Week 10 - Reflection on 'Web Skills' and a Big thank you to all

Hi Courtney and other Colleagues,

Greetings.

A pat on our own back and great applause to everyone for all the sincere efforts to accomplish this course "Building Teaching Skills using Interactive Web" from AEI, University of Oregon supported by US Embassy.  A BIG THANK YOU for the opportunity provided to look into the other dimension of our teaching profession and excel in it.

It is like a dream that the course comes to an end so soon (ten weeks) and we never thought of the journey is like a Super Sonic experience.  I came to know about the closure of the scholarship only on the last date, worked very seriously about the statement of purpose for the course and applied.  When I received the information from US Embassy, New Delhi, I was really surprised and into the cloud nine as if I got a seat in 'Titanic'.  I have never dreamt of a course on 'Web Skills' though I organized a workshop on 'Technology enhanced Learning:Innovations and Trends" during April 24-25, 2012 and that kindled my enthusiasm to know more about Web 2.0.

The journey started on September 29-30 as Opening Ceremony and from October 1 on wards, it sailed in full swing and I came across several things ...

Week 1, setting the ground rules for discussion in an on-line forum, creating a blog and opening an account in Nicenet which provided an opportunity for me to detailing of the different things that are going to happen through this.

Week 2, web searching through 'Noodle tools', a tremendous effort I had made and listed around 135 links and web search engines that are connected under nine different headings.  I was amazed by the quality of articles  and by the quantity of links through UNESCO, FBI - Intelligence Literature, tenbyten and many more.  Creating 'ABCD' model objectives are the first- of- its- kind to me and gave an insight into the topics which I am teaching during  this semester and stating the background of my class for the final project and dealing with Bloom's Taxonomy which provided an idea to refresh my thoughts which set the tone through out the course.

Week 3, On-line bookmarking through delicious which gave an avenue to access the book marking patterns and the different types of tags to be used academically. Randall's ESL Lab and aural /oral skills resources made me think different to use these resources into the classroom practices.

Week 4, Reading / Writing Skills building exercises and the use of e-books which helped me to look into the resources and to evaluate them appropriately when i do suggest to my students.  The introduction of multi-skill websites and vocabulary building website  like 'breakingnews' that introduced me to more than 1600 lesson plans and think how big the on-line resources are.  Further, during that week, I identified the potential issue for the project task where  my learners are really lacking.

Week 5, Creation of rubrics for the project task had enhanced my ability to create some thing new and the method of making an assessment for various topics which I was teaching by setting the standards. The alternative assessment tools provided an opportunity to assess the different methods of assessing the skills of my learners and their skills.  Project -based learning topics are wonderful to see that how the teaching environment in other areas / countries and how it can be converted into our learning environment.  Project task - describing the changes which alter my ideas to think into the big picture an d look for the minor changes I am supposed to do during the project.

Week 6, Teaching / engaging large classes which provided an insight into my teaching environment and  better solutions to resolve the issues in the classroom.  The creation of interactive p ower point through 'Rubrics' is an excellent tool which i can use it for my entire life, The project task- implementing the change helped me to assess the abilities of the learners that they are looking for and the potential threat to resolve it.

Week 7, the articles related to Learner autonomy made me finding out the real learning environment that the student are really looking for in an English classroom.  Suggesting a partner to  review the project draft made me threw light on the several partners which I looked into them.  Wallwisher made me to post new information which I try incorporate in the project task to the students.

Week 8,  I created a classwiki, class blog and online class using Nicenet to my students where they register and reflect the practices that they had in the English Classroom.  I created some on-line exercises to the students using 'tools for educators' and the students worked out with a lot of enthusiasm.  I submitted my draft copy of project to Courtney's wiki and looked forward to the checklist from my peer reviewer.  I have not had any inputs from my reviewer and resolved it with the assistance of Courtney, my instructor through Jasmina who showed her willingness to review my draft project copy.  She showed her mettle and suggested excellently to enhance my project task.

Week 9, I learnt the different concepts of multiple intelligences and the different learning styles of students through excellent articles.  I tested my self in order to know which intelligence is predominant in me and I posted the ideas of learning styles.  I submitted my final draft of the project task before the due date and I found some technical snag in it through 'accessibility rights' area.  I resolved the issues with the assistance of my wife and from my EDP staff and posted my final project draft again  with all tension in mind.

Week 10, I have come closer to end of the course 'web skills' but the Technology implementation survey made me to think deeper the areas that I am supposed to improve with in the next one year / six months.  I do look forward to a lot of comments from my colleagues and I suggested the ways to the future participants to make their course complete and fruitful.

I wish the future participants a great success and I thank whole heartedly my course instructor Courtney and my colleagues for showing great support and encouragement in all the walks of this course.

I am very much convinced with the kind of inputs provided through out the course and I have found  this entire journey memorable.

Look forward to collaborate more with all in all future endeavours...

S.Sankarakumar