Week 10, Final Reflection

Dear all,

It has been a wonderful course. Though it has been tough and challenging, it leaves me comfortable having gone through diverse unique experiences learning numerous techniques of computer-assisted language learning. Because of the qualitative contributions of you, my dear colleagues, I have learned so much and I am willed to employ the best of practices in my teaching. The discussions and everyone's comments have added value and changed the way I view e-learning forever.

It has taught me how to look at the web-based language learning approaches with an inspecting look and how I could make the most of them. Also, to maximise the benefit for all, I am planning to pass this knowledge to my colleagues. Thanks very much for you all of you from the bottom of my heart.

Best wishes,
Amjad

Week 9, Online Enhancing Learing Tools

Dear all,

Google is setting an outstanding example with tens of globally free web-based applications such as documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and forms. In addition to several types of wiki sites offered by Google, the essential online office suite that requires nothing but the web browser provides the whole educational community with priceless opportunity.

For example, the project wiki template fantastically fit the groups/team work requirements. With information page about the project team, discussion section, time trackers for members, updates, and many customisable to any teacher's needs, there is no doubt that wiki sites cover all the project areas. It also gives the most active members the chance to contribute even more than what is expected from them, freeing them from traditional project/lesson/participation barriers.

I admire Google for coming up with lots of new creative employments of internet technology and making it within the reach of everybody worldwide. Our role should be making the best use of them.

Best wishes,
Amjad

Week 8, Learner Autonomy

Dear all,

Discussing learning autonomy has brought me some pleasant experiences from my high school and college days. As matter of fact, I had instructors preferring traditional lecturing with minimal interactivity during classes. Therefore, I was fully aware that "these methods were not always encouraged by my teachers in the period of learning English!" I have been asking myself what kept me going up learning English with the lack of adequate attention, care, and reinforcement from my instructors? I firmly believe it was the "self-reinforcement," as put forth by Cook, and the pleasure found in "informal collaborative work," as mentioned by Richard Smith in Interconnections, with my classmates/friends.

Providing the learner with the opportunity to work autonomously, in my opinion, resembles more teaching of the language and less about it! The teacher, aiming at encouraging autonomy, may engage the learners in language activities integrating the media: newspapers, radio programmes, TV shows, movies, and music. The exposure to authentic language, in my view point, is inspiring to more digging and explorations. Thus, confidence is reinforced and self-esteem is boosted pushing learning ahead.

Best wishes,
Amjad

Links:

http://coyote.miyazaki-mu.ac.jp/learnerdev/LLE/8.1/sheuE.html

http://coyote.miyazaki-mu.ac.jp/learnerdev/LLE/8.1/smithE.html

http://iteslj.org/Articles/Thanasoulas-Autonomy.html

Week 7, Teaching Large Classes

Dear all,

Teaching large classes is one of the most challenging situations many teacher around the world go through every day. I am teaching 30 young learners in each of my four groups and find it extremely difficult to address the needs of every individual in every class. How can I give every student an equal opportunity to learn? How can I follow up the progress of every student on every single activity? How can keep in touch with the students on daily/regular basis? How, how, and how? I have been trying to mix up several solutions to form one comprehensive educational utility. I agree with Dilip and Kazumi "there is no one best solution to use for the problems the teacher face."

However, I have found, through practice, the combination of presentation and assessment features in the PowerPoint that are empowered by VBA extremely time saving. Once the e-lesson designed, the computer relieve the teacher from the heavy burden of correcting, grading, and documenting.Adding up emailing technology, the Outlook used to send the students' data, responses, grades, and whatever the teacher deems important. Moreover, a small database, created by Access, is used to store, analyse, and print the students' data according to the teacher's criteria.In my viewpoint, employing these software form a complete e-learning cycle that is completely free of charge.

Using them in teaching large classes would save a lot of time and allow the teacher to spend the most of time designing new learning experiences, contexts, and situations. Have a look at my blog and check my proposed e-lesson to see exactly what I mean.I admire Jonathan idea that we, teachers, have to maintain, as much as possible, a sense of closeness with our students to guide them through their learning. Through automated, well prepared in advanced, teacher's responses/feedback, the student feel what the teacher's thinks of him and what is really expected to progress more.

What do you think?

Best wishes,
Amjad

Week 6 Echo

Dear Colleagues,

The week's topics and tasks add new facets to my ever going experience. Studying multiple intelligences and learning styles put me a step closer to the students' needs. Once being addressed, careful planning turns them into advantages, Like in Susan Gaer's story. In my situation, where I teach young learners of which most are of bodily/ Kinesthetic style, I am in a continuous pursuit of new equivalents to traditional class TPRs; "Total Physical Response," to work in technology enhanced classes.

Virtual trips to exotic places around the world are excellent employments that I find extremely exciting. I imagine integrating them into my lesson through creating creative contexts making use of the most recent online technologies. Google Earth can be used to satisfy the bodily/ Kinesthetic learner's eagerness for exploration. The free software not only provides information of maps and measurements, but also, thanks to Earth's forums, it provides lots of photos, videos, and interactive information as well. Incorporating 24/7 international webcams will make language learning a unforgettable experience.

In addition to learning styles, I read with pleasure about engaging all learners in large classes. "Because it is a fact and hard challenge that is unlikely to change in the near future, the teacher needs to be well prepared for taking it up." Mere knowledge is no longer enough to face this situation. Rather than that, students' involvement in the different stages of the lesson is what makes active learning and learners. In addition to saving time shortening lengthy tiring instruction/lecturing time, it helps the student remember and understand much better. A minute paper, mind maps, and thin-pair-share are all creative, collaborative, to the point, and fun ways of involving all learners in class.

Best wishes,

Amjad

Links:
Virutal Trip to Karnak

http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak/google_earth

Powerful Interactive e-Lesson

Dear Marcia, Sandra, and Colleagues,

I am extremely happy to contribute something very special today. I designed an e-lesson that include many powerful features such as automated actions, documentation, and emailing. There are two parts; the presentation and the assessment. The first part is for theory and the second for practise or test. The e-lesson ends by sending emails with the assessment result to the student and the teacher.

To be able to use the emailing and documenting features in my e-lesson, you must do the following:


1. Set up MS Outlook 2007 to work with your Live or Gmail account. Check the tutorials links below. (If your MS Outlook 2007 is already set up and working, skip this step please.)

2. After downloading the rar archive, make sure you extract the folder " Amjad_e-Lesson_Demo " to drive C. It should look like this C:\Amjad_e-Lesson_Demo\

3. Once you open the e-lesson slide show make sure you choose to enable macros. Check this picture.

Tutorials for preparing MS Oultook 2007:

How to set up my Gmail account to work with MS Outlook 2007.
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=77689

How to set up my Live / Hotmail account to work with MS Outlook 2007.
http://www.freeemailtutorials.com/windowsLiveHotmail/configureHotmailSettingsOptions/hotmailOutlookSettings.php

Resources you may need:

Outlook Connector 12.1 (The latest download right from Microsoft Website)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9A2279B1-DF0A-46E1-AA93-7D4870871ECF&displaylang=en

Winrar Archiver (Download it form the Rar Labs Official Website)
http://www.rarlab.com/

Powerful Interactive e-Lesson Demo

Download

http://www.easy-share.com/1909357177/Amjad_e-Lesson_Demo.rar

or

Download Mirror

From the Course's Wiki

http://sites.google.com/site/webskillsw10/participant-files/Amjad_e-Lesson_Demo.rar?attredirects=0&d=1

Best wishes,

Amjad

Week 5, an Inspecting Look

Dear Colleagues,

The magical word of this week is WebQuest. I enjoyed exploring the subject of Project-based Learning in depth. I read, along investigating several other web pages, Susan Gaer's paper, Less Teaching and More Learning, and what a journey it was. She unveils the secrets of two astonishing experiences in which PBL was employed. The first with Southeast Asians and the second with mixed group of learner who spoke English, Spanish and Vietnamese. Although she started as traditional teacher using grammar-based curriculum, this did not stop her from changing her methodologies for the sake of providing her students with more meaningful learning.

What I find amazing about her experience with different ethnicities is how she transformed the learners' needs into the most stimulating part of the whole language learning process. The Lao, Hmong Mien, and Lahu learners were keen on conserving their own cultures traits. Thus, Gaer turned this from a need to a deed. Working on folktales, the Southeast Asian learners found meaning and encouragement in what they were doing. The PBL was used intelligently to serve as means to language learning in the most possible exciting way. The resources were used to build new visual dimension to the folktales that were told in an oral-aural approach.

I love the stages and employments of the resources at hand to enrich learning in both of Gaer experiences told in her paper. The shift from the role of mere instructing to that of active facilitating frees the teacher and allows him to go for qualitative opportunities such as creatively designed WebQuests and Treasure Hunts that engage the leaner in the joyful adventure of language learning. I am inspired to create a WebQuest in which my young learners' needs are used to motivate, encourage, and stimulate. Thus, giving meaning to learning.

How about you?

Best wishes,
Amjad

Links:
Less Teaching and More Learning
http://www.ncsall.net/?id=385