Survey

I am going on practicing the teachings of our webcourse...

As I noted before, my students came together and wrote their webquest final product in the classroom. This happened last Friday.

I am now working on the last touches. Yesterday, I sent a 10-item- questionnaire to my students through Surveymonkey, today a few responses have come. Out of six students, 5 of them checked the option questioning the effectivity of webtools in increasing motivation as agree and strongly agree, which is a desired attitude.

Next week, fall term is closing and I am planning to administer an open-ended questionnaire in Turkish this time. SurveyMonkey is an effective tool, but limiting the survey with 10 questions leaves lots of blanks between the lines . Therefore, I intend to fill in those blanks with a set of open-ended questions investigating the strengths and weaknesses of the course, materials and the interactive webtools employed.

Autonomous Learners ???

Today....
I asked my students what they would think about an opportunity to increase their course grade- the class average is really low and I want them to improve that.This is an elective course and a failing grade is not something desired -
The class was full of murmuring, some asked if I was planning to assign an easy task, or give a simple quiz or else.I told them my intention was to administer a vocabulary quiz which would take up 15-20 % of the general grade.This time some even dared to say "why don't we decide after seeing the quiz results ????"
-I was going to prepare an exam for 41 students, copy them, distribute them, grade them and then if they didn't feel satisfied.....I was not going to do anything but put them away !!!
Then one of them said "Teacher please don't ask but do what you think is good for us"
It was the moment I remembered what I had forgotten in search of encouraging learner autonomy : I was the authority; noone but only I (!!)..... was able to decide for them better than themselves. How could they know what was good for them ???
I love my job :)

PROMISES

I remember promising to write here regularly and keep the track of things I am doing in my classes.However, after the course finished, unfortunately, I didn't feel intrinsically motivated to even visit the site.Today I am here to keep my promise.
What have I been doing since the course finished?
I have finished checking the exam papers and uploaded the grades into the system. It's worth mentioning here because the otomotion system is going through its infancy in my institution and it's been a hard job to download the system and create all the classes I teach and distribute the students, finally entering their grades. Thanks to our webcourse, I have improved my IT skills now :) I was able to do them all with no further assistance :)
I was plannnig to assign a webquest task to my students, and I have already initiated it. Next Friday, my students will gather in the class and with all their notes and printed out materials, sit together and write their articles.I changed the final product into an in-class activity since there was no time for drafting and I didn't just want to be given perfectly written articles at the end. At least, as a class activity I will be able to see how seriously they take it; they will also be able to share their ideas and even help each other. I don't want it to be a frightening writing experience. Instead, I want it to be an enjoyable learning experience.
There is a saying after all "learning is what is left after we forget what we are taught at school" :)

WEEK 10

This week's post is to evaluate our course details...There are some question to lead the way towards better evaluation.

What topics were most successful?

It is really hard for me to rank the topics we have covered as I have benefited from all almost equally. But I can say Online Tools for Enhancing Learning and Learning Styles and Technology were the ones that may go to the first place. The discussions about learning styles especially caused some new ideas, and research topics to flourish in my mind, which I find very exciting.

Which tools will you use in your classes?

I will definitely use virtual classes like Nicenet, Wikispaces and hopefully Anvill.

Webquests and interactive exercise maker Hot Potatoes are already among my favorites.

I need to improve myself in interactive powerpoint presentations. They are no doubt one of the best learning facilitators.

I have been a blogger for three years. I am planning to use it for educational purposes from now on.

What other tools might we have covered or would you suggest that we could have looked at?

Actually, as this is my first time I have been exposed to such technological, interactive, online tools I cannot recommend any other tools.

It's been so motivating to reflect on my own learning in this course. The experience has helped me better understand myself as a learner and teacher respectively.

Thanks a lot Donna for providing such a task, and my colleagues for sharing this journey with me and making it more meaningful.

this is not a goodbye note for me . I am planning to keep this site to share my future teaching experiences and technological implications with you and some others out there who might find this blog interesting.

Wishing the Best to all of you.

Sebnem

Week 9

It is hard to believe but there is just one week left for our course to finish.Time really flies, especially if you're dealing with something you mostly enjoy. Now .... Just a mixture of feelings... as we always have in the eve of all good-byes...

Week 9 has been the least demanding week for me as I was almost done with my project report last week. So I was able to concentrate on last-minute details, spelling and some other mechanics of it with no rush.

In fact, this week's discussion topic is one of the most interesting of all we have covered so far for me since I always find Gardner's way of classfying intelligences as something which brought fairness and rightness to the land of education, thinking all those poor students smashed under the wheels of the traditional tyranny of the IQ.

The Road Not Taken

I remembered this poem while adding some details to my report and thinking about "change" , aiming to put change in practice is like choosing the "less travelled road", I think, by challenging the established systems in our institutions, and in our own teaching we all choose that less travelled road. then the poem is for all courageous hearts. wishing you all the best sebnem "Road at Chantilly" by Paul Cézanne

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that, the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Copyright © 1962, 1967, 1970 by Leslie Frost Ballantine.

Week 8

Not surprisingly, I have found this week rather demanding. We're nearing the end of the course and busy with giving our project reports their final form. Peer reviews are absolutely alleviating the problems related to our projects. I can't express how thankful I am to Dragana and Chandy for their valuable recommendations and also modelling with their own reports. Most of my concerns have disappeared, and my misunderstandings clarified.

As for the task of this week, I have prepared an interactive multiple-choice test by using hotpotatoes and I just loved it. Becuase such a task is new for me I had to spend minutes on even the simplist detail but the final product made me forget how I suffered :)

All these online tools and Anvill are just amazing and mesmerizing. I wish I could manage to employ them skillfully soon and add variety into my classes, increase student motivation and foster learner autonomy.

Bye for now

and wish you luck with your project reports