Week 10: The Dessert

I want to use this last opportunity while everyone is here to share with you some links that I've  found recently:

1)

Global governance monitoring

 http://www.cfr.org/global-governance/global-governance-monitor/p18985#/Oceans/Overview%20Video/

A good resource to raise social awareness of the students

There are terrific videos, interactive maps, names of International documents, etc.

2)

I would  like to refer you to Hind's blog, where she has posted her animation created with the help of 

goanimate.com, a site that allows to make video/animation online

Looking at the link is not inspiring, watching Hind's animation is. Go for it!

See you all at Facebook!

 

Week 10: The King Has Died. Long Live The King!

It's symbolic that the close of the course coincided with the end of the winter and the beginning of the new life cycle. My sadness, which filled the yawning gap left in place of Final Report writing, gave way to proactive thoughts regarding the implementation of what we've learned. I have already received three invitations to run seminars and one invitation to design a course on Web-Bases resources. I am going to write at least two papers. There are many smaller things on the list. So, no time to look back, we have to look forward. Such is life: the end of one thing is the beginning of another.

Still, while we are within our course, I will focus on your experiences and the course outcome. To say that it was successful is to say nothing. To enumerate the good things about the course will take pages and pages.
I will mention the most instrumental items, such as all the things which are intended to easy administering the studies, such as JupiterGrades, class wiki, rubric, delicious, learning styles tests, LoTi survey (the principle how the resource is built). I might have left out something, but even what I have mentioned can revolutionize the way our teachers work. In the past I wasn't even looking for them, as I didn't think about this application of technology at all ;-)

Another important block is tools to create learning materials. Even is there were nothing but WebQuest, the course would be successful. But there were a lot more superb resources!

And the third, no less important thing was the opportunity to communicate and learn from outstanding. committed colleagues. It's amazing how much some people knew even before the course. It's amazing to see how quickly they learn and how organized they are, fulfilling all the assignments well in advance before they are due. So, as a by-product of this course the improved time management skills can be mentioned.

Work of the Project deserves a special praise. On the one hand, it gently pushed us to the idea that our studies have to trigger a change. Writing the project was a highly useful experience. It was a challenge to bring the message across, and answering questions of my peers I learned, I think, to be more concise and precise.
On the other hand, doing the Project under the umbrella of this course will help me to scale it up. If  I came up with my own initiative to run a Reflective Learning Project,  the administration might turn their deaf ear, as it happened a number of times. But if  I say that it is a Project designed within a course from the University of Oregon and I am obliged to implement it - they will listen ;-)

The Project is evolving well, by the way. Here is the latest post ( I quote it as it is, without corrections):

"I've done exercises on articles that you advised me. And It really works!One test I wrote on 93% and the other with the grade 100. I've made some mistakes in other exercises, but I hope to get rid of them. Hope that the rules I've learnt will stay in my mind for a long time and I won't forget it. Thanks for these tips!"

That's  the most important thing - the students started making progress!


Last but not least, it was highly pleasant to interact with you, my dear friends and with our teachers Jodi and Sherie, who demonstrated their best professional and interpersonal skills. My special thanks go to you.

On Nicenet I mentioned that I am  going to carry on with my On-Line Project. Yuliya asked me what it is about, but I didn't think it was appropriate to override the course and talk about it there.

Next week, our course over, I will open the box and let you see the lamb. Those, who are interested, you are welcome.

Have a nice rest, enjoy spring and stay in touch.

With love,

Val

Week 9: We Did It! :-) and :-(

So, the Project Report is done. The feeling of achievement is present, which means that the job was done well. Today two more students have joined my Reflective Learning Project, and two students, who have not reported progress yet said that they are doing the exercises recommended, which means that the Project was not only for the Report - it is working and it is needed.

However, the submission of the report was accompanied with a feeling of frustration. "0 Days Left" on our wiki was causing embarrassment and the feeling that something was going wrong. I am happy that today it's again a number with quantity, and it will keep growing to infinity, as, I hope our friendship.

This week was marked with Report Writing. Having written what I believed was a fairly good draft, I though I would be able to complete and submit it on March 8. However,  the process of polishing took three times more time than I planned... 

 I hate perfectionism. It kills time, it leaves you with the feeling of dissatisfaction. Still, I couldn't stop. I was reading and editing, reading and editing, reading and editing until the last hour before the deadline. And only when there was no time left, the pieces of the jig-saw puzzle fit and the picture became visible (I hope).

The background thought in the process of editing was, "Why, why, why it is impossible to say what you want to say? How, how, how do others manage to paint a picture with a few strokes of words?" It's a sickening feeling, you know, it won't let you live in peace.

However, the torture of writing ended, the report went online, and now there is EMPTINESS. Yes, I know that the course has not finished yet, that there is one week ahead, and a WebQuest I planned to compose, and the discussion on Nicenet is going on. But...

It's very sad.  I know that I will be missing my tutors Jodi and Sherie, my friends, my daily tasks, my daily surprised and Wow!s at discovering new tools and resources. I am really grateful to my reading partners Hassan and Kouassi for their valuable comments on my first draft and to Hassan for his support in the process of editing the Final Report. His expanded comments and crucial questions allowed me to see the gaps and to better understand the structure of both the Project and the Report.

A log of unfulfilled other tasks is waiting for me, which means that my life won't be as in the process of doing this course. Life goes on and we can't get stuck. The challenge now will be to apply everything we've learned to improve our teaching, decrease our workload, make our students happier and better prepared to live in the information society. I will keep this blog and will inform all my friend of what is being done, and I will keep reading my friends' blogs too.

Dear Ladies, Happy 8th of March!

Dear Colleagues,

March 8th is International Women's Day. It has been a big holiday in the Soviet Union, and now remains a public holiday and big day for the entire country.
Today, March 7, on the last working day before the holiday, one could see dressed up women with flowers all over the city. A nice day, indeed ;-) Men are doing their best to make us happy. I want to share this festive atmosphere with you, since this day is an international holiday.

Some   greeting cards for you: the one dating back to the 1970s  (warm memories and a light smile)

and a recent one.

You can see the change in the image and the interpretation of the holiday. The difference would be still more striking, if you look at what Google brings up.

Time goes on, life brings change, 

but women were, are and will remain 

the source of love, inspiration and creativity. 

Happy 8th of March 

and may you be happy every day of your life 

as much as we are these days.

Week 8: Which Way to Go?

Another week is coming to a close, which is sad. I've got so used to this daily (nightly ;-) writing, that it feels strange when I don't do it.
In the course of the week I have been planning what to write in my blog, and I have had for great ideas, but as the focus has been shifting from one to another exciting things, the ideas got lost. I wanted to share my ideas of the on-line teaching tools I have tried, such as ANVILL, crosswrod puzzles and other handout making tools - but I have already written about these extensively on Nicenet.net.

Another set of topics was associated with the projects I was writing and reading, such as the readiness of the learner to accommodate the change; appropriateness of the use of technology (a case described by someone, when there was a black out and the students could not use Skype, they carried on in a back to back conversation. And I wanted to ask a question: is it expedient to use Skype when the students are in the same room? Kids are so IT literate today that soon we will have to teach them Face-to-face communication literacy. This is already done in NYC by some museums, who teach kids HOW TO PLAY OUTDOORS!!!

Etc. etc.

Now, after a cup of coffee, I decided to focus on just one idea, and save others for later.
This idea is reflected in the  title of this post: Which way to go?
We have been introduced to so many powerful tools - what will be next. What to pick up, what to forget, when and how to implement all the activities?
I have noticed that many participants decided to open blogs, sites or other publishing media. It looks like a great idea, but let me share my five year experience of running a site, a blog and a thread at a forum.
It looks like fun at the beginning, but soon you will see that it takes up a lot of your time. You can limit yourself to fairly drab solutions, but then ask yourself a question - who would be interested?
Look at this:
- in most cases the administration is not going to care (unless you are doing this course as part of your job assignment and are expected to implement what you have learned)
- students tend to look for easier life, and if your on-line stuff is not competitive, you are going to feel their reluctance; it is still more probable because the administration in many cases won't introduce any changes in the assessment to make students do what you want to do
- your job most likely go unpaid, so you will be investing your time and effort - what will you get in return?
After five years of running my own project I have to answer these questions. I ask them to you now, to save you these five years.

Another issue here is the platform. Using free Google site seems to be a nice option. It provides  you with tools and construction materials, but...
Google is a big guy, we, millions of its users, are invisible for him. We are like ants playing with an elephant. The elephant does not mean to hurt us, but when he moves, some of us can fall under his feet and die. Now, at the beginning, when you do not have a lot of content, you might not feel that.
But I experienced the aftermath of big guys' plays. I used to have my site registered with a local hoster, who, however, used to rent servers overseas. Some time about the government demanded that all Belarusian resources should be physically located on the territory of the country. So, the hoster had to transfer my site to another server. In the process 80 of pagers were damaged. To make things worth, I discovered the damage too late, when the backups were replaced with new ones. I still have the source data, but where to get time to restore so many pages?

But I am lucky because it was only half of the challenge. Those, who were registered with foreign hosters had to break the agreements and to switch to local ones. Let me drop the implications.

What I am trying to say is running professional sites/blogs is not fun. I recommend that before you get down to this, you check all the legal, business and administrative issues. Another question to consider is how much your materials would be different from what we have on the market. Still another one would be how to handle the traffic. Still another would be the security. These were the questions I asked at the beginning of the course, and they, being crucial in the long-run, remain unanswered.

I invite everybody, who is interested, to come back here to discuss them later, when you have more time and experience in running your web-sites and blogs.

Another Idea of a Lesson

Having posted my reflections, I can't help sharing another idea with you. It  relates not to this week’s task but to developing grammar and speaking skills, but still...

As I was busy yesterday writing my tasks and some other papers, I didn’t have much time to prepare for my today’s Club. So, I decided to use the links I had saved to download a ready-to-use printable worksheet. It took me more time than in case I would be writing my own ;-), but, eventually I found something acceptable – a multi-purpose board game with verbs

As my young learners are studying Past Simple, I asked them to use the verbs on the board in the Past Simple to make a story. Before getting started with the game, each participant chose a character and introduced it to the group. Then, moving around the board, they had to use the verbs to add the next sentence to their story. The verbs often conflicted with the initial idea of the authors, so they had to change the plot several times and  eventually produced funny dynamic stories. 

For example, one girl wanted to tell a story about Cinderella, but she had the verbs: to go, to leave and to finish. Her story was like this: 

 "Cinderella went to the beach. She went for a swim and left her bag on the sun bed. Somebody took her bag. When she finished her swim, she was very sad."

My observation is that often students can’t make a story, because they lack ideas. This board game provided them with verbs, so they were able to generate ideas. The kids liked it so much that we decided to repeat it next Sunday.

I think this activity can be used with all ages at the basic and pre-intermediate levels. Enjoy.

Week 7: Busy and Rewarding

So, it’s Sunday night again. It’s sad to see that the number of the weeks on our course wiki is dwindling. On the one hand, of course, we are all getting worn out by the intensive reading, thinking and writing; one the other hand, it has already become an indispensable and enjoyable part of my life, and I even can’t imagine what I will do when the course is finished. Of course, I will go back and explore the issues I have saved for later study, but I will be missing the rhythm of our weekly assignments and deadlines, which have kept us moving ahead so far.

Week 7 has been still more exciting and provoking than the previous ones.  

Autonomous learning is the topic that has much more implications than those discussed. Actually, when one looks at it at the beginning, one sees it as a way out, as a promising solution to some really annoying disadvantages of the conventional education. Once you start practicing it, especially of you want it for real, if you really mean to foster the learner autonomy, you discover, that, yes, some old problems are solved, but there are new ones, of a different nature. Actually, few people realize, that fostering learner autonomy, we are turning the life upside down, back to front, inside out. We are letting the genie out of the bottle, and we won’t be able to get it back again. Splitting away from the old system, we are losing the protection, the support, the stability of the paved road, and get onto a swampy field, where no one bears responsibility for your success. These two lines have much more implications than the reasonable discussion within the course could accommodate, and I am ready to carry on, if someone is interested. I even feel that I will write a couple of posts, even if no one declares his/her interest, because these issues have to be voiced.

One Computer Classroom has become another highlight of the course. It was highly rewarding to read both the discussion and the practical tasks. I read all posts, but there was no chance to give feedback to all of them. I replied either to the posts where I had a question, or which somehow provoked me into writing. I do not want my friends, whose posts didn’t get my feedback  to think that their lesson plan didn’t get my attention. It did, and I use this blog opportunity to thank every participant, as well as our teachers, Sherie, Jodi and Sean for your valuable comments.

I have posted some links to the historic real life samples of my one computer classroom classes. Trying to learn some new techniques, I designed and posted two more lesson plans: Literature Books Characters Database and Tanagrams, and I will report how they went in a thee-week time, because we have to finish what we have been doing.

Week 7 brought us to the final stage of the Project. It’s sad to realize that we have come to the beginning of the end – the draft project report is due by Wednesday. It took some time to find a partner for the peer review, but our group completed the task the first. The remaining part of the week was left for my project implementation.

I will remind in a nutshell that my project is to introduce reflective learning by means of creating a special  space on my website for my full-time university students. The things I have done so far:

- described the target group

- identified the problem

- found a technological vehicle to bring about the change

- negotiated the project with the students

- showed the students how to use the site

- discussed the first posts with the students

- developed the rubric

- explained the students how to use the rubric

- wrote a couple of replied to the questions asked by the students

- marked the students posts and returned them to the students to make corrections in their posts

- discussed the students’ engagement in the project in class three times

My feeling is that the project is evolving well and will keep going after our course is finished.

You are welcome to come to observe it online either here:

http://www.writespeakenglish.com/ICANclub//index.php

(please, find the 4th orange bar from the top entitled “Reflective Learning”)

 or here:

http://www.writespeakenglish.com/ICANclub//index.php?PHPSESSID=7abd7aee9cfc8db200f61e4f9364733b&action=recent

(the recent posts, which can belong to different threads, but it’s the shortest way to find the posts in question too)

I am running this project as an open teaching project, so everyone, both you and your students, are welcome to join. My students say that they liked it and find it rewarding. I hope we will both succeed.

Week 6: The Interactive Presentation

Working with presentations has been a rewarding experience. I have familiarized myself with quite a few techniques. It's a pity there is not time to practice all of them, but I certainly will, little by little.
prezi,com, because the moment I saw it, I fell in love with it.

Although the Prezi interface is easy enough, the creation of my first Prezi took more time than I expected.
On the one hand, I am still thinking in terms of slide show, which restricts my imagination.
On the other hand, I could not find the way to overlay the images to produce an impression of zooming in, as I would do with Power Point.

It was also rather hard to switch between the editing and presentation modes. On top of this, when I checked the link that I had uploaded on the wiki, Prezi told me that the link has expired. What a shock!
However, it wasn't that bad. Somehow I found the presentation online, it was intact. So, here it is:

http://prezi.com/dtufy3aosox5/welcome-to-minsk-belarus/

I also re-loaded this URL to wiki to replace the non-existent one.

So, the job is done and I hope in future I will be able to use Prezi with more confidence.

Week 6: The Project

The Launch of the  Reflective Learning Project

I have announced the new Reflective Learning Project in two groups of full-time students (the total of 23 students).

I would like to remind our group that I meant my Reflective Learning Project to be an open teaching  experience, and I invite everybody to join, if you wish to try it out. Please, let me know who is willing and I will help you with the registration.

I have also sent a newsletter to the participants of the On-Line Writing Project (all who are registered at the web-site). Some on the on-line participants have visited the site to have a look at the project, but have not posted anything there.

The Reaction of My Students

Some of my full-time students welcomed the idea, others remained indifferent or skeptical.

At the moment, I have 8 students registered on the site. Four of them have written about their learning process and asked questions. The most enthusiastic one has asked 5 questions.

I have posted learning tips on reading, listening, writing, articles, conditionals.

The posts can be seen here.

http://www.writespeakenglish.com/ICANclub//index.php?action=recent;start=0

In face-to-face communication, the participating students said that they liked the idea and find it exciting to write for the Internet and get replies online.

However, 4 participating students is not the 25 per cent I targeted. Actually, I would like to engage more than 25 per cent. The reason for my goal to be that modest is that at the university we have got standard assessment rules, and I can’t formally demand that students engage in this project. The group composition this year is not the best one. There are 6 students who do not show much interest in studies. They miss classes and failed the winter exams. They are not likely to take up additional tasks. So, actually, we are talking about 17 active students, and 8 people out of 17 possible is a good result at the moment.

Managing the Project

I keep working with the students: I send them instructions how to use the site and consult them when they have technical difficulties. I also inform them of the new posts and encourage them to do what is suggested there.

Today I have sent them the rubrics, which, hopefully, will help them get more effectiveу with their posts.

Week Five: The Medium

So, we have reached the medium. This means, that the harder part of going up-hill is done, now we are working smoothly and soon we will start descending the hill, coping with more and more  tasks. The threat there will be to avoid going too fast, and the challenge - to be able to accomplish the project within the deadline.

Week 5 was highly enjoyable to me: we were doing project-based learning (PBL), a learning technology I have been using for a long time, and which I find highly effective. The generous gift from our dear teachers was WebQuests, which I highly appreciate. Once the course is finished, I will surely start contributing to that facility.

I also enjoyed wrting rubrics. The first rubric I created at the beginning of the week was consumption - I just found a ready-to-use rubric. Creating the second rubric

http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=ShowRubric&rubric_id=2154837&

was quite a challenge, and I am happy we were offered it, because it is an essential skill for a teacher. A good rubric  is a kind of a guide for students. I am looking for the feedback from our teachers and colleagues. I hope they will give me tips how to improve it.

As for the project, I finally make up my mind how I am going to accomplish it. Again, I am wondering what other solutions wil  be offered. 

I have already given feedback to some participants and look forward to further discussions.

Week 4: Ode to Writing

Week 4 was an exciting period, as we came to discuss writing. Reading the suggested articles and viewing on-line resources, which were generously shared by my colleagues, allowed me to build a collection of tools for a variety of writing challenges. Although I actively participated in the discussion, I feel like summarizing my perspective on writing.

First, before we get down to practicalities, let’s pronounce what we mean by writing. To me, writing means immortality. Writing for the Internet means fame + immortality. It’s an unprecedented opportunity to leave something behind. It’s ...

No words. The above is enough. Let’s make a pause and just think about it.

....

If we look at writing from this angle, then what is our mission regarding teaching writing?  

First, we have to ring the bell and tell our students about that. We have to tell them, that with the advent of the Internet they received a chance to make their lives meaningful. We have to teach them to look at themselves as unique missionaries, who came to this world make something happen. And writing, better to say expressing themselves by means of a lasting media, is both ends and means.

If we look at writing as “ends”, i.e. something that will make a difference, than we have to teach our students to discover their unique mission, to develop their confidence and to empower them to say what has to be said.

Speaking about “means”, we have to equip them with (a) linguistic, (b) paralinguistic and (c) technical knowledge and skills, such as

(a)

grammar

vocabulary

spelling

syntax

macrosyntax (how texts are built)

stylistics

(b)

layout

colors

fonts

hypertext

graphics

animation

(c)

creating blogs/sites/forums

searchability (choice of keywords and frequency of words)

tagging

branding

domain names

promoting (e.g. through social networks)

administering

accessability

security

Obviously, this list is not complete. But we’d better work on it, because, if we do not know what we have to teach, how can we help our students get on the top, grab this new opportunity, which has just opened? I invite everyone to look at this list and add both what else is needed in the 21st century and what tools and resources are available to teach all these.

Having this list in mind, we can sort the numerous links we have gathered and then we will be able to see what is missing. I maintain that in the 21st century teaching writing without teaching promotion online is supplying gasoline without supplying cars. Isn’t it the reason it is so hard to motivate students develop their writing skills?

Motivation – that’s another issues I would ask my colleagues to share. What do you do to motivate your students to start writing?

Week 3: My Delicious Links

Before going to bed early in the morning, I am publishing here the link to my Delicious page:
https://delicious.com/val_bel/

I hope you, my dear colleagues and friends will find something to your linking there. It wold be nice to know what and how YOU are going to use it.

I have also pasted it to our wiki and to the discussion at Nicenet.

Now, all the assignments fulfilled, I can treat myself to your delicious links too.

Happy surfing,

Val, Belarus

Week 3: Overworked, Thrilled, Enthusiastic

Week 3 is coming to a close, and I am happy to say that this week I have been much better organized and this allows me to enjoy the feeling of satisfaction both from learning and from proper time management.
This week was busier than the previous two, I had to stay at the University from morning till late in the evening.
Still, I managed to complete my Wednesday task in time, and I am nearly done with the remaining ones.
Following Yuliya's advice I entered everybody's URL into the Reader, and today I was able to scan all the posts at once! What a nice solution! Thank you, Yuliya, again.
I was delighted to see that other people started posting images too. I think everyone will agree that visuals make our blogs more attractive and exciting. I have got a couple of new photos too, but I will keep them in secret until I have time to process them and write comments. First things first - now I have to reflect and summarize.
I really enjoyed the assignment of Week 3, both the oral/aural and project analysis.  I am so happy to study in such an enthusiastic team - I find it both pleasant and effective. Today (it was the first day when I had a chance to check the links) I have book marked more nice EFL resources than over a couple of years.
Most of them are "conventional" CALL sites (is this word is applicable to CALL at all),  very nice, though.
However,. there were some principally new ones, such as posting voice records online, using graphical representation of the sounds and prosody, interacting with EFL and other speakers of English teachers on-line, etc.
And I was very happy to see that there are people in our team who have been already practicing DVCs and who are interested to try them out. I hope we will stay in contact after the course is finished and will start "dating" online with our students.

I enjoyed reading a sample project and other Webskillers' comments. It is always easier to analyze somebody else's work and avoid common mistakes. I hope I will manage to look through some other projects before we start Week 4.
The only thing I have not begun yet is Delicious. Just because it is delicious I will do it at the end. I'm sure, once I start working with links there will be no end, and I wish to complete all the task, so, first things first.
Wishing all of you good night or a nice day, I am leaving you until tomorrow.

Week 2: Frustrations and Achievements

What a nice idea it was to offer us running a blog as a reflective learning tool! I’m so happy I have this private space, where I can write what I want without aligning my texts with the rules and common sense considerations. I do not mean that I mind rules – no, just on the contrary I view our rules as a guarantee of success and I do not think it would be right to abuse other people’s time with lengthy and sometimes off-topic comments I wish to make. Keeping them to myself is not the best way either, because (1) writing or speaking helps me to figure out better what is going on in my mind, and (2) my reflections can be useful to someone, who is experiencing similar problems and is looking for solutions. Thus, a reflective blog is just perfect for the purpose of reflective learning. 

So, our second week is coming to the end. It has been much more effective, I suppose. I was about to mess it up at the beginning, but I stopped early, and now the learning is running smoothly.

Frustrations of Week 2

At the end of Week 1 I made a resolution to prioritize my activities better. Still, on Monday I found myself writing for my blog and thinking about some technical problems that had been left unanswered. In particular, I was preoccupied with access issues. I fully understand people, who were happy just to start blogging. So was I after creating my first blog. Soon, however, my excitement faded away, because I discovered that I had been spending a lot of time on writing what I thought was useful, but nobody read it! There was no traffic at all!!! Only spammers promoting prostitutes in all cities of Russia. It took me weeks of daily cleaning before I learned how to keep that spam away. 

Now I do not concern myself much about the content or design – I know that I can deal with that. Technical issues, such as Google analytical tools, liking profiles on all other social networks, etc. are what interest me. Also security, eliminating robots and spies, and all other kind of malicious software… 

So, preoccupied with all this I went to the Discussions to start a thread about these issues.

I went there and … I discovered that while I was mentally stuck to blogs, other people were going forward: doing reading, exploring search engines, writing objectives, discussing due issues. That was the first frustration of the day.

The second one followed shortly. I started reading the posts, and I discovered that I could not understand what people are talking about. I wrote to Jodi, who, definitely, was sleeping at that time and asked her a lot of questions. 

And only then a very clever idea struck my mind: what is I just open the instructions and will start doing the assignment step by step, as suggested? And – surprise, surprise! – I found answers to all the questions I had asked Jodi. I still can’t understand why I didn’t do obvious things? It’s such a thoughtful, well-structured course, with clear, well-written instruction – why should I focus on what IS NOT given, instead of first taking what IS offered and asking my questions later, when appropriate?

Resolutions of Week 2

I was really angry with myself. I hope these two additional frustrations are enough to get me on the right track. I have outlined a schedule for myself. I will publish it here for two purposes:

1) let my tutors see what I am going to do and correct me, if I do something wrong;

2) manage my friends expectations in case I can’t respond timely to their posts and comments.

So, here we go:

Mondays: Reading other participants’ blogs

Tuesdays: Posting 1st weekly assignment earl

Wednesday: Reading for the 2^nd weekly assignment

Thursday: Interacting at the Discussions

Friday: Posting my 2^nd weekly assignment

Saturday: Bloggin

Sunday: reading ahead (the upcoming week)

In short, the way to avoid stress and frustrations is: reading ahead, early posting, checking other people’s writing after the deadline.

Dear friends, I understand how it feels when you write something, and people do not respond. I will surely respond to everyone who talks to me after I am done with the assignments. 

 Achievements of Week 2

I tried this new way on studying on Thursday, and I was very happy: I didn’t miss a single post, and I completed reading all the posts and writing replies in one run! What an improvement in comparison with Week1. when I spent hours and hours recurrently visiting blogs that were not updated. 

Thus, looking back at the slipping away week I can say that there is at least one thing I have learned – I learned to organize myself.

As for learning web-skills, our dear teachers Jodi and Sherie don’t need to worry: I have been practicing this play-camel way each time I had intensive training course, and it was always successful. Play-camel way of learning means that I do as much as time permits me, but I carefully save the remaining materials, activities, links and tasks, and go over them after the course is finished. This time too, I have carefully harvested all the links from the Week assignments and from my mates’ posts, and I will explore them at ease later.

Besides, I have explored JupiterGrades. What a nice tool ! I especially liked the calendar. With such a tool one does not need to keep a journal – the assignment will be reminded automatically. I very nice way to monitor the process.

This is all from me by now.

P.S.

By the way, I found a video about circles. One can watch it on

https://plus.google.com/u/0/getstarted/findpeople

It’s on the right, under the title What are circles? If someone is also interested how to get traffic to the web-site, you are welcome to view it.

A Bit of Culture Study

We are here to study technology. But as I mentioned earlier, I support the idea that technology is something BETWEEN people, and people are the ultimate interest which technology should help satisfy.
I hope you won't consider it violation of rules if I paste a couple of photos of my country here.
This winter was onlу month late. We all felt that it was wrong. Snow, due early in december, arrived only a few days ago, and now I can show you how it looks like (the picture was taken yesterday, Jan. 16, 2012):

Snowy Minsk 2012

Most of the participants live in hot climates. Have you ever seen icicles? This is how they look like (fresh from the outdoors ;-)

Icicles can be nice to look at, but  it's a hazard. Earlier or later they are going to fall down and can injure or even kill people. This is why they have to be removed as soon as possible, and there are services, who do that.

Hope you'll find this interesting (at the same time I have been practicing pasting images).
Have a nice day!

Summary of Week 1: General Feedback

I feel that I am getting addicted to our class. Coming back home at 10.30 p.m. after my evening classes I promise myself to go straight to bed and have a good sleep before my morning classes, but when I enter my room I feel so tempted to see what has been happening here – I push the taboo button and spend three to four hours with you. I don't want to miss a single line of you, my dear friends, both teachers and participants, because I realize that just in a nine-week time this wonderful opportunity will be gone and I should value every minute of it.

The end of a week is a good time to reflect and summarize. 

Following advice to give information is manageable chunks (Guidelines and http://umbc.uoregon.edu/eteacher/webskills/material/webskills_discussion_guidelines+rubric.pdf) I will split my reflections into three parts:

1)         General feefback (down here)

2)         Experiences with using Nicenet

3)         Experiences with blogging

So: General Feedback

This is my first experience taking a distant learning cause. I was mentally prepared, as back in 2003 I was a participant of an International Visitor Program offered by the U.S. Department of State, most of which was about distant learning, a buzz word at that time. Besides, a couple of my friends took distant learning courses and let me see how it goes. However, knowing things and doing things are two different stories, and my first experiences gave me a lot of positive emotions. I find it highly effective and convenient (we can do things when we have spare time).

One thing I definitely like about this course is its practical orientation.

The second good thing is that there is no spoon feeding. There are guidelines, but we feel free to decide how and when to do things. At the same time, in case of difficulties, our tutors give us timely replies. Thank you, Sherie and Jodi, for that. I know that it’s a challenge to timely see what is requested by every individual here.

I like that the course is highly interactive. I wish all the participants were active. There are people I was fascinated to meet who, unfortunately, seldom pop up. It's a great pity. I wish I could hear from EVERYONE. 

In the middle of the week I started started experiencing difficulties with matching posts with people. So, I decided to compile a table with the names, photos, location, professional data and hobbies for each participant. I copy-pasted the data from the Introductions and from blogs. I found it VERY helpful!!! Now, each time I read something I go to this “registry” to have a look at the photo. After a couple of days of doing so I feel that I can already clearly identify all active participants.

The tasks given have been useful and manageable. However, I don’t think I have performed them with excellence. Here is what I wanted to do, what was done and what remains on the list.

Planned	Done	Remain
Reading the instructions Week 1	+ (missed the rubrics, had to go back and re-read)
Exploring the course website	+	Have to read more materials suggested there
Filling out the needs assessment survey	+	Would like see the results after everyone fills it out. Please, suggest how I can do it.
Introducing myself	+
Getting to know other participants	Have an idea of about 10 participant, interacted with 8 (only half of the group – what a pity!)	- Look forward to more details about others - Read Vijay’s poetry- Explore the map to see the place where people live (I did that only with the first ones, and I find it rewarding) - talk with Hassan about encouraging  students while teaching technical writing
“Registry” of Participants	Have created it and half compiled	Have to complete 9 entries Paste in online for others to check the data and use it too.
Ground rules discussion	+
Nicenet	+	Have to paste fun links I promised to Yuliya
Creating my own blog	+
Reading other blogs	Have visited 17 blogs	Visit the 3 blogs that are missing  now- Check the links suggested by Salam (http://salam-sparrow.blogspot.com/) -Continue reading blogs

The reasons why I could not complete what I wanted were: 

1)      I didn't have a CLEAR idea of how to set priorities. Solution: better planning

2)      I wasted a day and a half, because I had to repeat the creation of my blog, as the first version of it was made inaccessible by local IT providers (a technical problem)Solution: resolved

3)      Having several email addresses made it difficult to handle my mail. Now I have one address for this course, which has made my life easier.Solution: resolved

4)      I spent too much time trying to follow everybody’s posts and blogs, which is time consuming. I still don't know how to get to the last postings straight away. If someone knows it, please, advise.Solution: discuss this on Nicenet

5)      Trying to compete my “registry” I kept visiting the blogs, which were not completed by the time of my first visit at the end of the week, in hope to find the missing photos and subscribe to. I found this on some blogs, but entries for 9 (!) people still remain unfinished, which mean I will have to make another round. I think respecting deadlines would save time of others. Or, at least, letting other people know when we are going to do what is expected from us. Solution: talk about it on Nicenet

The conclusions I have made:

1)      I should be more attentive when reading the assignments and do more reading of the materials.

2)      Each week I have to create a detailed check list

3)      I should reverse the order: fulfill the assignment first, and then do interaction

4)      I will check the postings close to the deadline.

5)      I should better proofread my texts (oh, that’s a burden for me!)

I have to stop now. As soon as I have another gap in my schedule, I will write about using Nicenet and blogging.

I look forward to your comments on what I have written here. Have you experienced the same problems or different? How did you cope with them?