not only taking about academic learning but we are also talking about guiding our students to become responsible and commited with their own learning. Reading the article "What is Learner Autonomy and How Can It Be Fostered?" by Dimitrios Thanasoulas helped me refresh some basis for education and what our role is as teachers. In our classrooms we need to open spaces and provide opportunities in which students will be able to learn how to use tools and take more charge of their own progress.
Sharing new concepts, giving them tools and teaching them how to use them so they can have access to more knowledge, listening to them and their doubts, sharing our own doubts, trusting that together we can get to a better understanding and sharing we can obtain great results gaining a higher level of education.
When we also shared activities about "one computer per classroom" it also made me think about how we can create autonomus learners by providing this tool, which may not be available at all times, but we know that creating projects, or having them come up with new findings,research, exercises done by groups or individual activities can help them have access to more information and are able to share it using a modern instrument.
Holec's quote: "The ability to take charge of one’s learning" is so true. We have to create an environment in which parents and kids stop putting all the responsibility of learning new concepts only on the teachers' shoulders. By creating a community of respect, sharing information, providing new material, creating self evaluations, working on awareness of learning styles and strategies to aquire new knowledge, trusting and opening spaces in which kids realize they are becoming better beings can definitely help them become more conscious about their learning. This indeed will help them become better members of the community where they live in and will be able to apply this concepts and values worked in class into their own spaces with their peers, neighboors, professionals and trust that we are able to grow if we are responsible of our own learning.

Butterflies in my stomach :)

And before week 6 is gone I need to share this too.
I spent such a hard time trying to figure out about how to do interactive power point Presentations. I though I knew about PP tools but I always respected from the distance this kind of quiz I was expected to do now.
Now I have the power to do that too!!
To be honest, I didn't know where to start. My program is in Spanish and tried to translate in my mind each single step and it really made me sweat.
But by the end I added my Interactive Power Point presentation I felt very good with myself and now I am thinking of how I can apply this new technique.

And PREZI!!! Oh how AMAZED I felt when I did more research about how to use this. I already added a presentation. It is not a good one, but it's my first try and I already feel like a designer!!

I am very glad I am learning all these new things!!!

Thank you!
Carol

Using techology - I need to share this!!!

As I am doing the readings of articles an online assessment programs this week I feel taller. Yes, taller.
I feel I am being exposed to a higher level of educational approaches that are leading me to take a higher step when sharing or facilitating learning experiences with my students and colleagues.
Yesterday was a very special day. I went to the computer lab with my group of adolescents because they wanted to join the blog I mentioned to parents through a note. Parents agreed with no problem and the kids showed enthusiasm in being members of a group. They opened gmail accounts and seemed very interested and proud being followers of the blog. They even posted some comments and we discussed about how often they should visit the blog.
I am amazed at the fact that young teenagers who seem to come to class dragged by their parents can become highly motivated when they are exposed to technology. Of course, it has to do with the age characteristic, but what I could see with my own eyes is that ther attitude can be very different when we try using their language or when we show interest in showing them more about what is out there in the cyber world.
In my training program I have some students who came to me asking if they could be members of the blog for teachers at the institute. I was very happy to give them a warm welcome.
I am just amazed at how sometimes teachers themselves do not show enthusiasm, but students do (young and older) being students or trainees.
Why is this, that is my question now. Why does this happen? Why do teachers sometimes reject or give excuses why not becoming a member of simple blogs where they can find more ideas, fun ideas, interesting materia. Is this because they are overwhelmed with so much content to cover and they do not know what they are missing, sticking up to traditional teaching techniques....?
This is my mission now, convince them and show them that we can make a big difference!

Project Based Learning and Technology

At the beginning of the week I read the article of Susan Gaier on "Less Teaching and More Learning". I was very touched by her experience creating and adapting projects for her students needs. I automatically thought about low performance students that I would love to gather from different classes I know and would love to put them all together and share this kind of experience with them to help them build up more confidence in their language production.
When I started reading about Web Quests I honestly started trembling. For me it is very hard to understand how to apply it. I tend to be disperse and since I work with many teachers and know many students many classes come to my mind and want to brin remedial ideas for everybody. Well, I shared my fears and worries and doubts on nicenet and Robert's, Tony's and Perizat's comments and support on letting in flow and try to find an issue I could work with my students in a concrete way really helped me.
I decided to open a blog with my students. I shared with them my interest on continue keeping in touch with them during summer. They will actually not be my studenst next year so I wanted to open a space in which they could find me and continue practicing her English skills during summer, applying things I am learning with this great course. Perizat's support suggesting my kids to write me letters during summer and their impression on their vacations helped me focus my objectives a bit more. Again, I am so thankful for having your support. And Tony, you seem to be very calm, I need more of your philosophy of life :)
Anyways, my students were reluctant at the beginning in terms of having a blog and having to visit it every week and having to post something out. But then, after talking and sharing ideas they showed more enthusiasm and agreed. I am still waiting for parents approval, but I know they are aleady hooked with the idea of using technology to practice their language and show a "trade mark" being able to continue keeping in touch with me, their peers, use English and learn more things that will give them tools for their lives.
As for Rubrics, I also shared the fact that we are actually studying about assessment in different skills at the insititute I work with. We want to establish some rubrics we use as teachers and why not creating some rubrics that will help students self asess their process.
Rubrics definitely help kids know where they are going and what is expected of them. A single grade does not share that much, especially when we talk about language. We need degrees, we need explanations, we need words that tell us how much we are doing good and what we can do to improve.
I believe this week was very important for me. I honestly started trembling because I am facing new things, new material that I haven't used before, I am exposed to things I have been using too but now I have to apply them into technology. I need to have a good balance and smart application of tools. This is why I took this course, and I am feeling the pressure and how much I have to continue learning to know what it is outthere in the e-world. There is so much to learn and so much to share.