Can't believe it's Week 10 already! Curtain's almost down and everything's wrapping up. Even the title for this week is 'Wrap Up'. Well, I suppose we are going near the finishing line. It's been a great 10 weeks with my e-teacher colleagues from all over the world, and not forgetting our tutor Robert. Thank you so much everyone! I've learnt a lot from you guys!
Let's flashback on what we've learnt. I remember in Week 1, we introduced ourselves on Nicenet, read the rubrics and discuss the class ground rules. I suppose that's a pretty good way for us to start any class. Introduction breaks the ice, rubrics show us how are we going to be assessed so we know the direction, ground rules remind us of what should and should not be done. I personally did housekeeping like this at the beginning of a new semester but not usually the rubric part in which I think I will do next time. Week 2 was the ABCD Learning Objectives and effective web searches. I like ABCD Learning Objectives. The ABCD module has somehow really makes things clear in setting up the learning objectives. Again, a good thing to be implemented when doing lesson planning and teaching. In Week 3, we shared skill-building websites for oral/aural skills on Delicious. How could I not love it when everyone shared their favourites or what they found useful websites for oral/aural skills. I've bookmarked most of them on Delicious and will continue doing so in the future so I can share my findings with my colleagues. Other than oral/aural skills, there are numerous other websites for other skills as well such as for reading/writing skills (as discussed in Week 4).
Week 4 too marked an important issue identified in our classroom which can be solved with technology and feasible for our final project. To me, this is the start of the 'seriousness' of this class. This week we started to think of what was lacking in our class and how could we improve it. As for me, the problem identified was my students who put too much focus on examination that they sometimes felt having interesting lessons on the computer was a waste of time. Surprisingly, Week 5 had showed me the solution - project-based learning and WebQuests! Relating my issue to these alternative assessments, I managed to come up with a solution which was to explicitly link examination with their project so that my students could see their learning is meaningful and serves their needs i.e. to prepare for the examination. The result: a WebQuest Fun With Idioms created with Zunal WebQuests Maker. I felt so proud when I tested this WebQuest lesson on my students in Week 6 and Week 7. They were excited to do the project which was to create a presentation on idioms. I even taught them to use Prezi, a creative alternative to PowerPoint (which we learnt in Week 6). In short, I would say that these 3 weeks have been very meaningful for me and my students. We benefited greatly from this course. I will definitely use a lot of these resources to create a lot more technology-enhanced lessons in the future.
Week 8 and Week 9, we were busy writing our project reports, shared them on class wiki with our partners for peer review and rewriting a final version of it before submitting it to Robert. It was a very stressful period for most of us, I believe, but WE DID IT! I'm proud. Now it's Week 10 when finally, we are coming to an end. It's hard for me to let it go especially because I felt I've learnt a lot the past 10 weeks. Besides, I've already gotten used to staying up late doing my assignments so I guess I'll feel 'too free' after this. I do hope that my friendship with my e-colleagues remains and we can keep sharing things we know and learn from wherever we are around the world. I hope to also continue writing on this blog about my passion in education. Till then. :)
