It’s been a pretty hectic week, quite like we all expected. We submitted our draft reports to our peers. I am working with Shihanath and Naqib.
And this week was also about new online tools. We were introduced to Jeff Magoto, the director of the Yamada Language Center at the University of Oregon and his project ANVILL. ANVILL is a great platform for ESL practitioners as it gives you tools to practice all four skills. There are voice boards, chat forums and audio and video upload facilities and a lot more. You create a course in ANVILL and your problems about getting your students practice all four skills is solved for good.
This week I created a website. Yes a website; for my course “English Program for the Non-academic Staff”. I included class announcements and links to our blogs as well.
Talking about blogging, I created a class blog for the same course too. And I also learnt how to embed a video in the blog. (You will see that I have learnt it really well, just wait till you reach the end of this post!)
Amidst all this, I introduced blogging to the same course mentioned above. It went really well. Most of my students created their blogs and it is the links to their websites that I included in the class website. Google gave some of us a hard time as it was difficult for some to create gmail accounts but we helped each other and it went really well.
It’s been a tough week but now looking back I feel I have learnt and achieved a lot.
Week 09 will be all about final project submission and before that I think we all deserve a good rest!
And here is my treat! Enjoy!
Dear Umesha
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy your posts and reflections. You seem to be a very experienced and dedicated teacher.
Like you I feel this sense of achievement after I succeeded in creating a course website as part of this week's task. I feel I achieved a big thing today because I have always wanted to offer some part of the courses I teach online. The benefits for doing this are many; encouraging learner autonomy, continuous contact with the students, providing additional materials on the course and what have you.
Congratulations on learning embedding a video in your blog. How do you do that? I have not learned this so far.
Kind regards!
Hi Abed,
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for your comment.
Embedding video is not difficult. Robert gave this link in this week's discussion and it clearly expalins how to do it.
http://bloggerfordummies.blogspot.com/2008/05/embed-youtube-video-in-blog-post.html.
As you said these new tools help us take our classes to a whole new level.
It's simply amazing!
Best
Umesha
Hi Abed
ReplyDeleteIt is a nice video, but how will you apply it?
improving vocabulary? or listening skill?
Regards
Ava Norton
Hi Umesha
ReplyDeleteI mixed up your name, sorry.
It is a nice video, but how will you apply it?
improving vocabulary? or listening skill?
Regards
Ava Norton