Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Week 3: Richer Learning Experiences

Skill-building Websites for Oral/Aural skills and Saving Bookmarks with Delicious

 Discussion

I have done my readings for week3 and found them  very useful. The website's title which I have chosen is "The Best Sites To Practice Speaking English & Pronunciation" and its URL is: http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/03/17/the-best-sites-to-practice-speaking-english/ Then I go for the Voki Home - http://www.voki.com/ - for the following reasons: first of all, it is a free service. Secondly,it is suitable for all ages and levels.Thirdly, Voki speaking avatars are great tools for the classroom. Teachers and students alike can create avatars and use them in a number of ways to make learning fun and more accessible. Fourth, it provides students with the opportunity to practice their speaking (and pronunciation) skills. Fifth, foreign language students can use Voki to practice, record and listen to their speech. Sixth, its ability to share "voki-videos" with others (students, teachers, parents, other classes).Finally, it has lesson plan and activities database.

Delicious Page  


By following the instructions about using Delicious.com, I have created my own Delicious page  and saved 27 bookmarks so far. I shared links from Courtney's Delicious page. I put the URL of my page on our class wiki, under Delicious Pages. I think it is a piece of cake. It is really delicious .  Here is the URL of my Delicious page:                                             

                                         https://delicious.com/hamzi1965


 Project Task 2 : Reading sample project reports 

I have gone through all of sample project reports from past Webskills classes and I chose to comment on the following:
Course's name: Building Teaching Skills through the Interactive Web. Project Report. University of Oregon.
Author's name: Nicolici Nadina Carmen.
Country: Romania.
Project's aim is to use Web 2( blog & other tools) in teaching 9th grade at the Technical College " Lorin Salagean", Drobeta-Turnu-Severin, Romania.


This project is organized in the following way. First, it is started by giving ditaled description of the learners and their sitting and needs. Secondly, the project's problem is given. Third, initial solutions and expected responses  are detected. Fourth, Students' response and reflections are noticed. Fifth, students' changes are recorded. Sixth, resources are cited. Finally, conclusion is made.
From my point view, this project is well-organized one in spite of its too much repeated information. I think I will take an advantage of its organization to write my own project.




 
 

 

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Week 2: On The Right Way

 My warm greetings to our instructor Courtney Cunningham for her big help, clear and detailed instructions for the course so far.
 
 I have done my readings and  assignments as  scheduled for this week. First of all, I have chosen my web searching tool - my task - which is ' Sweet Search'. It is a selective search of web information for students. I chose it because it is a search engine dedicated to education and includes sources which have been approved by educational experts and  teachers can be more confident that students will find more relevant information without stumbling on inappropriate websites. Also, students and teachers can either search the website directly or embed the widget into another website such as a class blog or school website. 

                                         http://www.sweetsearch.com/ 

Secondly, I have described my  students and their classroom settings as my project first step . Third, I have formed an ABCD model for behavioral objectives  for my lesson in a post on Nicenet discussion thread.

                        http://www.wikihow.com/Write-an-ABCD-Objective

 Fourth, I commented  on my colleagues blogs. I think - by having done that-  I am on the right way.     
                   
 
 
 
 
 

  
  



  





Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Week1: New Experience

   Now I know how to log into Nicenet and  share information with my colleagues in this fine learning group. I have read and commented on the draft ground rules for discussing the given topics. I also know how to post messages and how to reply to them. I have tried many times to fill  out a needs analysis survey but I failed because of the Internet regulations in my country. 
   I have learned that a blog (short for weblog) is a frequently updated website that often resembles an online journal. It's so easy to create and update a blog - it requires only basic access to the Internet, and a minimum of technical know-how. Because of this, it is one of the easiest ways to publish student writing on the WWW. It's almost as easy as sending an email.
 
    I start creating my blog by reading carefully through the handout sent to me via my e-mail by our instructor Courtney Cunningham titled: Creating a Blog at Blogger.Then  simply I did the following:
        -  went to www.blogger.com
        -  signed in ( You can create a blog for free at  www.blogger.com ).
        -  gave a title to my blog: Ahmed Hamzi's Reflective Blog
        -  chose a nice template.
        -  added content in a new post.
        -  changed the default language to English.
        -  turned off Word Verification: No,
        -  chose: Allow Anyone to Comment
        -  put my blog's link  on the class wiki
 
There are many reasons why we may choose to use weblogs with our students. One of the best reasons is to provide a real audience for student writing. Usually, the teacher is the only person who reads student writing, and the focus of this reading is usually on form, not content. With weblogs, students can find themselves writing for a real audience that, apart from the teacher, may include their peers, students from other classes, or even other countries, their parents, and potentially anyone with access to the Internet.
                 
            Integrate Blogs in English teaching: 

                                                  My Learning Community
 
      My instructor:  Courtney Cunningham 
 
                                                         My Colleagues: 
        
  1. Nagei Abdel-aal Ahmed Mohamed   2.Sanjiv Alay  3.Baraat Alsmadi  
 4.Domingo Cadima 5.Paramita Chaudhuri  6. Diana Alui Daniel  7.Sira Diop
 8.Waseem Zuhra    9.Bernadette Lingani  10.Johan López  11.Paula Mattila
 12.Lien Pham 13.Ewa Prokopowicz 14.Jennifer Ramdonee 15.Fathimath Shareef 
 16.Darshan Lal Sharma 17.Akbar Shomurodov 18.Tika Subedi 19.Faatu Touray 
 20.Batuk Lal Tamang 21.Muhammad Tariq  22. Keong-sub Yeon   23.Kyi Tha Wai
 24.Inesa Zubrylina