Goodbye from the Land of the Nile

What is so important in this course is that as English language teachers we are all unified in one goal which is to make our students more proficient in English language. What I learned in this course is that knowledge knows no boundaries. Technology can be a tool to bring cultures, religions, nationalities together. What I also learned is that even with one computer we can teach. What I learned is too long to put in this post
What I will miss is the feeling every night that I have something to do. What I will miss is all of you. (by the way I am trying to write a poem. Hopefully)
Goodbye
Hala

Learning Styles

I was working very hard this week to finish my proposal for TESOL Arabia, my last two slides where about learning styles and this week was about learning styles what coincidence!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Although most of Felder is based on engineering students but still applicable to other disciplines. I liked his article "Learning and Teaching Styles in Foreign and Second Language Education," but have to read again to digest it, my mind sometimes becomes blocked. What I discovered was a different division for learning styles (Sensing and Intuitive learner/Active and Reflective learners /Visual and Verbal Learners/ Sequential and Global Learners) instead of the usual division of visual/kinaesthetic /auditory/ tactical.

Learning from learning

One of the things I have learned from this course is how I can learn and how my mind works. I have learned that technology can bring people from different parts of the world together to work in harmony. Sharing and giving feedback and peer review is a great instructions tools not just for the author but for the reviewers. On reading Ana and Yana draft I felt I was exercising my critical skills. We have been doing in one task three activities:
1. Writing our drafts.
2. Peer reviewing
3. Taking feedbacks
I have also been trying to observe the way Robert runs the course. I am trying to be a moderator like him. So observing the way he makes everyone feels great and special, the way he gently gives encouragement and criticism is really amazing.
Hala

One computer classroom

One of the ideas that came through discussion this week was letting students use the computer to present their work. On reading the article about ‘Strategies and Applications for One Computer Classroom’ many ideas came to my mind but still I kept thinking about asking students to use the only computer we have in class to present their work. Definitely I am going to see wonders and this will lead to better self-esteem that will all lead to learners’ autonomy. SO it is not important if you have the latest technology in class or you own laptop but whether you use what you have to promote learning in class.
A comment on the picture: the picture was taken when we tried to teach by using a video about global warming. This was one year ago. After finishing the course I will different uses for the one computer.

Motivating Students

This is an email I received from one of my students when I supported my teaching with some activities from the internet this was two years ago. Now after the course I feel I can do much more for my students:

"Dear Madam: hala First we want to thank u for giving us this chance to get through this new way to learn about English language which called CALL (I guess) , really we luv it like crazy cuz the way we learning English language since day one is BORING and make us sick in addition to that they just teaching us the same staff from the 4th grade till the graduation year from high school ,so this new way of learning is just FABULOUS . Secondly we want to show you that we r fan of u and the way u treat and teach us cuz u make us feel like we r respectable trustable people. Finally we want to say good bye and best wishes 4 u and us in the examination (by the way we r so sorry we know that we should send this message with the home work earlier than that but really we were confuse & in attention with the examination also u know that to be online and generally using internet is kind of hard and not available ..so SORRY) and best wishes have nice time till the next semester ƒ؛ Your faithfully student group 38a ƒ؛ "
Hala

Stone Age/techno-Storm

I excuse myself for not hearing about the webQuests for two reasons;
1. I am a digital immigrant.
2. My university education was during the stone age (hahaha)
I am learning so much from this course that I feel that I am changing inside out and I think we should meet after 6 month to share how we were able use all the information we learned from the course.
WebQuests for me are like treasure hunts we used to do in birthday parties when I was young ages ago. Such activities will make our students lifelong learners. One thought that keeps coming to my mind what will happen to our students if we can make teachers use Pbl, webQuests many new techniques in teaching????????????????????????

Standards

I learned a lot of things in week 4 but one of the links in the template for lesson plan from University of Tennessee was suprise for me. The link took me to the International Society for Technology in Education website. I found it really informative when it comes to setting standards for the use of technology in education. They describe their standards as providing “a framework for educators to use as they transition schools from Industrial Age to Digital Age places of learning”. They have different types of memberships the cheapest is $10. But still I learned a lot about standards by just navigating the website.

Many Hats (A personal comment) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It seems that the course is teaching me other skills besides using technology in my teaching. The first skill is time management. My performance in week 2 was not that good as I could not mange my time well. I am a working mum of 4, head of a department which is being dissolved and a director of an institute which being established, and a student at the same time. A lot of hats to wear. But I felt that I need to organize and allocate a time for each hat. So this is what I am doing this week. Another very important thing I learned about is my learning style. I understand instructions (Robert’s) better when I rewrite them down in a piece of paper. Writing down the instructions makes me organize my ideas much better than reading them. And my last discovery I that I still understand better when I print out readings of the week. I am not paperless.
Hala