Week 3

Reading

This week our reading requirements were more than I expected, so I was a little overwhelmed. But I would like to read everything and start to work on this week's tasks. I wish I could have access to reading materials before the week starts, considering the fact that I am a slow reader of English.

Oral Skill Building Discussion

It was such fun to look around useful websites because I have never used those websites in my class. Those are eye-opening experience. I especially felt very excited when I found http://www.esl-galaxy.com/speaking.html for worksheets for fun games and board games.
I can use them in my class right away. I don't know why I have never searched for these useful tools online before. I wish I had had information about it. Information and knowledge is power!!
I also tried the website that Americo recommended "Using 'OK' in English" and I think I want to use the plan in my class, too.

Creating my own Delicious page

I created my delicious page. It was relatively easy. I found it useful when you want to share useful websites with your colleagues or even students.
Now I would like to learn how to gather students' blogs or delicious pages in one  main website page like our class wiki.

Project Task #2

I read most of the project plans by the past participants in this web skill class and chose " An Olympics Webquest for grade 11 students" by Zlatka Dyankova. I like this project because she tried to motivate students using a new technology. The Webquest she created was so elaborate that I am sure her students had great time going through Webquest tasks.

I would like to use Webquest in my class someday and help my students get interested in learning English more. Through discussion after Webquest tasks, students can improve their communicative skills, too. I thought it was a wonderful teaching plan.

Week 2-2

I finished every task for week 2.
I feel so relieved.

ABCD

Yesterday, I wrote learning behavioral objective, and it was great to read other colleagues' objectives and learn from them. To write an objective is very important because I can organize what I have to do better. It will do good for both teachers and students.

Task 1

I described my class and the setting and technology environment about my school. It was a good opportunity to look back your own class and  school. I started to think about my final project(plan) and chose the class based on the idea I came up with. It was such fun to think about what I can do for my students, using technology.
We tend to use the same materials with the same procedures over the long time, but I found it very important and wonderful to try new things.
Of course, I will go though trials and errors. But I think it is one of the joy of teaching.

week2 Discussion Web Search

Web search

This week so far, I have read reading material about technology tip by Deborah Healey and learned very useful tips about searching for information on the Internet.
For example, I didn't know that I would use quotation marks around phrases for a query. Also, I can use + or - to limit/expand my search. That was an eye opening.

Using the information I have learned, I started working on the task, Discussion:web searching.
I started to look for the information which I was looking for , using the various search engines on the list from Noodletools' Finding the Best Search for your Information Needs suggested by Donna.

But at first it did not work out well. It was quite frustrating because I could not get access to useful information I want to use in my debate class.
Now students in my classes are working on the debate, of which debate resolution is "English should be taught in elementary school in Japan."

I could not figure out if the query I put was too specific or narrow, but I could not obtain good entries, after trying many different search engines.

I usually use google to look up some information on the Internet, so I tried google and google scholar after failing many times with other search engines. I fond a lot of information on my topic. I felt relieved and at the same time felt sure that I could recommend google to the students.
I realized that google scholar offered more academic entries.
I think both google and google scholar work for the students to use to look for the information for their debate.

ABCD model for behavior Objectives

I have finished reading the materials about learning behavior objectives.
I learned that "the fundamental goal of specifying behavioral learning objectives is to aid students' learning" by Timothy R. Graeff (Writing Behavioral Learning Objectives).
I would like to show my students clear goal and make them think what they have to do to achieve the goal.

Revised Bloome's Taxonomy explained very well about writing objectives. I will try to write one objective for my class tomorrow.

Week1: First time to create a blog!!

It is the first time for me to create a blog. So it took a while to make one.
But I found it very exciting to share my thoughts with people.
A blog can be like a diary, so maybe I can use this technology in class and make students keep diary in English or work on some projects.
 Also, this could keep students interested in using English.Thinking about that makes me feel excited.