Last week not Lost week!

Dear all,

This is the last week in this course. I am happy that I have learnt a lot from this course. All the web tools were of highly beneficial to me and to my students. I will definitely make use of them now.

I went through the LoTi Framework. It was awesome. Dr. Chris Moersch has discovered seven levels of technology integration in the classroom: Non-use, Awareness, Exploration, Infusion, Integration, Expansion, and refinement. I can reflect on these levels. When I did my UG and PG, my course was at the Zero level, that is Non-use. None of my teachers used any technology. We, students, too did not use them at all. When I did M.Phil, my teachers used technology to make powerpoint presentation. So, it was the Level One, awareness.

Later when I joined the service, I used too used PPT in the classroom and later I started using other web tools like Google Sites. Recently I have learnt effective ways of fusing technology into a course. So, I hope my future classes will be of highly beneficial to students.

Thank you. Keep in touch

M. S. Xavier Pradheep Singh

Learning Styles

I worked out a quiz at http://www.edutopia.org/mi-quiz on "learning styles to find out mine. The following was the result.

Results

1. Linguistic - 83% Logical-Mathematical - 75% Visual-Spatial - 83% Intrapersonal - 63% Interpersonal - 88% Musical - 94% Bodily-Kinesthetic - 67% Naturalistic - 42%

This week was a wonderful one. I happened to learn more about different learning styles. Technology can address these different learning styles. Actually, I came to know about Multiple Intelligences in 2008 when I was doing M.Phil. It was an interesting topic for me then. Later when I joined as assistant professor in English in 2009, I conducted a workshop on "Multiple Resources for Multiple Intelligences" for school teachers. I demonstrated how different resources like news paper, drama, cartoon stripes, cartons, video, stories, etc can be used to scaffold different learning styles. That was really a wonderful experience.
Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligence theory states that each learner has different intelligences : verbal, Logical, Musical, Visual, Kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Naturalist, and Existential. A language teacher needs to find out his/her learners' intelligences. Their learning style depends on them. So it is necessary. A teacher should try to address different intelligences by including a variety of activities in a single lesson.

I am also eager to learn more about Multiple Intelligences.

M. S. Xavier Pradheep Singh

Teacher Resources Online

This week's readings are thought provocative and action-oriented. This is what I expected in the courses. The online resources listed out in the course page were all wonderful. I would like to comment on each of the resources.

I have been using Google Sites for the past two years. I have just used it as a course site not as a wiki. After participating in this course, I have understood how I can use Google Sites for collaborative learning. Really Google Sites is the best among all wikis. The reason is that you can customize any page in Google Sites. You can modify the appearance, template, theme, layout, fonts, colour, etc. There are four types of pages available: web page, announcement, list, and file cabinet. You can move a page anywhere within the site. Collaboration is the highlight of Google Sites. You can have three sorts of collaborators: owner, editor, and viewer. Recent Site activity gives you access to the changes done by collaborators. You can revert a page to previous edition at any time. Deleted items can be retrieved within 30 days. You can add as many Apps as possible. You can merge a google document, form, you tube video, facebook, google group, etc. I have created a half dozen of Google Sites. Some of them are private which non-collaborators cannot access. Others are public which anyone can view. I have provided the URLs of those sites below:

1) My teaching site for Postgraduate Students at https://sites.google.com/site/pradheepforpg/
2) My department's site which has details regrading syllabus, resources & everything related to our Department at https://sites.google.com/site/englishdepartmentvoccollege/3) An online research journal "Journal of Technology for ELT at https://sites.google.com/site/journaloftechnologyforelt/
4) A site for the Association of English Teachers interested in Technology at https://sites.google.com/site/eltaicomputertechnologysig/5) An information site for the literary magazine which I run at https://sites.google.com/site/cuckoomagazine/

I really love working with Google Sites. After doing this course, I have decided to use Google Sites for collaborative work with my students. This will definitely encourage learner autonomy in classroom.

The next thing I would like to discuss is Google Docs. Google Docs is a wonderful way of organising your documents online. Here too, Collaboration is possible. You can publish the documents online; can download them as pdf; and can attach it in email. I often use Google Form (Spreadsheet) for collecting information. It is a easy way to organise a huge database.

I learnt about Nicenet only during this course. It is entirely new for me but I was very much impressed with its simplicity and user-friendliness. Nicenet retains all discussions. Hence, It will be an easy way to revise or some up any discussion. It will be very helpful for asynchronous discussions for planning a work. Students can learn form other students as well. It will lead to learner autonomy.I have used Hotpotatos several times. It is a wonderful software to create offline quizz: multiple choice, cloze test, crossword etc. We can also upload these quizzes online.

I also tried ANVILL. I think that it is similar to Moodle, a Course Management System or a Learning Management system. I have a moodle site too at www.pradheep.eduspoke.com. But I have not started using it with my students. After this course, I am plannng to use it. It will help students visualise their progress and therefore leads to learner autonomy.

M. S. Xavier Pradheep Singh

A Room of One's Own Learning

Learner autonomy is a buzz word in recent years. It is not giving up teaching and asking students take care of their learning. It is not giving freedom for a learner in the class. It is not learners doing anything in the class. It means that learners must be self directed individuals. They must first of all learn what their learning style is and what their strength and weakness are. After knowing oneself thoroughly as a learner, he / she can take responsibility of one's own learning. So, an autonomous learner knows what he knows and what he needs to know. Metacognitive strategies make him concious of what he learns. He can solve whatever problem he has in his learning.

Learner autonomy solves several problems in a large classroom where both slow learners and bright students study together. A teacher can give them individualised education. Learning will me more of learner centred. But in a learner centred classroom (where we have autonomous learners), teacher's role is crucial. A teacher must be autonomous too. He must have some freedom regarding the lessons he teach. This becomes difficult where the syllabus is framed by someone, materials are prepared by someone else, and evaluation is made by another one. A teacher must have freedom to make choice regarding the learning of his students. I believe that "learner autonomy is a room of one's own learning"

Pradheep

Interactivity in Powerpoint

This week's readings about interactive powerpoint were really interesting. Powerpoint is not a replacement of Blackboard work or paper work. It helps to highlight the essential points and to integrate multimedia - pictures, audio and movie. While making a powerpoint presentation, a teacher should not try to boast his/her skill of creating a powerpoint. One should not use too much animation and should not put too much text on a single slide. Using appropriate background, fonts, colours, images and animation will make the learning better.

I use powerpoint for my classes. Some of them are large classes. I have around 60 students there. So I should make my presentations interactive. Otherwise they will go waste. What I do usually is, I make several groups of three - four students. I would give an incomplete handout to each group. They have to find details from the slides or from my explanations to fill the missing information in the handouts. At the end of the presentation, I will make them exchange their handouts. Each group will make a peer assessment of others' answers.

I make my presentation interactive also by adding the following elements.
1) Immediately after the title slide, i will have some questions for the students to answer. the questions will be from either the previous lesson or the present lesson. This will make them attentive and will also make the presentation interesting.
2) Whenever I show some images, I will ask them to explain the image in the context of the present lesson. So they can make a connection between teh lesson and the images.
3) If I have a video, I will give them some questions before playing the video. So they can watch the video with a specific purpose.

I also learnt a lot of techniques from this week's readings. "Using a blank slide to make students focus on the speaker" was a technique which I did not know. That was quiet interesting. I hope I can make my future powerpoint presentations more interactive.


M. S. Xavier Pradheep Singh

WebQuest and Rubrics

This week I happened to learn things which I have not known: PBL, Webquest and Rubrics. In the beginning of the week, I could not understand what webquests meant. Later, I visited some of the webquest activities created by my classmates and understood the concept. Rubrics were also very interesting. I have learnt to create rubrics for the activities in my classes. I think that PBL, Webquests and Rubrics are similar in their function. They are different from the regular teaching method. I like them very much. Hope to learn new things.

M. S. Xavier Pradheep Singh

Writing with Technology!

Reading and Writing skills are more interesting ones to be taught in the classroom. Because they are so concrete. Students can see what they learn / have learnt and teachers can see discover their teaching has made an impact. Writing is a process of addition. The more we add, the more it becomes sharper. I am very much interested in learning as well as teaching writing skills.

This week's tasks also proved to be effective. Preparing a technology enhanced lesson plan is not an easy task. The lesson must combine computing skills and language skills. I hope to implement technology successfully in my classes.

Delicious

The task & Readings of the week 3 were really helpful. I learnt something new with bookmarking. Earlier I used to save the bookmarks in my browser itself. But I may lose them often, if I format my computer. Now I have found a way out to solve this problem by saving all my bookmarks in Delicious. Isn't it something really delicious???

I also got more ideas about teaching listening skill. I liked the distinction made by Miller between authentic materials and specially tailored text books. I totally agree with Miller in her point that authentic materials prepare learners for real life situations. Hope to learn more from the course!

Describing Versus Complaining

As I was preparing the assignments for Nicenet discussion on 'ABCD Objective' and Project Task - step I, I was contemplating on the classes I teach. Most of the classes I teach are big ones, containing not less than 60 students. I used to complain that "They do not work properly", "They are not interested in learning" etc. But when I ventured on describing the classes for the assignments, I got some insights on the background of the classes: their problems in life and learning, their rural background, their improper primary education, etc. Now I have different ideas about my students. I will no more complain. Rather, I will always try to make them learn what they need.

In Search of Search Engines

When I started using internet in 2002, I did not use any search engine. I typed web addresses and accessed only a limited number of sites. Later in 2003 (if I am right), I started using www.ask.com and then in 2004 www.google.com. Then onwards, Google was my favourite search engine. I have heard of other search engines but never tried them. I thought they too would do the same kind of work which Google did. But the Webskills course, especially the Noodletools, introduced me the uniqueness of each search engine. I was amazed when I used "ISeekEducation". It brought me what Google could not yield. Yet it was not as good as Google. Google will be my all time favourite. But I have learnt that I should different search engines to search the web. I hope my search for search engines will continue till I find something better that Google.

Cartoon Stripes in TESL

In this video, I make a demo of the use of cartoon stripes in teaching English as a second language. It made this presentation in a workshop on "Multiple Resources for Multiple Intelligences" organised by ELTAI (English Language Teachers' Association of India) at our college in Tuticorin on 19th September, 2009. I thank Prof. V. Muthiah who gave me that opportunity though I was the junior most of our department. I also thank my students who took part in this demonstration.