Week 10

Last week of the course, strange feeling.... Finally time to relax with the end of the school as well, but then, although I have learned so much with this course, it leaves me motivativated to continue learning!

I have been so lucky to have applied to this course and get into this program. I was expecting it to be good, but it exceeded my expectations! So many plans, such great new methods, ideas, motivation, I already feel ready to get started with the new school year!

Jodie, I am really glad to have worked with you. I learned so much from you. You took me back to the feeling of being a student and sometimes feel the "nervousness" of  not understanding something clearly, but your feedback was always on time and understanding. You have a brilliant way to express yourself through writting, because you always sound calm, motivational, warm, and with a great coaching technique to guide us the right way.

I got not much left but to say thank you. Thanks to the University of Oregon and the American Embassy for this great opportunity. Thanks to my classmates for their ideas and motivation. Thanks to my project partner Svetlana for helping me out on my project. Thanks to Celeste for making me analyze situations in a better way. Thanks to Jodi for always been there and taught us in such simple yet meaningful manner. Thank you all!  :)

Best wishes for the next comming year!

Week 9

A great sense of achievement! Finally projects done, but most of all, a great feeling to have pretty much completed this course which has been all in all a great source of knowledge! It has been one of the most practical courses I have taken, and so useful for my day to day job.

I can't wait now to put into action my project nest year. Now I have time to really polish all those ideas, start with my interactive Power Point slides, improve my webquest, make all the needed rubrics, etc. Since my students are officially on holidays now, it is time to get this prepared.

It will certainly feel strange now that my students are gone and the course is pretty much finished. Time to relax, but also to plan ahead.

Good luck everyone!

Week 8

Anvill, wiki, nicenet, write project draft, webinar, tasks, discuss, check partner's draft, and on top of all these and much more... final exams in my school ... whoa... I think I am lucky to have overcome this week!

Despite the busy week and craziness around it, a very practical and meaningful week. Finally puting in place all those ideas and new learning in a draft. There is so much in this little head to plan for next year. So many new techniques and ideas for the classes. So exciting!

The week is not over yet, still some bits and bobs to finish up. And while doing this, as Jodi said, is giving me a better idea of how to improve my project draft. So, lets hope I am able to settle down all those ideas in the right place for this project!

Week 7

One computer classroom was the main topic this week. Well, my day to day activity! :) 

Since next week we'll be on final exams, I decided to make a contest-final review with a Jeopardy Power Point game. I divided my group in teams. To motivate them even further, the winning team would get extra credit for their final exam.

This activity worked really well for my girl's classroom, but normally my girls work really well anyway. But with the boys´ classroom is where it really made a difference. They are soooooo competitive! So they were all into it, motivated and willing not only to win the extra credit, but to win over the other teams! We all had fun with this activity, and most importantly, they reviewed the topics for their final exam in an assertive way.

I have been thinking what else I would do for next year, when apparently we'll finally have internet in our classrooms. And it came to my mind, how could would it be to have Skype sessions with "invited guests" from across the world, according to the topic of the lesson. This came to me when reading other teachers' posts about Skype sessions with other classrooms across the world. But my first thought about it was, would they be able to hear each other well? Would it be too noisy? Would the microphone be good enough for so many kids? Etc, etc, etc.... So, then I thought, maybe having one guest would be a good start!  My students have always loved the British accent. Since I have British friends, I could arrange an interview for my students. I would ask my students to write a question for this person, so we have a certain order and I could review and monitor what kind of question there would be. Then, many ideas came to me, for example, different accents like Canadians, Australians, and even non English speakers's English accents! But also for my History classes, interviewing a Jew when seeing the Holocaust, or a USA army for the war topics, etc, so they review about the topic but they also do aural & oral skills.

This is all so exciting for me, I must write it all before I forget the ideas for next year! :)

Oh, and another important aspect, was the fact we'll now be working with a partner. Svetlana, it would be brilliant to be working with you! I looked in our wiki map for your country. I was amazed of how big Kasakhstan! I would love to learn a lot from you and your country as well!

Good luck to everyone on your project drafts!! :)

Week 6

So we are now over half of this course done, wow! Time flies and looking back it is great to have learned so many new tips and ideas to improve my classes. From now on comes a very busy period in school, as my students  have one week left of classes, before they start final exams. So it will get BUSY!

This week,learning about interactive Power Point Presentatiosn was great! I use Power Point Presentation a lot in class, so adding new interactive things to them will be great. It is certainly something I will keep on doing in the future.

This week, for example, I was teaching about the Holocaust in my History class. I know the topic itself is extremely interesting for my kids, but I also added more interaction to my slides. It was in fact a long presentation, but I added pics to it, videos and music to the background. They had to watch it, take notes and make a concept web about it, to later on discuss it. The best thing about it, was to hear a very hyper boy in my class telling me I should be teaching them more like that! He said he loved it and even did a brilliant concept web, by far the best one of the group, when he not necesarily is the best one most of the time! So I was extremely pleased this week's new knowledge  has paid off!

More about Week 5

     After working with Ipads,  seeing the reaction of my boys to them, and checking some PBL examples we read this week... I think PBL would certainly be part of my solution! Of course, adding to my PBL projects the use of Ipads would be a plus. I find that when I get my students to work in teams, if well balanced with a good combination of characters in the teams, it works wonders! In the teams, I have kids that take the leader position and really care about getting a good grade, so they are the ones who push their team members to do a better job. This leaves me with more time to focus on those behind and the ones who are still not in a mood to do some work. So this is much easier to handle rather a full group! Hmmm... a bit of wisdom brighten up my week! :)

Week 5

     So week 5 is already here. This week topics: Rubrics, Project-Based Learning, WebQuest,  and looking into possible solutions of issues. Still a lot to accomplish this week, but so far so good.

     I have decided to test Glogster to share today's experience of introducing Ipads and new activities into my class. You are more than welcome to have a look at my pictures and first impressions of today's class. I wanted to add my Gloster directly into my blog, but it seems like you can only share it on Facebook and Twiter.  So, if you are interested, please visit the following website : http://www.glogster.com/jromerodehoyos/wishlist-glog-by-jromerodehoyos/g-6li8rjv9rogefh49go8qka0

Week 4

     Well this week, we learned about how to improve our students’ reading and writing through the use of technology, how to create a technology enhanced lesson plan, and we also discussed some issues we face in our classes.

     Speaking about reading and writing improvements, I found some really cool sites, like European Schoolnet , web address: http://www.eun.org.  This is a place where you can find key pals for your students. I really think my students would be extremely motivated to write to someone on the other side of the world. I can take advantage of this and teach them different letter formats, address certain issues, make them use the correct tense, focus on certain vocabulary seen previously in class, etc., etc., etc. Now the thing will be, to find them an appropriate group for them, which I am not sure how easy would that be. I think I will start this project next school year, but the planning will be done soon!

     Then came the task of creating a lesson plan enhanced by technology. It sounded easy, but it actually took me some time, as I wanted to use an Ipad application for this purpose. I found a really cool application:  “Spelling Notebook Free.” You can add as many vocabulary lists you are seeing in class, you can practice their  spelling as you see and hear the word and finally take a test in which you hear the word and you must spell it correctly. They give you feedback on how you did so you can practice the ones you had mistakes on, as well as send the result on email. This part of emailing results is great, as I’ll have an easy grade already checked for my grade book!  This lesson will actually be used this week. I bet my students will be so excited about using the new Ipads, and so will I! I’ll let you know how that goes!

     Finally…. the issues! Well, we were asked to focus on one or two. Hard to choose, but I guess the “keeping a 6^th grade all boys class on task” is more than a challenge. So I’ll stick to that one, and if it can be solved, my life would be much easier! What I really need is something extra for them to do when they finished their job before others, or something that would keep them interested and motivated enough through the whole class so they won’t start getting distracted and distract the others. Don’t get me wrong, they are good boys, they just simply have to release their energy out too often! J  

Busy Week 3

Ok, ok, ok... so it is Monday, and I was meant to write this post at least by yesterday... oops! Well, I completely missed this assignment. I thought I had done it all! I guess being back a student brings me down to the level of my students: how they feel when learning something new, how they cope with so many activities after school and on top of that, exams, projects, homework,family, social life, etc. So, I shall write about my week 3 anyway (Jody, is there a way we could delete the actual date on the heading of this exact post???? ;) LOL).

So this week, what I liked the most was being taught how to use Delicious web page. A very simple yet extremely useful tool. I am glad I know about it now, as I have been telling my coworkers about all the cool web pages we have been discovering so far. By showing them my delicious web page, makes it much easier and simple to tell them about it. There are still a lot more web pages needed to be included in it, which shall be done later. I still have not had the opportunity to show my students yet. But as soon as I have the time I will.

The readings about aural/oral skills were also very interesting. What draw my attention from Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials, by Lidsay Miller was the high percentage of listening we do during the day: " More than forty percent of our daily communication time is spent on listening, thirty-five percent on speaking, sixteen percent on reading, and only nine percent on writing (Burely-Allen 1995). " I doubt if men also tend to have the same percentage on these skills as women do.... I'd say women talk way more than men and men "may" listen more than women, or simply tune off! :) Either way, brings me back to the importance of teaching our students better listening skills. To be honest, I only plan one listening activity per week, which I now notice, it is not enough any more.

Reading about previous projects made my brain speed up. So many ideas, so many skills to improve on my students (and myself!), so many new tips learned now all waiting to be put into one big project. I know there is still a lot more to learn about, and I shall not rush into it. As Jodie said, we'll do one step at a time. Jessica: Breath!!!

Let us all enjoy week 4!

A bit about me as a teacher :)

Week 1

Back to being a student, loving it and certainly gaining precious knowledge!

Well... making my first own blog is brand new for me. I knew I am not precisely an expert when it comes to technology, but I never thought it would be quite a challenge! Nevertheless, I am very anxious to see my blog well done and inspiring.

So... this blog is defenitely under construction, so come back later and you'll be surprised!