Time to say GoodBye!

What have I learned within sixty three days?

How can I possibly express a sense of satisfaction over changes I have made in myself, my teaching and my students?

I felt like it was yesterday I took the course. Days go by and yet one thing that doesn't go away is my desire to take full advantage of all the things I have learned and my motivation to learn more. 

Week 1 certainly helped me to orientate myself to the setting of the course, ground rules to follow, familiarize myself with the nature and purpose of the course and most important of all, gave me a sense of belonging and control over what I had to do throughout the course. The first step was well taken and I was not in a maze because I knew how I could be helped in so many ways.

Week 2 introduced ABCD model which has helped me change my teaching in a positive way because I have learned to set clear objectives for my students. Apart from that, it has widened my scope and helped me get out of my own little world where I solely relied on Google for anything I wanted. Web searching was such a pleasant experience for me because I had a chance to use different websites with different purposes. I could start planning my project. I could share what I learned this week with my students concerning Web Searching.  

In the third week I witnessed the importance of CALL for listening, speaking, or pronunciation skills and had a chance to make use of the websites to help students enhance their skills. Creating delicious page was fun, easy but which is very useful for us teachers to store all the important links in one place. I envied others while I read their sample projects and could also see the changes they had made with the help of technology.

Right after I explored the websites concerning reading and writing in week four, I used them in my classroom and had a positive feedback from my students and I could also learn to create technology enhanced lesson plans. Planning the project by helping us figure out what issues we had was a great help in implementing our project.

Week five was one of my favorite weeks as I had learned about PBL, Webquests, rubric and assessment and their positive influence on the learners to be able to reach their goals. Doing extra credit task was interesting, motivating and this did help me with my final project like Courtney had mentioned in her discussion.

I am glad that I took the chance. I am very excited and really looking forward to seeing the response of my students when I introduce it at the end of my two week course. 

Week six provided me with the golden opportunity to learn how to conduct large classes and the effective use of Interactive PowerPoint in the classrooms. This was also the first week where I was able to witness change in my students with the introduction of technology. PowerPoint did help me a lot to trigger the interests of my students. 

Week seven threw some light on how to conduct classes with the availability of only one computer and how to use mobile phones in our teaching. The most exciting part of this week was understanding what Learner Autonomy is and how can we, teachers help our students to learn independently with confidence and motivation. I came to know how to use Padlet and I even introduced that to my students as one of the activities in my final project plan. 

The resourceful week eight let me know how to actually use some resources in teaching. All these tools were familiar with us at the start of the course like Nicenet, Googlesites but this week actually opened the window of opportunity for us to use them in our own classes. That's more than amazing because we were taught using these tools and then we were granted access to use them in our own classes. Thanks to the course I  had learned about ANVILL through Nicenet discussions. Sharing my final project draft for peer review was one of the fascinating experiences throughout the course because I benefitted a lot from reading my partner's project draft. 

Week nine was the time when had to submit our final project and what we had learned in this week was linked to what we had learned in the previous eight weeks. How to use MI and technology? While doing week nine assignments, I had a chance to recall all the things I had done in the past few weeks and this gives me the idea to use MI and technology in the classroom in a more meaningful and purposeful way. 

I have been trying to use all the technology tools I have learned from this course in my teaching and I can see the difference in my own teaching. Hence, based on the positive feedback of my students, I can say taking this course has changed the way I teach and therefore the way my students learn has changed in a meaningful and positive way. 

Thank you Courtney for being such a great and helpful instructor. 

Thank you Oregon University for providing us with such a chance to become a part of something great.

Thank you the scholarship committee for accepting us and believing in us.

Last but not least, thank you all my lovely classmates to be able to learn with all of you and to learn from all of you. 

I am not very good with goodbyes but anyway there is always a time for people to meet and to part. It is a fact of life. So……….. 

Best,

Kyi Tha Wai

The NINTH week!

How wise is it to put Multiple Intelligences (MI) at the end of the course! We learn different things, approaches, learner autonomy, rubric, PowerPoint, one-computer classroom and there MI at last to help us blend all we have learned under one topic and help us create a constructive classroom atmosphere. 

I have learned to know the father of MI and his contributions to society, different articles by other authors with one common goal i.e., to help educators find ways to reach their students. This in turn can help students to discover who they are and what they can do throughout their learning process. Technology when used as a stimulus can trigger positive factors in both teachers and students alike. When combined with MI, the lessons become more interesting and students are more willing to do their lessons from a very completely different perspective which indeed is a far cry from traditional rote learning mode. "John Dewey theorized that learning should not only prepare one for life, but should also be an integral part of life itself." What a meaningful theory!

The researchers concluded "The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing,” Why? Because we know the usefulness of MI in teaching but we don't apply it in our teaching. So, how will we be able to help students with different learning styles? Why don't we use technology to address the needs of the students? These are the questions that I kept asking after reading all the articles. Because I didn't know how to do it. Not a clue. Thanks for giving me the chance to learn this course. Like Courtney said we walk in with our pockets empty, but when we walk out, it's actually full of things which will be useful not only for us to teach but also for those whom we have to help as long as we are teaching.

I would like to quote a few lines from the article by Jane Carlson-Pickering ( RITTI Fellows Research, November 1999) "It is inappropriate for teachers to assume that all students can learn in the same way and can be force-fitted to one method of delivery. The chosen technologies should also support the type of content to be shared with students and the expected learning outcomes." It is a good suggestion for all the teachers to handle technology with care so as to cater to the needs of students with different MI. This article is particularly to my liking among all the articles I had to read this week. 

What have I done? I have done my best in everything. But honestly, I am worried about my project result. Can I do anything? No, because what is done can't be undone, right? I just have to wait and see. 

The end to our course is drawing near. I can't thank enough Courtney for helping all of us through the difficult times of our studies. Thank You!!

I will definitely miss all my classmates who are helpful, smart and creative. I will miss all the time we have spent together in the course. Thanks to Joan, now we have a Facebook group on the web where we can still keep in touch with each other. 

Learning is a life-long process. But when this is aided with technology, the process itself comes to life and the learners enjoy it rather than see it as a burden.

Best,

Kyi Tha Wai

The most challenging week ever!

It has been of great benefit to us to have Jeff  Magoto in our class and I was deeply impressed by his expertise and the things he posted on Nicenet indeed gave us rich food for thought concerning ANVILL. It lets teachers share lesson and materials development even grading. I would like to quote what Jeff Magoto, Yamada Language Center Director and ANVILL designer said "Because it [ANVILL] is focused on speech and the production of oral language, it is easier for teachers to get in and get oral lessons back from students than in other systems.” I have learned that it is a powerful and useful tool waiting for educators to take full advantage of it. 

From his article "From Aerograms to Voicemail: Connecting Learners for Cross Cultural Understanding" near the conclusion, he said " As you can see, there's nothing dramatically new in this approach to teaching about culture. We show students a video; we help them understand its context and meaning; we ask them to speak/write about what they understood. What is new and what we're still struggling to understand is the delivery and response vehicle—how much of this can should be done in class? And, what are the outcomes we're looking for?" He has raised questions for all of us to analyze our teaching and what should be done to get favorable outcomes. I have realized that whatever tools we use, the most important factor we shouldn't overlook is how we use it so as it is tailored to the needs of our students and help them foster learner autonomy and therefore teacher-centered and monotonous teaching methods will be replaced by learner centered and independent learning.

I had great time experimenting with Nicenet, Googlesites, wiki and bloggers. From the start of the course we have been very familiar with these tools but I didn't expect that we could actually exploit these tools by ourselves. What a fantastic week where we have learned so many tools to use in our teaching and we can even hand on all these things to the people we associate with either educators with their teaching and students with their learning. Thank you! Web Skills Course. Like Courtney said in one of her emails, the evolution of ideas, plans to meet the needs of the students has been an unexpected at the same time exciting experience for me.

Hot potatoes has been one of my favorite exercises and some other links which can be used online and offline have certainly captured my attention. I have even tried some exercises with my students. Showing them printed pictures and let them match the words with pictures. They had fun doing this activity which I got it from http://www.toolsforeducators.com. The most interesting part was reading planned  lessons for their students by my classmates. I have learned a lot from what they have shared. Thank you all of you. 

And thank you Courtney for helping me go through this week's difficulties since I was so confused because of my health and worried about everything. Her emails were comforting, encouraging and helped me ease my tension. It has been the most challenging week for me so far because the final project draft was due on Wednesday and I came down with diarrhea and flu and I thought I wouldn't be able to finish my draft. With all my might, I could manage to finish it. Thank God. I prepared for the worst that I was not able to submit it. But anyway, the worst moment has passed.

Anyway, I have finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel.

Best,

Kyi Tha Wai

Time to say goodbye to WEEK SEVEN

    This week's topic was what I had been expecting from the start of the course. It certainly met my expectation because I have learned how to survive and manage the class if only one computer is available. All the articles I have read discussed how one computer can be used by a teacher to create technology enhanced lesson plans which foster learner autonomy. From the learners' point of view, one computer can cater to their needs as a resource station. However, I have learned one important aspect of handling it with care so as all the students will have the chance to engage in class activities. Or else it can affect the students' motivation level which in turn can make them feel insecure and the worst case scenario is that they may even lose interest in learning. As a result, they don't have a sense of control over their learning process and achieving learner autonomy would be out of the question. I also have learned that although a teacher's role is just a facilitator in an autonomous classroom, to make it happen, he or she needs to be well prepared about what he or she has to do with the class, lessons, activities, group work, pair work either with the presence or absence of technology. 

  

After doing all the readings concerning learner autonomy, one computer classroom and mobile devices, my confidence has been restored even if I can only afford to use one computer in my classroom. If I can't make that happen, I am still left with a chance to develop learner autonomy without technology as long as I can establish meaningful learning objectives and the contents, methods and techniques can address different learning styles. Besides, rubrics can be used to evaluate the performance of the students. Then I can be on the right track to let students achieve a certain degree of independence. I totally agree with the fact that it won't happen overnight. It will definitely take time but it is worthwhile to witness change and be the change and change with change. 

Participating and sharing ideas on Nicenet have been an incredible experience as always. And Padlet ( Wallwisher ) is an easy tool but effective to encourage students to be engaged. 

Planning for the final project and actually putting the plans into practice is both challenging and exciting. My students and I have been on the second week of our journey to familiarize with change, adapt to it and make the most out of it. The second assignment for them is to chat with online Tutor Mike  and the detailed instruction was sent to their emails. Some of them like chatting with him owing to the fact that they all can practice English and what they like most is whenever they make a grammar mistake or a spelling error, it is corrected by him and therefore they can learn from their mistakes. I was surprised because they were open minded and brave enough to accept their mistakes by not letting this interfere with their enthusiasm in learning. There are a few students who are not satisfied with Tutor Mike because he couldn't explain or discuss on their chosen topic even though they understand he just responds to what he has been programmed to do. However, according to their blog posts, they all agree on the point that they can learn from him and they even plan to chat with him from time to time. Although their blog posts were not without grammar mistakes, they did their best to express themselves, approach the topic in a creative way and everyone actively took part in the classroom discussion about their experience with Tutor Mike and I am very pleased that they are engaged at last. 

After all, it has been quite a roller coaster ride for me to take this course. However, I am enjoying the ride! :))

Best,

Kyi Tha Wai