Week 10 - The Wonders of Technology

This final week seemed to pass very fast, especially when there was less pressure in managing its tasks which were easier in comparison with previous ones. I feel some relief  as a result of the work I did as part of the course and at the same time  I’m sad as I suppose I’ll miss discussions on Nicenet, reading and learning from my colleagues all over the world. It has been like an international exchange for me with many creative ideas, useful tips and great resources.

Through this course I acquired a lot of knowledge and skills related to integration of technologies into classroom. I like all topics brought up by our instructors Jodi and Sherie because I found in all of them something interesting for me, possibly appealing to my students and essential to enhance their language skills. Each opportunity including blog, skill-building websites, Delicious.com, PBL, WebQuests, rubrics, interactive PowerPoint, Nicenet, ANVILL, Google Sites, online exercises and many others is valuable for me because I familiarized myself with them, had experience trying many of them. I’d like to create a class blog or have my students create their blogs, organize discussions on Nicenet for them. I will definitely include online exercises into my lesson plans as they can be used online and offline. I also want to use PowerPoint presentations to introduce new topics to my students. In order to consolidate students’ knowledge of a broad topic and enhance their research and problem solving skills I'll try to create a WebQuest, this could be implemented as an extracurricular activity at any time during the academic year if there is lack of time due to my or the students’ busy schedule.

Of course, I’ll continue to explore the web’s opportunities to vary my lessons with technology resources appropriate to my students’ needs and share my ideas and skills gained during the course with other teachers. I hope all of us will work wonders with our students, while incorporating technology into classroom.

Thank you very much my dear teachers, Jodi and Sherie, for your guidance, advice, encouragement and hard work over ten weeks. I also appreciate my colleagues’ helpful suggestions and support and wish them all the best. 

Week 9 - Various Ways of Learning

Besides finishing my project, this week I studied learning styles which was the topic for discussion on Nicenet. I like articles for reading suggested by our course teachers. I took a great pleasure in reading most of them. There are so many ideas that were new to me and I consider them important and useful for my teaching practice. I familiarized myself with some learning styles that I haven’t known before. Thus I can describe the majority of my students as verbal, visual, interpersonal and intrapersonal learners. So to achieve effective results in teaching and learning, I should try to match my teaching techniques with these learning styles. The use of technology can facilitate learning in many ways. It offers many opportunities to cater to each student needs. I highly appreciate charts made by Hassan and Vijay as they will be helpful in finding the most suitable learning activity for the students. However as a person can possess several learning intelligences, the teacher should try to develop as many learning styles of each student as possible not inclining to deal with one or two learning styles so that students don’t experience difficulties in overcoming problems related to acquisition of knowledge and skills in their future life and career.


I’m very grateful to our teachers, Jodi and Sherie, who introduced me and my colleagues to a great diversity of valuable tools and resources. I will continue to explore web’s opportunities and use resources for teachers and students to give a special flavor to my lessons, keep my students interested in them and turn learning into a fun and interesting activity. 

Week 8 - A Challenging Week

I can’t believe that this week is over now. It was so busy and hard (especially for me with the frequent lack of electricity and when I managed that problem, there appeared another one, i.e., the internet connection at home was lost), at the same time the most fruitful in terms of gaining a lot through getting acquainted with ANVILL, discussions, project reports and tasks.

I like all the resources suggested for learning during this week. Among them the most unusual and new for me was ANVILL. I'm sad that I couldn't take part in webinar, but maybe next time I'll have a chance to participate in such kind of discussion. I think in order to use it properly and efficiently both teacher and students should have not only good computer skills, but also other technology related skills (working with webcam, making short video slides, etc.). Nevertheless I enjoyed looking through its opportunities and activities. They can so enrich students’ learning process if used in the appropriate way. You can record and even make a short video and upload it, that’s great!

Although I was late with my project report I managed to do it, so I’m glad. Then I did the peer review of my partners’ project reports. I hope that they won’t find my comments too critical. I wish them all the best, that’s why I tried to show them their weak points so that they would improve them.

I also posted my webquest on the wiki. I didn’t do this earlier because it needed some images to find and put on it.

And the last thing I did this week was creating interesting exercises through Hot Potatoes. It is also a great device to create your own exercises that will enhance students’ language skills by engaging them in funny and amusing activities. There are so many possibilities to teach and learn through the Internet that I wonder why some teachers are reluctant to spend their time and efforts on such valuable tool like computer and the Internet to achieve their goals in teaching. Otherwise, they and their students could benefit a lot from technology. I believe that using all tools and exercises presented on the course site will lead my students to better learning and high level of English knowledge. At least I hope so.