Web Skills 4 Teachers

Week 3 Reflection Post

2012-01-29T23:06:00.000-08:00

At the beginning I have to admit that this week I am not doing good on the course because it was very crowded week for me !

And here is a summary of what I have learn :

1- Bookmarking with Delicious
Delicious.com is a bookmarking tools where it allow us to save the URL for and favorite site that we like to organize and save it for future use also to share this links with our friends if we like to do that.
The site is easy to use and I have create my own account on it at this link:
http://www.delicious.com/nasseraltobi/

2- Oral/Aural Skill Building
First thing I do on this task was reading the article: New Perspectives in Teaching Pronunciation
Then I try practicing the use of lessons and activities on some sites that provide the support and technology to enhance this skills and I like this site : http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/

3- Project Task
On project task this week we have to read an summarize one of the previous project reports don by past Webskills classes.
And I have chose to write about Nadina Nicolici project.
The most thing that attract me on Nadina project that she could be a great example for experience educators who didn't use the webskills on there classroom before and come to fine how did that skills effect there students result.

And here you can find the report of Nadina project: http://umbc.uoregon.edu/eteacher/projects/200903_E-Teacher_Nicolici_Romania_.pdf

Best regards .... to all

Week 2 Reflection post

2012-01-21T19:22:00.000-08:00

Dear All welcome to Week 2 Reflection post for the Webskills online course.
This week start with reading task where we have tow subject to read about:

ABCD model for behavioral objectives

I believe if we want to achieve any success on our life we should have a clear aim with clear and specific objectives and as a teachers if our aim is to be success in our class and achieving the results that we aim with our student we should focus on setting the right specific behavioral objectives.

From Pennsylvania State University's Teaching and Learning office I have read this page which gives the basic overview of the ABCD model and how to write clear objectives:
http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/learningdesign/objectives/writingobjectives/

Also in this presentation shared on http://www.slideshare.net I get a clear Idea on how to use the ABCD model to plan a class with IT goals.

Finally I have read about Classifying Objectives and on this article I get the answer of why should teachers classify objectives?
"Teachers should classify objectives because the type of objectives attempted dictate the selection of instructional methods, media and evaluation used in the lesson."

According to Bloom's Taxonomy the article classify objectives in to three domains : ( cognitive , psychomotor or affective) and after that its go in details about each domain with an examples.

2. Web Searching

With all thanks to Ms Janine for introduce this site for us [www.noodletools.com].
I go through it and it give me a great ideas on how to Choose the Best Search for Your Information Need where it guide the user step by step to fined the best search site for his academic needs.
By browsing this page on the site: (http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/information/5locate/adviceengine.html) you can fined how to analyze your search need.

And as an example I do a research to fined about ABCD model and I set as criteria I am looking for Scheme or any Illustration which summarize the ABCD model for behavioral objectives.

From noodleTools I found three sites that I can use to if "I need a specific type of media..." this sites are:
Google Image Search (http://images.google.com/)
Yahoo Image Search (http://images.search.yahoo.com/)
Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/)

As I go on fast scan through the result of this three search engine I found Google Images Search is the best where it give me better result then Yahoo Image Search on the second. But Flickr didn't bring any result for my search :"ABCD model for behavioral objectives".

Finally on the web searching reading i enjoy reading : The future of search.

3- Project Task 1: Describe your class

1]- The students
English Teachers at Muscat region schools, We have about 900 teacher working in 114 school from 1st class to class 12.
And for my course I will select 20 teacher through the result of survey that i am going to make which will contain some criteria for the students that can participate the course like internet access at there home and school and also the possibility of there student to access the internet.

2]- The Technology
For the survey I am going to use Google Docs to create it and send the link to all the teachers by cooperating with English Department who I talk to them and ask for English teachers emails list.

I have register for one month trial account with ( www.gotomeeting.com )where I am planing to provide an online synchronous training to the teachers who will participate the course.

3]- Project Steps
a- Selecting 4 web tools to train English teachers on how to use them.
b- Providing teachers with tools and tips on how to integrate that web tools in there teaching process.
c- Asking the teachers to select one or more of that tools and prepare a class and writing a report on how is using web tools effecting the result of there teaching.

Week 1 Reflection post.

2012-01-14T00:06:00.000-08:00

It is my first week on "Webskills" online course at University of Oregon.

I can summarize what i have learn this week by the following list:

Learning about the course outline and how to get start on the course by reading the course description and other details on the course web site: Webskills UO.
Learning about Nicnet.org and register on it.
- Nicenet.org is providing a web-based classroom environment where teachers can create courses and start sharing information , discussion and Ideas with there student.
- web-based classroom environment systems also called LMS ( Learning Management Systems) and there is alot of them in the market where some are free like ( Moodle ) and some of them are not free like ( WebCT ) from Blackboard Inc.
- BrandonHall Group is a great company which establish evaluation reports about LMS and other subject that related to e Learning systems.
Learning about wiki and experience the use of them by joining the wiki site created by Ms Janine [https://sites.google.com/site/webskillswikiwinter2012janine]

On the course wiki i learned about Using Google Maps for Classroom Projects and its a useful tools for teaching students specially when it come to encourage them to talk about there places and also talking about other places on the earth.
To know more about what is wiki and what web technology used for it you can access this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
Creating wiki is also an experience that i learn on this week and i found it easy for every one where it is only just required Google account and following the instruction on this site: https://sites.google.com

Creating Blogs
- From my opinion its the most interested thing on the first week of the course and you are reading my reflection blog which I create it to be my weekly reporting journal.
- Creating the blog is very easy process and every one with Google account can create a blog by following the very user friendly web site: www.blogger.com
- Also I have read the article [ http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles/blogging-elt ] and I learn a great tips on how to integrate the use of blog in teaching English class like:
  - Mystery guest.
  - Project work.
  - International link-ups.
  - Photoblog.
Ground Rules for Discussions
- Another important thing that I learn about this week where we discussed Ground Rules: 1st Draft on nicenet.org discussion board.

Welcome

2012-01-12T19:52:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody and welcome to Web Skills 4 Teachers blog.
I have create this blog as a reflection record for my study of the course : Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web
During my study of the course i will post a lot of information about using interactive web tools and how teachers could integrate it within there classrooms. And i am aiming to keep this blog live even after the course will finish.
So please keep following and bookmark the blog URL : http://webskills4teachers.blogspot.com/

And Dont forget to post your comments or any feedback about the blog in general or in any post on it.

Best Regards
Nasser