LAST BUT NOT LEAST.

          It is already ten weeks since we have started this journey through webskills. It has been a very exciting journey which gave me the opportunity to learn a lot about integrating technology in my teaching environment. As a teacher, I have been totally transformed by this course. My complaints about the lack of teaching resources in my school have dwindled. So did my concerns about the lack of motivation and interest of my learners. I now know how to deal with both issue through technology.

        The lessons which I enjoyed most throughout this course are those involving manipulation of webtools. Thus, I felt very comfortable with building a blog and a website, creating powerpoints for engaging learners, publishing items on Padlet, opening a Delicious account, designing worksheets and flashcards with online tools.

        To make the most of what I have learned, I will purchase a slide projector which I will use in class with my laptop. The profits are well worth the purchase of such a tool: it will allow my learners to work engagingly on authentic and quality web resources such as audio, video and e-books. It will also spare me such uncomfortable situations like printing many sheets for each student. This is the unfortunate experience that happened to me during my project implementation. I have also started designing my own PowerPoint presentations to make my lessons more active and to increase interactivity in my classrooms. I will use them with the slide projector.

        I would like to say a big thank you to you Sean, the instructor of the course for your availability and your bearing with my late assignments rendering. The seeds you and the University of Oregon have sown are already yielding fruits here in Côte d’Ivoire. As the Vice-head of the English teaching unit in my school, I have already started sharing what I have learned with my peers. Right now we are implementing teaching listening through authentic texts found on the BBC website.

     

  I would also like to thank the American embassy here in Abidjan for granting me the scholarship which allowed me to follow this course. May all participants in this course (and more particularly Mounira Ben M’RAD , my peer review partner) see their efforts rewarded by a certificate on Webskills.

WEEK 9: MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES AND LEARNING STYLES

         

           This week, I have read Learning and teaching styles in foreign and second language education . I have also read Technology and MultipleIntelligences. I discovered through both articles that Howard Gardner of Harvard university identified different types of intelligences. I have also learned that these different types of intelligences in the class can be addressed through technology. Never before these articles have I heard about different types of intelligences. Not even at the teacher’s training college. My attitude towards my learners is changing since I have read these articles. I am now observing them very closely to see if I can identify their favorites learning styles. However, I am more interested in how to address these different learning styles in my class. Therefore, I have based my final project on technologies which can allow me to address different learning styles.

          My project aims at using technology for finding quality web resources for teaching economic theories. Eslprintables.com allowed me to design flash cards for demonstrating barter in a role play. This warm up activity is aimed at raising the interest of “picture smart” learners in the class at the start of the course in the project. Then I found, with the help of Delicious.com, a printable version of “a new coat for Anna” which I shared to students. Learners who are more sensitive to text based resources will thus understand the concept of barter by associating it with the real life situation presented in the story. The worksheet which accompanies the text has been produced with and has been downloaded from Google Docs Form. It is there for helping  logical learners understand barter through activities which require reasoning and problem solving skills. Finally, in the post reading activity, instead of asking students to write about the difficulties of barter, I will ask them to dramatize in groups the sequence of events which led to the production of Anna’s coat. In this role play project, students will be required to record their own performances with their mobile phones for peer assessment during project preparation. The role play will eventually be performed in front of the class. This will not only reinforce students autonomy, but also engage kinesthetic learners in the class. 

WEEK 8: A step further with the final project

          This week, I have submitted the first draft of my project. I know that it is not perfect . It will require some more work. This is why I agree with the idea of peer review. The feed-back of my partner will allow me to improve it.

I have also enjoyed exploring the different tools presented to us this week. I started by creating a website on Google sites: https://sites.google.com/site/niangthierry/

 It is a basic website with a page for each class of mine. I intend to use it for Just in Time Teaching. I'll post assignments for students to do before the lesson. This will allow me to adapt the objectives of my lessons. I will also use it for home work, which will allow my learners to continue the learning experience at home.

          With Tools for Educators, I have created a worksheet about irregular verbs. It requires students to match irregular verbs with pictures. I uploaded it in the Google Site I created this week: https://sites.google.com/site/niangthierry/1btsfc3/

          I will use it with my first year students in Finance and Accounting. Since they don't like learning lists of irregular verbs by heart, this activity will allow them to learn with fun.

I have also tried Hot Potatoes. This program definitely won my sympathy because it has all the tools for creating exercises and tests, from simple gap filling to complex video based exercises. The teacher can choose to print his exercise on a sheet or edit it as an .exe file to be played off-line. He can also create a webpage with his exercise to play online.  I created a drag and drop exercise to be done online. It is a mathching exercise about numerals. The link is provided in my Googl Site: https://sites.google.com/site/niangthierry/1btsfc3 . It is a good way for engaging beginner learners and motivating them to learn numerals.

          Finally I have had the opportunity to read  Jeff Magoto. His posts about ANVILL, a new web based tool for teaching led me to explore that tool. I think that this tool is good for teaching speaking and listening.