Week 6: Refining my Project Plans

 
     Fortunately, we do not have large classes anymore in Saudi Arabia and that was from the past. Today's students are more tech-savvy than ever before. It's almost like they are programed to learn  a different way than traditional past methods. I think that  active learning is the style of teaching that focuses on the engagement of students through valuable learning activities, collaboration, and students own thoughts. Educators know that engagement of students is critical to increasing student achievement. The desire to impart knowledge, to facilitate learning, and to make a difference in the lives of students is the goal of many teachers. As we see the difference that active learning makes it becomes easier to support finding ways to incorporate technology into education. People learn either visually (by seeing), auditory (by hearing), or kinetically (by doing). Allowing students with various learning styles alternate modes to interpret ideas and understand challenging concepts will enhance their success. This includes low performing students, average working students, and high achieving students. With the advancement of technological active learning techniques the teacher becomes more of a facilitator to help students engage themselves in the learning process. This creates the most interactive environment with peers helping one another. The pace, style, and depth of learning can be accommodated for by the student. As Confucius taught us, "I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand." The increase in active learning directly corresponds to an increase in engagement, retention and achievement. 

  If you want to create a PowerPoint Multiple Choice Quiz, do as follows:
-Start the PowerPoint Quiz
First, open PowerPoint. Create a new slide by clicking the 'New Slide' button at the top. Type in your question and answer choices into the first slide. You can move the text boxes wherever you want them.
-Create Slides for Each Quiz Answer
Next, create a slide if someone chooses an incorrect answer. Create another slide if someone chooses the correct answer.
-Make Slides for Each Quiz Question
Now, create a slide for the second question and its answer choices. Each question in your quiz must be followed by an incorrect answer slide, and then a correct answer slide. You must do it in this order so that when you choose a correct answer, you advance to the next question.
-Copy the incorrect answer slide and paste it after the second question in the 'Slides' tab on the left side. Now copy the correct answer slide and paste it after the incorrect answer slide.
-Link the Answer Slides to the Quiz Questions
To link the answer choices to the appropriate answer slides, go back to your first question. Go to 'Slideshow,' 'Action Buttons,' and choose 'Custom'. Click and drag a rectangle around your first answer choice. A window will appear.
-Check 'Hyperlink To', and under the drop down menu, I'll choose 'Next Slide.' Since this answer is incorrect and the incorrect answer slides always follow a question, going to the 'Next Slide' is the best way to link them. Click 'OK.'
-Make the Answer Links Transparent
Now to make the link transparent, right click it and choose 'Format Autoshape.' Change the color to 'No Fill' and click 'OK.'
-The next answer choice is correct so the link will be different. Go to 'Slideshow,' 'Action Buttons,' and choose 'Custom.' Click and drag a rectangle around the next answer choice. The same window will appear. Check 'Hyperlink To,' and under the drop down menu, choose 'Slide.' Another window will appear with the outline of your quiz.
-Choose the 'congratulations' slide that is after the question you want to link to. Click 'OK' twice. Don't forget to take away the fill color. Repeat these steps for all your answer choices. You might want to link your answers after you have finished all the slides in your quiz.
-Loop Incorrect Answers Back to Each Question
To link the 'sorry' slide back to your question, go to 'Slideshow,' 'Action Buttons,' and choose 'Custom.' Click and drag a rectangle over the entire slide. A window will appear, Check 'Hyperlink to,' and under the drop down menu, choose 'Previous Slide.' Click 'OK.' Repeat this for all of your incorrect answer slides.
-Choose a PowerPoint Quiz Background
Now to give your quiz a background, click the 'Design' button at the top. Backgrounds will appear on the right sidebar. Click one to apply it.

Project Task 5:

According to the United Kingdom Literacy Association, “blogs are now a well-established and widely recognised form of digital communication, and this alone

suggests that they should be taken seriously in educational settings.” (Davies &

Merchant 2009, p 91)    

According to Udell (2001), blogs are a “genuinely new literary/journalism form” (p. 2). In addition, blogs can make use of other Internet resources for learning. Users and teachers can create more learning resources by adding hyperlinks within the blogs (Godwin-Jones, 2003). Efimova and Fiedler (2003) explain that the use of hyperlinks makes it possible for new readers to learn the previous course of the discussion more easily and to make the blog more enjoyable with pictures or sounds. There are many ways in which users or teachers can create more learning resources by adding hyperlinks in their blogs. For example, teachers can have links to online testing sites to allow students more time to practise certain tests and exams.  So by creating a blog for my students would help them in many ways: they can  have some reading  resources, do grammar exercises, learn more vocabulary.