Week 4 The Middle

As the course is progressing, the amount of learning/teaching tools for classes is increasing. Now, whenever I am getting ready for a class, I am considering if there’s any technology that matches the needs of it.

I have tried a drama activity from one of the sites for analysis aimed at developing speaking such as Channel Hopping. I was amazed by the amount of creativity the students employed while doing it. These are the same students I am describing in my final project work.

I am also considering trying one of the writing with internet activities from this week’s sites for reading. I am teaching several different English classes with integrated writing component, and for each of them there’s something to choose from.

I hope and I am sure that all my course mates are enjoying it the same as I am doing.

Week 3 Delicious Websites

The ESL website discussion was a sort of revelation, disclosing so many valuable language resources available online. Although I didn’t participate in this discussion thread, I am very thankful to those who posted there and for the idea to compile all the useful websites into a wikipage.

I participated in another discussion which gave me an opportunity to reflect on the pros and cons of applying technology in learning/teaching English. Although pros are evident, when you start applying you can hit some constraints. Computer and web illiteracy of students/teachers can be a hinder. But, where’s the will, there’s the way.

Discovering delicious as a tool was also very helpful. You don’t have to be tied to your own pc to work effectively on the web. The layout of bookmarks and tagging are handy. I have noticed numerous times that many sites offer the option of bookmarking with delicious or other services, so I also added one bookmark to my delicious page in such a way. It’s very convenient.

Week 2 Meeting the deadlines

Week 1 had been much easier for me. I had no classes at university, I could work on the course every day, with the pace one task a day. During Week 2 it was much more difficult because the classes resumed after the winter holiday break, and I found combining teaching and learning a little tougher than I had thought in terms of time. And now here I am writing my blog post and finishing all the assignments on a Sunday afternoon. Do I consider myself to be a late student? Yes, I do! However, I hope to improve next week and fit the coursework into every day of the week, but I think I will first take Monday as a day-off!

I think I have already mentioned that I am happy to be taking this course. Thinking about which group to choose for the final project got me to ponder over all the groups I am teaching and their needs, summarise the technology available in and out of class.

Week 1 Getting started

I have been very excited all the week working on the course. It's a totally new experience for me, and I am liking it! I's been nice to hear from you, my fellow-participants, at nicenet theads and your blogs, and I am sure I will learn a lot from you.

As you can see it's already my second post with this blog. The first one is a round-up of my education, which you may want to read. I created it for my students as a model for them to write about theirs. I got acquainted with blogging when I participated in the computer technology teacher development summer institute last year, so I decided to try it with the students. Most of them seemed to enjoy it very much, especially the comments section. I insisted that each student herself (all female group) should "secure" that her blog is commented. This was a good experience for them to write what not only the teacher was going to read. To secure the comments from their main reader - groupmates - they had to make their writing catchning and interesting for them. So, blogging is a good way of written (public) communication between students, which is in terms of 4-skill approach is both writing and reading. They coped very well with the technical side of the blog, I gave no pacrticular instructions, just "go to blogger.com". They all like very much a "technical challenge".

Now I am as a student have to keep my own blog, about which I am very excited. I promise I will do my best to follow your blogs too and comment if I have something to say. I wish all of you luck. We are already lucky to take this course.

And as for my name. There has already been some confusion, in Russian/Ukrainian my name is spelt "Яна", which reads /jana/ in English, which was officially transliterated as "Iana" into my foreign passport, which I have to use in all formal documents, but which no native or non-native speaker can even pronounce and which looks like "Lana" in some fonts when you type. So, I usually prefer "Yana" spelling option. That's it.

Yana (with Y)