Final learning statement

Final learning statement 

Week 15: Enhance assessment with the help of technology

(How to use technology to provide feedback)

Enhance assessment with the help of technology

This week was about the article "How to use technology to provide feedback" It involves suggestions and provision of comments to enable learners  to make their own revisions as a dialogue ,and also it helps to gain new understanding of the topic or their homework assigments without dictating. The impact of technology helps to be more interactive and easy at the same time. Many teachers use technological programs such as, JING, ScreenR and Screen_cast_o_matic to asses students via virtual learning environment .It enables learners to take responsibility for organizing their own learning; also, this facilitates which elements of assessment fit together and why they are relevant and valuable by giving clear on how students can improve their work including signposting the most important areas to address.

Something I learned and that I immediately wanted to share with my colleagues was useful and easy it could be provide feedback through technology. This promotes the ability to manage own personal response to feedback, personal adjustment, develop students' autonomy, enhance communication and interpersonal skills, and enable a sense of self-control.

As teachers, we have to know what helps the development of metacognition by enabling students to engage in their own learning to know which learning, teaching, and assessment strategies work best for them; as a result of this we can adapt strategies to develop their skills. Technology facilitates this type of assessment or feedback is easy to use, interactive, and useful in distance learning, save time for the teacher and students.

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Week 14: Active learning through interactive classroom

(10 Benefits of Getting Students to Participate in Classroom Discussions and Think-pair-share)

 Active learning through interactive classroom

The readings for this week share interesting information about interactive English classrooms. This is a learning strategy in which students develop many skills that focus on the student’s needs such as, motivation, communicative skills, team work, initiative, self-esteem, cooperation and solidarity, and also respect towards diversity.

The articles "10 Benefits of Getting Students to Participate in Classroom Discussions" and "Think-pair-share" explain how to increase students’ interactions into the classroom and motivate them to be creative, to participate and to encourage critical thinking. These competencies will permit learner to be more confident about what they have learned and to encourage critical thinking. These competencies will permit learner to be more confident about what they have learned and show their understanding without fear of being wrong. Also, it fosters students to become autonomous in their own learning process. Moreover, in the second article "Think-pair-share" I learned how to apply smart strategies to promote those competencies like a "circle chat" this activity generates a fun and an interactive classroom environment. I think these are useful ideas to get students involved in the lesson and engage their interest and enable student free meaningful learning. To sum up, through interactions, students can increase their language repertoire as they listen to or read authentic linguistic material.

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week 12: PBL as a great teaching method

(Seven Essentials for Project-Based Learningand Benefits of project work)

PBL as a great teaching method

Something that called my attention in this week was about Project -based learning (PBL). I found interesting information that I immediately wanted to share with a colleague was the benefits to implement this type of learning method. PBL offers flexibility when planning content and create opportunities, interactions and learning new skills.

The purpose of this method is to provide structures in which students will demonstrate mastery of a subject by creating, and also presenting a research- based project. This can allow students to foster their interest in a topic. Moreover, Project-based learning can assess the students' knowledge of concept , content and skills .PBL also allow learners to develop critical thinking , improved their language , increase metacognitive awareness , decision-making abilities, improve students' attention of the class , students' motivation , improved their social skills , and a familiarity with the target language resources.

Finally, projects are a dynamic way to help students to show their understanding. Teachers can implement in their lesson some activities that create a meaningful learning such as, driving questions, student’s voice and choice and inquiry and innovation. As a conclusion, educators can design final products to ensure success for all students by creating multiple opportunities for students to interact with their ideas.

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Week 11: The mobile generation

(Mobile assisted language learning)

The mobile generation

The article for this week entitled "Mobile assisted language learning" has a lot of interesting things that i want to take a count in my future classes ,and apply in my lesson plans to be more effective , dynamic and meaningful the learning process.

Something that made me want to read more about was how smart devices (cellphones, ipad, ipod, laptop) allow to test students in a more creative and interactive way. First, videos, applications, songs, games and social networks can be used to test learners by giving them a worksheet in which they can complete exercises related to a specific task. Also, this type of activity gets students' attention, and makes them focus on the lesson. Moreover, it develops students’ skills like a listening, writing comprehension, speaking and reading. Video games are used by students to practice any topic .As a consequence, learners tend to be more excited to learn and less worried when taking a test. To conclude, electronic devices make of the process of learning a more enjoyable and less complex, and also foster a more democratic atmosphere, more environmentally friendly than paper, a more inclusive classroom, and it offers an opportunity to educate students about media use tests.

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week 10: The use of Wikis

(Online collaborative writing using wikis)

The use of Wikis

Something i learned from this article and that every teacher should know is the use of Wikis to promote writing skill as a collaborative online activity. As we know this writing skill plays a larger part in our life than we may realize, so that in the reading for this week i could find two main areas that Wiki encourages to develop writing skill.

Firstly, Students actively engaged in various of learning-related interactions using the platform that extended to more meaningful offline interactions. Also, they can learn from each other, and students are able to contribute of what they are learned by sharing their findings and receiving feedback; as a result, this can have a huge impact in the learners' confident.

Secondly, student develops internet search skills and critical inquiring abilities. Students are able to apply their knowledge in the task, and they gain experience in self-assessment and peer assessment .Moreover, this website called wiki offers teachers to give suggestions at any time and at any place, and also teacher can follow students' work.

To conclude, as a future educators we should take account to apply different methods to make use of Wikis in order to facilitate more interactions among students and teachers.

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Week 8: Teaching vocabulary through technology

(Using technology to assist in vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension )

( Online English -English dictionaries boost word learning)

        

Teaching vocabulary through technology

This week i had the opportunity to read two articles about how technology helps to teach vocabulary. As Tozco and Coady observe, teaching vocabulary can improve to understand the deep meaning of a topic (pag.1).It means that it can help pupils to motivate them to speak, to create a context with which their speech will have meaning.

The use of technology to teach vocabulary helps to clarify or highlight these following things that deserve special emphasis. Firstly, the different teaching tools .Teacher could apply those tools such as, electronic dictionaries and vocabulary-building software in class to develop students' abilities, attitudes and oral ability.

Secondly, reading classes are a good way to introduce vocabulary in the lesson because this may help to hold attention of students. Also, if educator incorporates the vocabulary by using multimedia this can be powerful tool to enhance the impact of the class. 

Thirdly, instructors have to know how to select appropriate software to his or her class, and adapt the necessities to each student. Finally, teachers have to keep up with all of technology advances and different methodologies that have to follow by using visual aids to make the teaching process more effective.

To sum up, something I want to remember from this article is teaching vocabulary through technology is an excellent way to improve the education process. If educators are aware that teaching vocabulary plays an important role in the learning process because it can be helpful, interactive and interesting.

 

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Week7: Internet as a amazing tool to promote writing skill

(Using internet-based children's literature to teach EFL and Using the internet in ESL writing instruction)

Internet as a amazing tool to promote writing skill 

The articles of this week was about "Using internet-based children's literature to teach EFL" and "Using the internet in ESL writing instruction." In those readings i could find three main elements that helps to increase writing skill. To start with, learners can develop writing, and communicative skills readily by using the Web pages. It has so many benefits by using web pages in the lesson for example, it encourages the collective work and exchange of ideas between the students, this enables the students the opportunities for searching deeply for specific topic; also, it equips the students with searching skills over the internet web, and allowing the students to become a more efficient researcher of the internet. Secondly, teachers can also foster development of collaborative skills with the e-mail connection. This emphasizes a two-way communication channel in which an individual can receive feedback on her/his work instantly. The rapidity, influence, and flexibility with which computer and email are characterized, can effectively facilitate second language writing. In EFL writing classes, email is a useful and powerful vehicle for teaching. It enables the teacher to monitor the process of the students' writing to save class time for the teacher's assignments and comments. Furthermore, teachers are creating class websites that develops collaborative activities, encourage students to form ideas and share thoughts and write together. Moreover, class website expands their critical thinking skills and allows themselves ownership of their own learning, engage learners in real-world learning activities and Increase students' motivation, so they will increase their effort to learn more.

However, if we talk about the role of the educator in the manipulation of this kind of elements by using electronic devices in his/her lesson. We conclude that teacher has to be prepared with any detail such as technical problems. If teachers use ICT to support their role in providing students with structure and advice, monitoring their progress and assessing their accomplishments; as a result, educators can develop understanding and practice regarding the use of technology to help students learn effectively.

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These are some links of websites from the articles that called my attention and it can help in our lesson plans to teach writing and reading skill.

Children's digital library

By gosg.com (Stories,poems ,ilustrations )

Week: 6 The use technology resources to promote students' development in speaking and listening skill.

(Speaking and Listening Internet Resources)

The use technology resources to promote students' development in speaking and listening skill.

Something I want to remember from this article (Speaking and Listening Internet Resources) are; first, how technology can improve in ESL classroom, and how beneficial the use of ICT can be in our classes, especially in the teaching of listening and speaking skill.

Firstly, technology improves and increases in use of web-based materials and tools are due to the fact that computers and internet bring in many possibilities for pedagogical innovations. They facilitate learners' access to language materials as well as giving them the opportunity to practice different language skill. In addition, the availability of many sources to help students learn in an effortless and enjoyable way. Web-based learning is one of the fastest growing areas in education. It is widely accepted that advances in information technology and new developments in pedagogy provide opportunities to create well-designed, learner-centered, interactive, affordable, efficient, and flexible e-learning environments.

Secondly, using ICT as a classroom tool has many other benefits such as, it provides highly motivational activities for students, this increases opportunities for student interaction and decision making ; also , technology resource illustrates complex processes or concepts provides access to resource ,and  it increases the need for students to develop critical thinking and effective information processing skills. To conclude, the use of internet resources can foster students' communicative development .

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Week 5: Promoting critical thinking through technology

(Critical thinking and Technology)

Promoting critical thinking through technology

The article for this week share interesting information about “Critical thinking and technology." That made me want to read more about it because we can use technology as a tool to reach goal in education, or we can use it to directly stimulate student to think critically and solve problems. Also, it can be used to permit increase motivation in the classroom and improves students' learning process. As a result, students’ attitudes and perceptions about learning, it can influence how much and how well students learn the new information. When, educators help students develop competencies such as collaboration and communication it gives way to creating new knowledge. Furthermore, using active teaching and the critical thinking development technology contributes to generation of students’ general cultural and pedagogical competencies developing their cognitive ability, motivation development, and formation of their skills or abilities. Finally, technology covers the application of acquired knowledge to real-life situations, to put into practice what has been learned. In conclusion, technology allows to expanding knowledge with the search of other sources of information. It means that by applying technological tools to promote critical thinking contributes to the assimilation of the topic and increase the effectiveness of show their learning experiences.

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Week 4: Brought up in a digital era

(Call me... Maybe: A Framework for Integration the Internet into ELT )

Brought up in a digital era

     The Internet plays a major role in the lives of young people today. They are engage in online activities both inside and outside the classroom. Also, they use the Internet, for instance, when searching for information and when completing tests. Informally, that is in their spare time, they chat with friends, play online computer games and are involved in fan fiction, i.e. using published material to create pictures and films etc.

     It is important that teachers have knowledge in the use of the Internet in planning / teaching for two reasons. First, a teacher who makes use of the Internet as an additional teaching tool will most likely earn his / her students' respect and regard, which in turn will give the teacher a sense of security and confidence. Second, lesson/course planning and teaching will most likely benefit from the teacher's knowledge and use of the Internet in his/her daily work. For instance, using the Internet in instruction increases students' motivation to learn English, fosters learners' responsibility for their studies, and motivates students to write when they know that their written products will be available to readers worldwide.

     Moreover, equally vital is to acknowledge learning that takes place inside the classroom through the use of ICT. A number of researchers point to the benefits of using the Internet in formal education, for example, the Internet is used in education because it facilitates learning, teaching and communication. It is possible to find a great deal of (course/subject) information online and to do so any time.


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Week 3: Podcasting in the teaching of English

         

 (Blending technologies in ESL and Integrating CALL into the Classroom)

 Podcasting in the teaching of English

        Something that made me want to read more about the application of CALL in classroom by using multimedia or podcast devices is that these are used to facilitate the teaching and learning of English language. Also, integration of those strategies have transformed classroom communication methods and modified instruction strategies ,and also it  have made teaching and learning interactive and collaborative instead of the traditional teacher- talking and students listening approach. Moreover, the application of podcast in the learning and teaching of English creates opportunity for the teacher to bring almost real life situation in to the classroom. This can be used in different ways by teachers, such as improve their listening as a main objective, get meaningful knowledge, their communicative skill, and reasoning manner .Podcasts are becoming increasingly popular in education while this use of podcasts allows for more student control and flexibility of learning, some researchers assume that podcasting will foster and enhance the concepts and skills addressed in class. To sum up, time is a factor involved with language learning, and classroom time is limited, it is important to find new ways to motivate students to practice their language skills as often as possible. Podcasting offers a way to do this. This tool can be integrated into the language learning curriculum, providing students with authentic and simulated environments that can be used to practice their language skills. 

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Week 2: The revolution of ICT in the learning development.

(Effectiveness of the Integration of ICT Tools and Activities to Foster Awareness as the First Stage to Reach Learning Autonomy)

The revolution of ICT in the learning development.

The reading for this week was really interesting for me because it encouraged teaching strategies that aimed to increase the autonomy of learners so that students engaged in self-direct learning .Also, how ICT tools presents a powerful learning environment for learners in the classroom, and how ICT is viewed as an effective tool for renewing educational practice. Moreover, the integration of information and communications technology in teaching and learning is considered as a medium in which a variety of approaches and pedagogical philosophies may be implemental. However, ICT as a teaching aid is more complicated in that it demands more specific skills from the teachers because of that,  teachers have to acknowledge that they need to prepare more their lesson plans to be the class more interactive, dinamic and promote their cognitive developed to their students. Besides, encouraging learner autonomy, and consequently releasing teacher time to get to know their learners better and more carefully to adapt their teaching to learners’ needs.

I will give four stars to this article because it was useful for me. This article made me to think these following characteristics the use of ICT to encourage the learning process effective and autonomy

ICT is a powerful tool to raise levels of literacy.

• Computers and multimedia software provide attractive ways of learning.
• The web enables access to the best materials and the most exciting learning opportunities.
• Learners who use ICT for basic skills double the value of their study time, acquiring two sets of skills at the same time.

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Week 1: Digital era in the language learning

Digital era in the language learning

     Something I learned from this article and that every teacher should know was the role of computers and other technological devices in the language learning better known as CALL (Computers and language learning) Also, how CALL modernized and improved the education process. Moreover, technology allows educators to become better teachers.

        The article “Computers and language learning” is divided in three main parts. First, educators need to be aware of the principles and importance that CALL has since it can help to enhance in a positive way the learning process of students in the classroom. Second, the use of electronic devices. It makes a class interactive by applying a variety of technological tools in the classroom, such as software developer that provides practice with any skill. It improves their skills in a more enjoyable way, and learners participate more by using virtual tools. Finally, the use of CALL can enhance the learning process making topics easier to cover. Also, more and more schools require more extensive use of technology, and exposure to technology helps prepare students for this reality. It is important for educators to keep up to date on technological possibilities in lesson preparation and use in classroom. To conclude, technology is a part of today’s world. In order to prepare students for the world, they need to be exposed to the latest technologies on a daily basis in classrooms. It is important to emphasize that as a future teachers provide a friendly and interesting atmosphere and effective for students to learn.
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