(Frank Sinatra song!!!)

Today I feel that ……………  THE END IS NEAR…….

(Frank Sinatra song!!!)

After reading all your post on my blog I start feeling that I will be missing you!!!

I have learned from your post, and also I have seen that all of you have a big heart!!!

That is why you are teachers, good teachers, interested in growing in your careers, ready to transcend.

 I started working on my project, my students are motivated, I love what I am doing, and at the end I will see how much they love this kind of work.

I feel that I invited them to a trip, the immediately answer was YES!!! Then they were ready with their luggage. To travel somewhere…………

The only one who knows the route of this trip is me.

Any way all of them are ready on the boat. (They do not know where are they going) but they trust on me.

When you see in front of you this kind of students, hungry for something new, thirsty to work using technology, is when you reflect on yourself, how important is my teaching to them.

When they are like little birds eating in your hand, you can do whatever you want with them. Then you can change the perspective of your teaching, and your student’s life.  

.  

I feel very sad. It looks like no one likes my project or things like that.   

I thought it would not be difficult to find a partner, but now I see everybody looking for one, but no one pick others, I already asked directly to tow people, I am still waiting for their answer.

I am so excited with this project, when I invited my students the first reaction was that they felt proud of her teacher, and that was a nice feeling. Everything began, one day when I share to them about the way I got enroll on the course, specially I mentioned about this to my students because they are always saying that to be writing their essays for their journal file is not useful, But when I narrated the process how I got involved emphasizing the 2000 essay words, is when I connect them to the real word and their question what for.?

What I am trying to do in my project is to use as many as possible new knowledge from this course, and to see how it works, I decided to motivate my students reading process with a web quest. The topic of our unit is adaptable for this situation. I found interesting material to set on my web quest, where I tried never to forget the goal, Push my students to read, and find out how useful reading is.

                      

What a great week. Week 7.

We almost finish with this week, if someone would ask me about the most interesting week, I wouldn´t answer, every week in this course is surprising me.

I have read about constructivism before, but I never imagine my students building their knowledge.

The point is that this course, open my mind and now I think that I am able to generate independent and autonomous students. When I start reading the articles, writing my thoughts, and reading my web mates opinions, is when I realized what I can do. This idea did not stop there, after reading the article about one computer in a class, my mind start flying so far. My classroom only contains an obsolete TV with a VHS, and a broken DVD. But I have my own technology stuff such as a lap top, an iPad, and also I have access to internet at my room, so I can start modifying my teaching inviting my students to be independent and responsible for their learning process. Talking about this process, last week I invite my group to be part of this project, I invite one of my most enthusiastic and a participative group, the answer that I got was a strong yes!!! (I did it with the pertinent permissions and authorization) The only question that comes to my mind was while each student is going to be working at the computer, what is going to be doing the rest of the group?

As I have to teach everybody the same, I think that I have to plan another kind of independent work for them, so everybody is busy. As my groups are small groups at last 25 students, I think that this is not going to be difficult.

Let see what is next.......

I don´t know why but for reasons I ALWAYS have to work extra hours. (Like this course, with my web quest) I stop modifying it until I got what I wanted.
 
I don´t know why but for reasons I ALWAYS have to work extra hours. (Like this course, with my web quest) I stop modifying it until I got what I wanted.

Each week that passes, I can´t believe how much have I learned!!!

Thank Janine for this greate course. Thanks to Oregon University and all the people who are involved in this great project, this is like the Bible says:  You just spread the seeds and they will grow.  The seed that you are spreading in my case is going to deep and too far, it is reaching my students, Mexican teenagers that through you and me they are going to learn in a better way.

During this 6^th    week, that almost finish……I learned how to make an interactive PPT. I thought that it would be more difficult than it was. But more than learn how to do it on tech terms, I mean the importance to have this kind of material in our classes, the way that the students learn is different, they show more interest for the class.  I feel very proud of myself each time that I see my web quest. This task was consuming task for me. It is not easy to elaborate it. I had to check many web sites, check the vocabulary, and think on what could be an obstacle for my students. Check if the sites were inside of my goal, check if the topic was so close to mine, check the photos if they are the rights for my student’s age and so on, that is why it took me so long. I did something similar with other sources, like the videos, I watched them before and checked everything that I mentioned before. Now what I am planning for next semester that begins on August, is that at the same time that students are working at class, they can continue working at home with a PBL or a web quest. In this way they are walking on different roads that will take them to the same point, but on a different way with different experience, interactive power points and also web quest are so useful for kinesthetic, listener and visual learners.

It was a good idea to prepare Jeopardy, while I was doing this games I though in other kind of games that I can elaborate with specific vocabulary words or grammar topics from my English program. 

After watching Batool Jeopardy I feel kind of frustrated, Batool´s Jeopardy looks GREAT!! , but I am learning, I am now like my students, and I will like to elaborate an attractive modern and funny Jeopardy as he did. Mine looks like a beginner student, and very serious any way I feel proud because is the first time that I do something like this.

Another difficult part was creating my web quest. When I started with this project I was very enthusiastic, but now I am so tired, it is because until my web page was on Janine´s wiki and I opened to see it, THERE on that precise moment I realize that all my work went somewhere else ( to the CIBER space) , but did not keep there. I think that AS I AM LEARNIG, I did not make the correct clicks to save EVERYTHING.

So I have to check it again, and to redo it, but it took me a lot of time, because I wanted it the same as I  planned, so I started looking again for all the sources, such as YouTube videos, music, PPT, and it was time consuming.

The only reason I can find now, is that, as I do not belong to the tech stage, I have to work twice or more, but finally I did what I planned to do.

WEEK 5 GREAT TIME!!

This week was great for me. The topics motivated me a lot.

Although I have been working with Rubrics since long ago, I think that I can improve this tool through your experiences after reading them.

According to the other two topics PBL and web quest, today I feel high motivated with these issues. Your comments had enriched me greatly.

 Referring to the Web Quest I have many things to mention. I knew about this tool before, but I did not have time to experiment with it. When I started to weigh on my project, I though on doing something that really help me, and the big problem that I have encountered in these recent semesters is the lack of interest on reading. I could criticize, judge harshly the material that the institution provides to students, but regardless, I know this is a real problem Although the institutions’ believe they have the best material for students, which perhaps it is correct, but nor all the students are made for the material, which brings me to my reality, me in front of a group that each time that we have to read, they fall asleep. As any other   teacher I could say: this is because of the material, or this is because of the time class, or any other validity reason, the point is that finding a culprit is not difficult, but since I am not that kind of teacher, here I am researching what I can do to motive my students, and the best tool that I found in this moment is a Web Quest. This web quest, will take my students to read in a very different way, virtual reading, reading power point presentations with images and sounds. I realize that to make this web quest, I spent many time, I think most of the students will be taken to resolve it less time that the time I spent on preparing it. What is coming next is to see what happen, is the web quest really going to motivate my students to read? Are they going to be reading enthusiastically?

Will see what happen.......?????

ALMOST FINISHING WEEK 4 !!!

            

I´m learning from everybody experience´s. Reading your blogs and nicenet´s post make increase my knowledge and also I´m learning from your experiences.

I have open some web sites that you recommend, and also your links at delicious.

The websites from this week are so useful; there are different kinds of activities, that we can use exactly as the website indicates, but also we can adapt the material to our needs.

Now that I start thinking on my final project, I can see how it is slowly moving, at the beginning I was thinking on a different issue, but to be honest, READING is a hard task to my students, I do not understand why they do not like to read, even neither to follow the reading with their eyes, or to follow it by listening the CD.

 I am a reader. I had tried to transmit this love to them, but they haven´t catch it. I already start brainstorming on what kind of technology I can implement into my class to improve reading, to make my students read. If you check my delicious page, from the first time up to today it has increased, now I have some important links that I am reading in order to elaborate this project. All this is what I have been done during week 4!!!

Internet    w w w     and more Internet!!!!

WEEK 4  

It is amazing to find many useful sites for teaching.

I am realizing my next semester, full of technology. With all the information that I am learning I think that not only my teaching style is changing. I think that my students are going to find my class more attractive.

It supposes that for the next semester that starts on August, our English classrooms will get a canyon!! This is the best news that I got during this week. I can´t imagine how my classes are going to be. The semester is next to the corner, and to work with technology as Batool mentioned with technology maybe we have to work more, but if I start planning, looking for web sites and using my delicious bookmark, everything will be easier.

Andrea.