Project Task #5

The final task this week was Project Task #5 - to start implementing technology-related change in my lessons.  As my final project I decided to create a web quest which will help students develop their listening skills. I have made the web quest "Health and sport" on www.zunal.com  - http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=183877. It took a lot of time to organise my thoughts and materials, so I'm going to introduce my web quest to students tomorrow. I have also created Rubrics which is new both for me and my students. It will help students to evaluate themselves and show them the criteria of their mark. I think it will be very useful for them to predict their results and to improve their performance. Moreover, it will help me to assess their work more objectively. 

I'm planning to carry out the project for three weeks. Each week students watch the recommended videos on a subtopic, then they have to comment on their class blog and discuss the topic in class. Their posts on the class blog will help them prepare for class discussions, to organize their thoughts and make them feel more confident. In his comment on my project Robert gave me a great idea for the final product for my students. And I would like to use it. As the final project students will make video interviews with imaginary sports stars about sport and healthy lifestyle and upload them on www.schoolyoutube.com. I think it will be both educational and fun for them.

So, my next step is to launch the web quest and create the class blog. I'm going to do it tomorrow in class as I'm teaching in the classroom with the Internet access. I aslo need to edit and compleet some parts of the web quests such as conclusion and teacher page. I'm looking forward to implementing this new technology in my lessons. Hope students will appreciate my efforts.

Week 6

In my view, this week has been more intensive than the previous ones. I have learnt many new things for teaching large classes and engaging students into the teaching process. For example, Interactive Power Point Presentation. I used to make PPT for my lessons but I never used hyperlinks and other interactive elements. It took me some time to work out how to implement them, but in the end, I managed to do it. The URL is http://www.slideshare.net/tatsianaseurukova/australia-quiz2.

Another way to make students more engaged is using a discussion board which can serve as a trampoline for their oral discussion in class. For example, Nicenet - a simple LMS or "Learning Management System." Two more complicated LMS are Blackboard and Moodle. All of them put a student in the centre of the teaching process. 

I also discovered another interesting teaching method  - Flipping classroom.  (http://www.techsmith.com/flipped-classroom.html.) The idea is that students learn new material at home, working on the Internet and then having practice in class. In my opinion, it is worth using for developing reading, listening and speaking skills when students read or listen some material at home and then discuss it in class. As for introducing new grammar and vocabulary, I would prefer a traditional classroom where a teacher can see students' eyes, answer their questions and prevent misunderstanding and mispronunciation of the new language that can happen while learning it on their own at home. 

Tatsiana