Week 3 - DELICIOUS bookmarking and aural/oral skills

Strengthening my web skills

 

Discussions that open your mind

This week has Courtney prepared another portion of interesting ingredients. At first, the portion of ingredients in my head caused a dizziness and on Monday I felt like a fruit salad. However, the next day I have overcome this condition of mind and started working on my first task.

I have created a delicious account in order to save my favorite websites. I like the idea that I can store and have access to my bookmarks anywhere in the world. I also like that I can make some bookmarks public and private. That helps because I have already informed my students about Delicious website and I would like to keep my private life private. I know that I can organize these websites but I am not that kind of guy. You should see my desktop, documents and folders everywhere.

I am starting to like the Nicenet discussions. It is a place where I have shared my opinion and experiences about my use of technology in my classes and learned that there are other teachers who have done similar things in their classes to motivate students. Their suggestions and experiences which they share on the Nicenet is a precious gift I received this week. Thank you Hector Alvarado, Mukti, Sharmila and Krishna.
Sharing information about the websites my classmates use in their classes and how they use them impressed me and helped me to extend my website directory for English classes. I have used some of the websites in the classroom and the students feedback was very positive.

The last thing I would like to mention are the project reports of former course participants. I have read some of them and they were very inspiring. Most of all I liked Zlatka Dyankova's project report about the way she used WebQuest in her class. I feel the same way as she did, I am not decided what kind of project I would like to do in my class. I am looking forward to another week of this seminar.

   

Second week of the course

WEB SEARCH

This week was a web searching week. 

I do not remember when I have spent such a long time searching the Net and using different search engines. However, what I value the most were the articles about the ABCD Model for Behavioral Objectives.

I have read about the ABCD Model for Behavioral Objectives for the first time. With the help of the articles which Courtney sent us this week I have managed to create objectives for my lessons according to this model this week. This way I will be able to think about the lesson objectives more accurately.

This week´s task was also to learn more about the web searching and try out more search engines and evaluate some of them. Thanks to Courtney and the Noodletools I will be able to search more effectively. So far I have been using mainly Google, Bing, Ask, Youtube, Yahoo, but in the future when I need to look for specific academic materials and articles I will use more appropriate search engines where results are finer. Some tips on how to use search engines more effectively were new for me but I have already used most of them. New things I have learned so far about search engines I will share with my colleagues at school and with my students. 

This week was also a week where I got a chance to think about the final project and my class. I know that most of them is very strong in using ICT outside of the school. This course should help me to introduce ICT to my English education and that with the help of ICT my students language output would not be limited only to the schools topics and on the schools ground but would make a step further and would enter their lives, families and homes.

First day in winter paradise

The first day was great. The weather was awesome and the students behaved. Their behaviour is always an issue but so far it was all good. I am looking forward to another day.

Skiing and Snowboarding in Tatras

After another year Lubo and I are going on a School skiing and snowboarding course with some of our students. I am really looking forward to it but am also a bit worried that I will not be able to go online every day. 

1st week of the Building Teacher Skills Through the Interactive Web

 My 1st blog post. -

I have been reading many blogs recently and admired the people who were able to present their thoughts online this way. I would also like to be a part of this world. Computers were and are part of my daily life and sharing new ideas, opinions and thoughts online is a great thing. What I am most worried about is that it will take me ages to learn how to keep my blog up to date and attractive. If I have to describe the process of creating the blog - it was easy to start it but now it is the time to fill it up with thoughts and other things.

I personally have a Facebook account but I have it and only use it only because in our school I am so far the only one who participates on international students projects and when I want to get together with some  students and plan or organize a meeting it is easier for me to send invitations and other facts and info to them of the FB group. I am also responsible for international students and for students who would like to study abroad. With the help of my blog I would be able to inform students about latest grants, scholarships, deadlines, chatting club sessions or other attractive activities for my students and not only for this closed group of people but for every one who goes online.

Because this is the first time I am using a blog application I am going to publish it and see how it looks like.