Reflecting on another group voice thread activity

I will be reflecting on Group one "smoking"

I really liked this activity,but if i want to make any change will ask the students to not comment on each other about the smoking topic itself rather than the grammar and sentence structure correction.
then when when they fix all the grammar issues , i will ask them to   send them a comment to help them think further about the topic of smoking and death.
the group members did not talk about assessment,even though this is how i suggest the assessment to be i ask the students to get together using a synchronous tool and record a dialogue between 2 students talking about the target culture and the students culture differences and post that recording on tweeter again.

Working Remotely In Groups

One of the challenges I faced in this course with my 2 group members was is finding the convenient time for all of us to hangout, it was definitely better  for all of us to get together to work on the activity required for the course rather than assign each of us a part and work individually for back and forth discussion. Even though  we all tried our best to find the right time.

What I really like about working in groups remotely is that the work will be done even if not every body is available where students will work responsibly and collaboratively to help each other to finish the work required nicely for the best of them as a small community, modeling for the future career as well as student centered learning.

It was very challenging the dos for this course Yammer, listen to the webinar, do quizzes, post blogs 

Read, and hangout, I did not expected that I will be jumping between assignment tell the end of the course. The best part was the hangout and the comment we left for other student on yammer.

That was very encouraging and fun, I felt the pain of students but I also know that if I do not do it, I will not be able to  develop any (DL ) activity  or teaching online later.

This course will be the model for my future teaching experience, I will develop my lessons based on videos, I will use Google Doc, create group project, my student  will use google + for blog, I will considers the  blog as an assessment where student will put everything they learned together in a blog with check for learning for objective they learn for each lesson as a formative assessment.

I see the benefit of learning online as I am going with the course.

The three modes of communication between consideration and practice

In the time of changing the way of teaching and the new curriculum we are responsible to create, it is really hard to apply what we are learning in our professional development meetings or the other development we do on our own, not because of the difficulties of the way of teaching change, but because of the time needed to prepare. However, when i plan my lesson after choosing the theme and the subtopics, i usually think of the assessment considering the three modes of communication that i want to assess my students with, i create three types of assessment interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational.
All my focus on my teaching is to students able to interact , negotiate, understand, analyze, explain and narrate on a variety of topics providing them with appropriate videos and technology applications to be in the same track with the 21 century learners.

What i find interesting about distance learning environment in teaching the three modes of communication is that being a great step of student -led learning environment, where i design the lesson the way i want and step back leaving everything to these students figuring out their way in the language and culture by collaborating in research for the correct answer, where they build their own understanding exposing them to the more resources in the target language and culture . In addition to the interesting of the various videos that you tube, face book, twitter and the other social media means provide,  the real picture of the life in the target region, open their eyes to the different cultural perspectives, connecting between the actions and the reactions in the culture studied, thinking critically and finding a creative solutions by their own.

 despite of my new teaching style i am try to apply either in my physical class or in my future online class, i still think that teaching the three modes of communication needs more preparation time than in  the physical classroom just because of looking for new resources.



 

 

The value of connecting with other teachers

Connecting with other teachers all come with the benefit of learning new ways and best way to teach in virtual environment, where every teacher can share best practices, review those practices add to them or make the changes to even make them better for implementation.It is a great tools to compare the knowledge we have now with what we will have in 2 or 3 years.
In addition to that is creating a life time learning environment, where students meet, learn , socialize by recording every comment or file through
I am not using any of these platform now,however i have asked my students to use Pinterest to use it as a great resource for their project.In addition to use Google + now with the my classroad team.
 I will use Google + in the future with my students, because as i am using it right now and discovering it and starting to experience how to fit my synchronous and asynchronous activities i can create and my student can enjoy learning through Google+, with all the features Google+ provide like google doc which can be shared, edited. google hangout where we can meet and share documents , discuss ideas.

 When we talk about PLN, i can name the group i am working with my PLN, because i think that we are going to keep on contacting each other even after the class ends.
Through Yammer, i also can join other PLN since we all share activities and research result and receive those fun badgets, being exposed to different people with different experience is a great idea which help me to fulfill my goals for this course and the coming online teaching experience.

Reflection in the first hangout with my classroad group

Hello everyone,

We held a hangout with my group members Ms. Marcia, Ms. Anahid, on Wednesday 4/2/14 from 7:30 to 9:00 EST.

It was pleasure to meet new people with new experiences, talking about blended learning education considering pedagogical, logistic, and feasibility issues.

The hangout went smoothly for the period of time we were together. It started with some technical difficulties with Ms Marcia were she called Ms.Anahid on the phone then i was told to send Ms. Marcia the invitation to join the hangout.  after that everything went great!
when it comes to the interesting thing i learned was the difference between synchronous and asynchronous activities for the online class, i got to know more about these two terms and activities.
we were talking about the the differences between the black board and the friendly environment ( Edmodo), it is an interacting environment between the students and teachers, in addition to the activities we can apply to utilize all the features in that website.

I noticed that in my teaching process in the HS, i am using some kind of blended education, but i might need to ask my students to all join  circle through Google+ where they will be able to engaged on more kind of discussion board design, when it comes to upload videos,sharing and collaborating together for the group work and reflect on each other work.

Thank you for giving us the chance to learn and share some of our best practices through the online course.

 

Greatings

Hello everyone,

This is Rana Nasser learning about online language teaching.

I am very happy to be here and looking forward to seeing you soon.

Regards