Reflection unit 4

Reflection 

Well what can I say about this unit, here we were trying to develop an online course, I could feel how hard teachers have to work to design all the info that they are going to present to their class, and we were just presenting some activities not the whole course. I really like it, I was excited.

Summarizing and Waving "unit 3 activity 3"

Weaving and summarizing

We think that the e-tutor should provide guidance and clear data to produce an effective communication all dough, interactions and opinions developed for the activities, should be taken in consideration not only for quantity, but most important the quality of the participation on each assignment the Ss can be encourage to work hard and developed the correct criteria by motivating them.

Prompting Students "unit 3 activity 3"

What should I do so that they don't always look to me to be the expert?

Give them links or references where they can find the answer to their questions instead of giving them the answer, let them work. Or we can ask them to post their answer to certain question, once they discussed it, give them the answer.

Unit Reflection "unit 3 activity 5"

I really like what I was doing when developing all these activities, it made me think about all the things we have to do when teaching online, for me it is even more harder than teaching in classrooms. I think that what we’ve done is going to be very useful for us, what I really like is when teacher asked us about an appropriate actions for the squirrel, the stag and the magpie. What I’ve learned is that we as future teachers have to find ways to encourage our online students to participate and to be more autonomous.

I think the way teacher Rocio is working this unit is the way it should be, I like it.

Feedback "Unit 3 Activity 4"

 Personal development plan

Development needs: to achieve building on contributions of others

Development objective: to encourage them to read their e-mates comments

Strategy: to encourage their e-mates

Actions: 

* Offer as much as 20% of the overall grade for participation

* Give them extra points when their contribution is meaningful

* contact participants if they have not made a contribution for 5 days

assessment "Unit # Activity 4"

How would you assess it?  Post your assessment criteria under the sequence “evaluación.

Unit 1 activity 3

“Now we would read  Sanchez, A. Regla, I. (2003) La Educación a Distancia. ACIMED 11 (1). Available in  http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00001823/ . Identify the differences between tradicional education (classroom) and distance education. Post a comment about these differences you found in the Foro of unit 1 in the sequence traditional vs. distance education.

Product:  a comment. You might post a comment on your classmates´ postings.

The instructor will post a general comment at the end of the foro”.

I would evaluate the quality of contribution that reflects understanding of the information by giving meaningful comments, where they identify the differences between traditional education and distance education, instead of evaluating the number or the size of their comments.

Summarise:  Decide on the 5 criteria you feel are most important, and why. Post your list and justification

1.     Contribution to the theme we are discussing

2.     They were involved in the discussion, by presenting their aguments and commenting on their e-mates comments

3.     The quality of their comments, if they were meaningful

4.     They were publishing the task on time

5.     And the quantity, depending on the e-tivity  

Sharing Information "Unit 3 Activity 3"

COMMETS ON 2 TECHNIQUES

BRAINSTORMS:

I really like this technique because easy to understand and it is not a complicated technique, if controlled properly it is a quick way to generate ideas, our students don't have to be a highly qualified expert in the theme discussed.

BUZZ GROUPS:

This is good because it promote an exchange of ideas, with it we can explore areas if a complex subject, this is a good technique if our time is limited, but it would be better if we keep the buzz groups small.

ANOTHER TECHNIQUE THAT COULD BE USED ONLINE

COOPERATIVE LEARNING:

With cooperative learning, students are put in small groups to work together. They are usually not grouped by ability, but put in a group with students at a variety of level. The students are then given task to accomplish.

This would work because we can get to know everybody and share with him/her our ideas, and also we can be helping each other, that's because we are not going to choose our partner.

Stating Objectives "unit 3 activity 3"

How could you improve on those you feel are not satisfactory?

I would improve them as follow

1.     “as you have noticed there have been many earthquakes all over the world”

 Did you see what is in bold and underlined? Well that's what we call present perfect tense.  Do you want to learn what is the rule to create this tense? Join us and we’ll discuss the structure and then do some fun activities.

2.     I wouldn’t chance anything from this example

3.     If you have found yourself in trouble because you don’t know how to order in any restaurant because your English is not that good? Here we are. In this lesson , you’ll find specific information on a website and you’ll practice vocabulary about food and nutrition.

An example of my own for a possible future conference

(A grammar problem conference)

Where is my sister? What are you doing? Who are you? Why not? When was it? Have you ever ask yourself those questions.

That's exactly what this unit is about “WH question”. During the program we’ll be discussing when and how we can use them. Afterwards we’ll have some fun activities. If you join us, you will not regret it.

unit 3 activity 2 "What Would You Say"

Can you think of appropriate actions for the squirrel, the stag, and the magpie?

Squirrel: congratulate for the effort that he/she is putting into the assignments and at the same time encourage to do it one step at a time, so he/she can see his/her peers comments and get benefit from them

Stag: encourage the to continue with that attitude, but let them know that is important to listen their peers’ thoughts, and that their peers also want to voice their thoughts and are as important as theirs’

Magpie: ask the person if he/she feels confident in the language. But if the person does let them the importance of come up with their own ideas, and make them aware that if he/she doesn’t work he is not going to be benefited at all from all the info being discussed.

How would you respond to him as an e-Tutor?

I agreed with you that each person has his own learning stile but could you be more specific? What is a learner type? I’m afraid that what you said is not the answer.

unit 3 activity 1 "The changing Model of Teaching and Learning"

 It has been hard to be an independent learner, the fact that I didn't post this assignment on time is because of it. I’m trying to learn this skill, and I think that as teachers we have to have it first so we can transmit that to our student.

And as we know everything is changing nowadays, before the students’ opinions wasn’t important , the only thing that matter was the teachers’. But with all these changes we as future teachers have to take into considerations our students’ needs, worries, etc.

And so in order them to face this new era we have to give them the necessary tools. If now we are attending schools, and the things, methods, techniques that we are learning are not going to be the same in 5 years, so if we have to be prepare now, so do they. And one important learning skill that they have to be taught is to be independent. We have to teach them how to look for trustworthy information, what places can they go and where not to go, make them love to read, learn to share when they find something that can be very helpful to their peers. Make them aware of the importance of being working shoulder to shoulder.

Reflection unit 2

Reflection 

We’ve learned what does distance education mean, where the students are the most important participants, and where we have to be autonomous in some areas of our learning, but in some others we might need help.

We also see some of the emoticons used by the majority of us, and how we can express feelings, attitude, etc.

We also had the opportunity of plan an online course and its principles. And how we as teachers have to think in our students how they are going to react with the activities that we are providing.

E-tivity "unit 2 activity 6"

Creating an E-Tivity



Topic: funky phrasals
Grammatical Item:phrasal Verbs
Type of e-learning: In pairs, interactive students can practice
each other.
Purpose: the purpose of this e-tivity is to help student to identify the function of the funky phrasals by broke down in two parts listening and reading, Student can improve or can grow their vocabulary and conversation skills.
Spark: People who likes English language will feel motivated because the topic is related with real life interest. Mainly the subject is fun for the students.
Evaluation: the teacher will send the feedback and final grade


Name of e-tivity Funky phrasals
Purpose
Listening and reading
Identify and practice the use of the informal way of to express real life situations to make students feel more natural when speaking.
.to get ahead
. to get on

Spark The interest of knowing the way to use English in natural informal way and express ideas as well to know peoples customs.

How many participants? In pairs, no more than two.

Structure:
Include individual response, participant responses to each other, group work. The Student has to answer in time and in an efficient way.

E-lapsed time needed (be generous) 30 minutes
E-tutor’s time (be generous) 20 minutes
E-tutor actions 5 minutes
Participant time 20 minutes
Participant actions Participants have to work down load the examples as well, in a chat room and give each other feedback.
How evaluated? By a test trying a quiz after the exercise or topic.
Accuracy and punctuality
Teacher will send the feedback when the student has finish the exercise
The students can practice and then send final answers.
Test can include the following:feel the gaps, mark the correct answer,
Or some definitions.
Correct answers and final grade will be sending by the teacher.


Accuracy and punctuality.
Teacher will send the feedback when the student had finish the exercise, s/he can check the answers by the following:
1. Mark wrong answers
2. Replace wrong by correct answers
3. Show all correct answers
4. All this corrections may be also send by the teacher via e – mail
5. Teacher can provide other pages so Ss can practice the topic they saw any time.

Reaction to Spark "unit 2 activity 6"

Reaction to Spark


What we think from this information. Is that reflecting on the things that we have made is an important aspect of our life, because by doing it we can come up with some solution to the problems that we might have in our life, and also we can expand our knowledge.






base on this reading

Reflections and ripples on your pond

The word’reflection means to bend or tum backwards. Of course, it is commonly used to mean the reflection of light against an object such as a mirror. Sometimes reflection provides amazing and beautiful images, such as trees in a river, mountains in a lake, clouds on the ocean. Sometimes these are clear; sometimes they appear to be dynamic and rippling in the water.

In human terms, this means reflecting oneself, on other people, as if viewed through a looking glass. Revisiting images of a time past, such as pictures of childhood events, often offers new insights. Reflection of this kind has always been thought of as important to learning and development.

Now some people think that reviewing our own, and other people’s thoughts and ideas written in messages and on a computer screen provides a kind of image, ripe for reflecting. And sometimes what we ‘see’ is a little different or even surprising!

We believe it is valuable to provide opportunity for our participants to reflect, and to share and discuss their reflections. Our own ideas can be confirmed as others acknowledge our contributions or make similar ones. New ideas can be explored as others suggest to us fresh lines of approach. By sharing, we can find kindred spirits to communicate with later about further issues as they arise. We expand our knowledge, grow more confident and build our networks.   (Salmon 2000)

completion of table "unit 2 activity 6"

completion of table

Principals for an e-tivity "unit 2 activity 6"

E-tivity's principals

1. Decide in advance what the teacher is expecting from the students to do and what the tutor or e-moderator will do.
2. Make sure that they understood what you are expecting from the e-tivity.
3. The evaluation or assessment has to meet the purpose of the e-tivity.
4. Provide e-tivites that motivates your students instead of just motivate them to simply log-on.
5. Set short-term goals and make sure that there’s a flow of actions.
6. Divide the e-tivity up into chunks.
7. Make sure that the e-tivities are focused on sharing, elaborating or deepening understanding
8. Let them work in teams to achieve the learning outcomes. 

Electronic pages "unit 2 activity 5"

Description of learning environment

So far I have worked with Blackboard, I think that it is easy to use and well organize, it depends on the teacher though.  Cause I have taken some subjects with another teacher, and he was not leading the students correctly, or like it supposed to be done.

And it needs a discussion forums, e-mail, and folder for the reading material, system evaluation, and bulleting board, goals, calendar, grades, course information.

Plan to develop an online course "unit 2 activity 4"

Plan to build my online course

1. Documents to include

·      Letter of welcome for each new student

·      General info. About online learning, technology requirements, and the resources available to students for technical help and for obtaining the proper software ad internet services required for the course

·      Information about how to access the course on the we, and how to navigate it successfully

·      Students log-in and password information for course web site

·      Rules procedures, and help for use the interactive tools

·      A course syllabus- preferably on public pages so that prospective students can see what they are getting into advance- including tutor contact information

·      A course overview, schedule

·      Instructions about activities, assignments and deadlines

2. Learning objects

·      Electronic mail

·      Discussion board

·      Chat utilities

·      Instant messaging

·      Video games

·      Quizzes

·      Self grading

·      Synchronous audio

Electronic communication, emoticons and E-tiquette "unit 2 activity 3"

A)ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION

Which mode of electronic communication will be most important to me as an e-tutor?

For me it’ll be better “one to one” because we can know how our student is progressing how our student is learning and we can have a complete record of how he/she is doing in the learning process, though it could be a little bit difficult for the ones that don’t have to much time available due this offers little flexibility in terms of time.

B) EMOTICONS

1. Emoticons that I commonly  use

:-p = Just kidding          :-) = happy       :-( = sad           XD = happy

2.                               2  A frustrating difficulty you have been having with CMC

I really hate the fact that since I wasn’t impose to this kind of learning, I usually forget the dates when I have to post some activities, thas when responsability comes into play. :-p

C) E-TIQUETTE

Criticism for the mail

1.     He is talking about more than one topic.

2.     He didn’t put any title on it.

3.     He didn’t address the matter in a calm manner.

Criticism for the posting

1.     Misspelling

2.     Inappropriate comments

3.     Is confusing

explaining the model "unit 2 activity 2"

Theory and Practice of Online Learning

This model talks about two ways of learning where the first one being a distance education “E-learning” but teachers and students are the most important participants and they have to be interacting each other either synchronized or unsynchronized, and it can be through computer conferences, chats, etc. this method helps students to have a personal developments between participants.

On the contrary independent student may use computer tutorials, drills and simulations, but they are not help by any teacher, but colleagues, family members and friends are the ones helping them to acquire the knowledge.

I think that we have to combine both, because we have to be autonomous in some areas of our learning, but in some others we might need help and there is when teacher’s help comes into play.  

T. & Elloumi, F. (2004). Theory and Practice of Online Learning (pages 48-52)

concepts of distance education "unit 2, activity 1"

DISTANCE LEARNING DEFINITIONS

1 "The acquisition of knowledge and skills through mediated information and instruction, encompassing all technologies and other forms of learning at a distance."

USDLA

2 “Distance education is planned learning that normally occurs in a different place from teaching and as a result requires special techniques of course design, special instructional techniques, special methods of communication by electronic and other technology, as well as special organizational and administrative arrangements"

by Greg Kearsley (1996)

3 “The process of extending learning, or delivering instructional resource-sharing opportunities, to locations away from a classroom, building or site, to another classroom, building or site by using video, audio, computer, multimedia communications, or some combination of these with other traditional delivery methods." The ITC definition http://www.uwex.edu/disted/definition.cfm

REFLECTION UNIT 1

what I liked from this unit is that we could understand the pros and cons of either TRADITIONAL or DISTANCE education, and their importance,  I believe that we as future teachers we have to understand very well what a distance education is, because as we have been noticing everything point to one thing "distance education is the future school"

Traditional Education

Traditional education as the majority of us know is where we are instructed inside the classroom and there’s no flexibility you got to be on time you have to attend your course at least 80 %  out of 100% and where the teacher is the one cheering us up, if you do not do your homework he is there always pushing you, and some times the lack of equipment makes it difficult to transmit the information. But if you do not understand the information, and if the teacher knows the answer, it’ll be answer right there.

On the contrary Distance education has a lot of benefit from my point of view, we don't have to attend the school, our personal advancement is going to be autonomous, we are available all the time, it allows us to work full time, though some times if we have some doubts regarding any subject we have to wait until the teacher answers it. It is cheaper and has the same value as the traditional education. 

Distance Education

Distance education means learn without worrying about what time is it. Without worrying about getting late to the classroom, because the teacher is not going to let us in, or how many classmates we are going to have, means have a full time job and study at the same time 'cause it is flexible, we can learn at our own pace, in other words we have to be autonomus.

acording with the reading that we did from "Lorenzo Garcia Areito"