Week10

Coming to the end of the road

It's been a great opportunity to be part of the course and it's a most fruitful course I have taken. I have learned many new aspects concerning technology-related practice and experienced many learning activities useful for my professional and personal development. The course has built and strengthened my teaching skills little by little. It has also broadened my horizon because it made me find new ways of looking at the world outside the classroom wall. The course participants from different parts of the world have joined and shared their teaching experiences and knowledge. Next, I'll try to share myself as much as I can to cover the following questions.

- During our course, what topics were most successful? Most useful for you?

Actually all topics are useful and helpful in enhancing teaching skills. Considering what topics were most successful I would like to mention firstly ABCD objectives. I think I have learned to write better and clearer learning objectives. With clear learning objectives, it will not hard for me to lead my students in the right path of learning. Secondly, I would say that sharing links and discussing English skills-building websites were very useful and Delicious.com is found to be a practical and effective tool to make an online search more convenient for a teacher. Next, I would say that the course has provided many useful articles to study and they have widened my views towards teaching and learning in some ways. Many assigned reading articles and other resources provided on various topics like learner autonomy, MI and learning styles, and PBL have made me become more aware of importance of the students who are one of key components of the classroom teaching. For additional reading articles and related resources, they are also available for all participants to make their own choice for further reading and studying. That's good indeed. The last task, self-evaluation of technology use, is in the right time to have me evaluate myself how technology is integrated in my classroom, in which level I fit and how to develop to the next level. All in all, the course is well-organized and supports better learning of the learners to reach the course goal. 

- Which tools will you use in your classes?

There are many different tools that are going to be very useful for my class. However, the tool that I have implemented lately is Padlet. Personally, Padlet is a nice board which I have found to be an appropriate learning space which can be applied and modified for many educational purposes. It can be a place where the students and me share information and related content to the lesson by posting a reading article or video (just like we did in Week7). To practice writing skill, the teacher may use it to encourage written activities such as getting students to write short notes to introduce themselves, write short stories, and even get students write some short reflections. To apply Padlet, it depends on the lesson objectives and the teacher just learn to apply it accordingly and creatively. Blogging and Nicenet are also two interesting tools to hear students' voice and offer more choices for online participation and interaction.

- What other tools might we have covered or would you suggest that we could have looked at?

Since social networking is a trend now, you could have looked at how to make use out of it for classroom benefits. I may suggest Edmodo, a social networking site for educational purposes to be considered. It is user-friendly and provides a convenient way for teachers to manage online class participation and students to be exposed to online learning experience. Moreover, Edmodo offers a learning community space where teachers from all over the world can share and exchange useful teaching resources, ideas and suggestions together to move forward the teaching and learning achievement.

- Which, if any, do you think were not relevant to what you do or will do?

To be honest, I have found all what I have learned throughout the course very useful for me and my EFL students. All of what I have learned and done through the course were relevant to what I do and will do. Now, I have already obtained some skills and knowledge concerning technology integration and it is my job to keep practicing and improving myself to make use of what I have had to benefit my class and share it with other colleagues as to make EFL classrooms more productive and fruitful.

Now, I would like to express my gratitude to E-teacher Scholarship Program staff, University of Oregon, for a great determination to make learning accessible and possible for all. I would also like to expand my deepest gratitude to the course instructors, Robert Elliott and Russell Moon for their kindness, hard work and patience. Last but not least, I thank all classmates who have made valuable discussion and shared comments and suggestions throughout 10 weeks of the course.

Teaching is a rewarding job. Wish all teachers be happy with their job:)

Ta, Thailand

Week 9

What's your learning style?

This week, we have been assigned to read articles about multiple intelligences, learning styles and strategies. We as usual have shared and exchanged many useful and helpful ideas on Nicenet to see how a technology can be combined in a language classroom to address students multiple intelligence and learning styles.

Reading the article "Learning styles and strategies" by Richard M. Felder and Barbara A. Soloman, it emphasizes importance of learner differences and allows us to know how to design classroom activities and offer learning opportunities that would facilitate each individual student in effective learning. It is a teacher who has to understand their students and provide a range of activities and experiences that serve the students' needs and the students themselves need to make aware of their strengths and weaknesses. A link to an online quiz http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-assessment may be tried out by both the teacher and students.

Moreover, from a text document, Learning Strategies by Shaping the Way We Teach English, I have realized that it would be very beneficial for my students to be provided a learning strategy training course. In my actual language classroom, I have included an explicit strategy instruction for the students to learn some strategies that are required and relevant to the course content and activities. But I realize that is not enough. As I have observed most of Thai EFL students for many years, I have made a conclusion they are not well-equipped with good learning strategies and that they will not be able to become strategic learners who can take charge of their owning and develop to lifelong learners. I,thus, have asked myself if it is time to propose the idea of foreign language strategy training to be implemented in a curriculum. I think it is necessarily important to offer students a course which provides foreign language strategy training. From the reading. seven instructional models are suggested and in the first place, I have found "Strategies in Language Textbooks" the most possible. The model of Strategy Workshops sounds great, too. SBI or Strategic-Based Instruction is new for me and it may require more time and more studying to learn how to conduct it.

At last, the project report was done! I have to thank Lina for her valuable feedback and comments.
It's been a productive and happy week for me:)

Ta, Thailand