WEEK 7: LEARNER AUTONOMY

This week's topics are learner autonomy, the one-computer classroom, and mobile devices. I have been reading and researching in the field of learner autonomy in EFL for many years. However, I am new to the idea of 'one-computer classroom' and 'learner autonomy by using mobile devices'. Thanks to the reading resources provided by the web skills assignments website, I feel motivated enough to search more on the topic by myself. It is obvious that my trainee teachers and their 'future' students are native digitals. That means that they are equipped with digital skills from birth. On the contrary, I am still struggling to use mobile devices even for the simplest reasons : )

Another thing I have learned from this week's topic is how to publish something on the padlet. I wasn't aware of the existence of padlet (wishwall). I am surprised with the ease of use and the idea of collaborative publishing. I would definetely use it for my kindergarten project (in the second semester).
I published my joint research article about "e-portfolio assessment" on the padlet. If you are interested, please have a look at the pdf article. I'd be more than happy if you share your thoughts with me.

Good luck with your draft project ; )

WEEK 6: Project Task 5: Begin to Implement the Change

I am teaching the course "Teaching English to Young Learners" this term. I begin to implement the technology-related change this week. My trainees have created their blogs at www.blogger.com In the last weeks, they have been observing English lessons at the kindergarten. I asked them to narrate a classroom event which they find amusing, exciting or scary and reflect on their feelings about that event. My trainees have started to write about classroom events on their blogs. This is is the initial (observation) step of my project. The next step is reflecting on their "anticipated" strengths and weaknesses about their teaching practice. After their micro-teaching sessions, my trainees will reflect upon their "actual" strengths and weaknesses about their classroom practices. They are also encouraged to read and make a comment on each other's blog. I look forward to reading their blogs : ))

WEEK 6: Creating an INTERACTIVE PowerPoint document

This week I have prepared an interactive powerpoint document at www.prezi.com Unfortunately, I had a problem in downloading the free trial version to my computer. One of my colleagues helped me to do it on his laptop. So I published my presentation on his account. Anyhow, I really enjoyed the experience to prepare an interactive story by using texts, different backgrounds, hyperlinks, and graphic images. I designed an interactive story activity in the form of questions which are related to classroom events. The topic of my presentation is about classroom management skills at the young learners classroom. For this purpose, I included three reflective questions related to classroom management skills. The activity is to be done individually by English language teacher trainees and collaboratively in small groups.

The link of my prezi presentation is:

http://prezi.com/vvvzxuvlecyv/the-interactive-story-task-on-classroom-management-skills/

WEEK 5: Rubrics

You can have an access to my rubric from the following link:
 http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=ShowRubric&rubric_id=2379332&

Please take a look at my rubric and share your thoughts about it.

WEEK 5: My WebQuest

http://questgarden.com/164/26/4/131110053808/ Please have a look at my WebQuest. I look forward to reading your comments on my research project : ))

WEEK 5: Project-Based Learning, WebQuests, and Rubrics

As we are at Week 5, we are in the midway towards the final projects. This week we completed the project Task 4 which required us to describe a technology-related change that we will implement for the first time. I described how I can use blogs to help my trainees both to reflect individually on their strengths and weaknesses in their teaching and reflect on their peers' strengths and weaknesses by adding comments on each other's blogs. Using blogs are less threatening than face-to-face interaction. Therefore, I think my trainees will like the idea of writing on blogs in order to share ideas and feelings.

This week I also did something new. For the first time I created a rubric to assess my trainees' blogs through RubiStar (http://rubistar.4teachers.org). There are some sample templates on the website. I picked the one about project writing but I added a column titled "Comment" according to the purpose of my research. Using sample templates was easier than starting from scratch. I will use this website to assess my students' other works as well.

Time is running and what I want to do as a final project is becoming clear. I look forward to reading and assessing my trainees' posts on www.blogger.com      

WEEK 4: Writing a Technology Enhanced Lesson Plan

Hello Everyone,

This week I have written a technology enhanced lesson plan. For this purpose, I asked my trainees to create academic blogs for themselves in order to write about a classroom event which they find amusing, exciting, scary, etc. I instructed them on how to create an academic blog on www.blogger.com as Sean told us in Week 1. I noticed that none of my trainees has created a blog before. So that's new experience for them as well as for me!

As a part of my taught module "Teaching English to Young Learners", my trainees are required to observe an English lesson at the kindergarten level. On their blogs, I asked them to think of a classroom event which they find amusing, exciting, scary, etc. during their observation. I then asked them to narrate that event and reflect on why they feel so on their blogs. As a follow-up task, I require them to visit at least 3 blogs to read and add comments on classroom events that are narrated by their classmates.

My trainees publish their blog addresses on my facebook account so that all trainees and I have access to the blogs. My first impression is that they are eager to create academic blogs. They find this means more appealing than writing up on a piece of paper. I should admit that my trainees are more tech-friendly than I am. I find it amusing to see how quick they manage to create their academic blogs. Actually in less than 10 minutes!!!

Once they get used to writing, reflecting and commenting on blogs, I am sure that my trainees will use blogs to teach English when they become 'real' English language teachers. They will then live happily ever after : ))