This week has been dedicated to Interactive teaching, large
classes and powerpoints to increase interaction. The amount of my learning just
by reading the articles has been amazing and was complemented by doing, by
creating an interactive powerpoint. For the first time, though, it took me ages
to do my own PPt, first because I always want to develop materials that I’ll
use in class and couldn’t decide what to do; second, well, you know, tired as I
am and with tons of other things to do, it has been hard to focus long enough
to feel pride of the final result. In the end, I came up with two (one for grammar, one for content) ready to use
interactive powerpoint presentations because I really wanted to create a
jeopardy game. Hope they are fine as I am unexperienced in this area :(
In the meantime, a new, outstanding experience!
As settled last week, I created a google doc (to be precise!) and
shared it with Karim and Zeljko. And…voilà! Though late at night, after 2 or 3
minutes, Zeljko was accessing the document and after around ten minutes, it was
Karim’s turn. We were all dead tired, Karim had just posted in our nicenet
discussion… with our tired eyes and eyelids feeling heavy, all fighting sleep,
yet, suddenly, there we were, the three of us, connected educators around the
world, meeting virtually and collaboratively drafting a project – and well
awake by then J
Glorious technology!!!!!!! What an amazing experience with hardworking,
dedicated, amazing colleagues I’ve never met in person. And that hasn’t
happened only once, but twice already – and more virtual meetings are already
scheduled for next week. There’s no time to waste, is there?
As for my own project, my students have been engaged
in our blog and, weather permitting, they are willing to take photos and leave
them in our new photo album.
 |
| The same park in Summer and two days ago: flooded (as everywhere around the country) with the ducks roaming around freely |
Back to our collaborative document, by now, we have
already exchanged links to our newly created class blogs so that our students
can get in touch. I would like to ask YOU and YOUR students to do the same –
visit and leave your comments at http://shiningasoure.blogspot.pt/
When students see that their blog is visited and commented by other teachers
but, above all, by other students around the world, they’ll be over the moon to
have a real audience, and their writing with that purpose in mind, will
certainly increase and improve. So, please, if you have a class blog, share the
link so that we can also do the same for you and your students. Even if you
don’t have a class blog, I / we welcome you with open arms. Thank you.
Dear Alex,
ReplyDeleteYou are a creative teacher who are seeking to use new and modern techniques so that students can use English easily
Well done I will give the link of your blog to my students to share ideas with your students.
Best wishes
Yours Enam
Dear Enam,
DeleteThank you so much for sharing the link and taking the time to eventually comment on the class blog :)
Grateful,
Alex
Dear Alex,
ReplyDeleteI think you are a really passionate teacher! I admire you. As you said, it was fantastic experience to work with great teachers in the world. I also spend a few days reading and making interactive powerpoints. While I was reading the articles and making ppt, I got many things. Although the process was not easy and I felt tired, something encouraged me to go ahead and try to complete the tasks. Above all, I smiled that I emagined when my students participate in my class actively with me. I thought that we are just teachers who love teaching students. Thank you always Alex.
Soo yeon.
Dear Soo,
DeleteYep, we do it for ourselves because we really love what we do, but also for our students! All the time and effort invested in an activity are worthwhile when they LEARN.
Thanks for commenting. Best greetings from Portugal,
Alex
Dear Juliya,
ReplyDeleteI have often used glogster even in eTwinning projects and students love them. For a group of adult learners I once created a glogster to introduce myself and it was a fantastic lesson.
As for the class blog, I had long planned to have one but kept delaying it. Now it was time. However, it is not the basis of my project, but it will be where I'll publish the results :). Again, Yuliya, can you please share the link and visit / comment the class blog with your students? Thank you.
Good luck with your project. Best greetings from Portugal,
Alex
hello Alex,
ReplyDeleteas an experienced blogger, every week you keep us surprising when reading your blogs, and one more thing, you're maintaining you blog page regularly, thats something that I should do from time to time.
I agree this week was full of new but great experiences. three of us (for now). established communication , working and developing our international project. I feel so excited and proud to have this kind of course mates around me. As for your project, I think this will be great blog full of unusual photos. This will help other students to comment , share and develop international connections and experiences. I can't wait to start.
greetings from Serbia
zeljko
Dear Zeljko,
DeleteI can't wait to start either!!! Like you, I'm also proud of being in such a group and feel privileged of learning with people like you.
I planned different albums, but why not posting random photos? You're right. I«ll give it a thought and will talk to student about it.
Best greetings from Portugal,
Alex
Dear Alex,
ReplyDeleteYours is the blog I always read first, because I'm sure I'll find tons of innovative things you are doing.
What's a "google form"? Is it a kind of network or something like that. Please give us more details, if you have the time of course.
Tomorrow I'm starting classes at the Diplomatic Academy and one of the things I am going to propose to them is creating a blog and getting in touch with other bloggers, like your own class. Thank you for the invitation; I'm pretty sure they will like to contact your students.
Hello Carlos,
DeleteWhen I know, I'm always glad to share. You can create a google doc / google form / google spreadsheet / google presentation with googledrive which is - according to wikipedia - "a file storage and synchronization service provided by Google, released on April 24, 2012 which enables user cloud storage, file sharing and collaborative editing.". As I was saying I, go to https://drive.google.com, insert your gmail and once there, when the left hand side you'll see a red CREATE. Click on it and you'll find what I said above (forms, docs, spreadsheets, presentations). Choose the one you wish just by clicking on it with your mouse and start it as you would do elsewhere. After having it done, on the top right hand side you'll see a blue SHARE. Click on it and then write the emal addresses of the people you are going to work with collaborativelly. They will receive the notification by email and with the link they have immediate access to the document. In our case, I started it, shared it with Karim and Zeljko and at some point the three of us were editing the same document at the same time. As each one of the collaborators has a different colour, we always know where the others are writing and what. It's very interesting. I've done it often before but with colleagues I usually work with, not with colleagues I've never met :) Would you like me to try it with you? In the course of the week, I'll do it with you :)))) There is also a chat box where one can chat while editing the doc / form...
As for the blog, I'd be very grateful if you shared the link, visited and even commented our class blog, but please keep in mind that these students are 12 /13 year-old boys and girls.
Thank you so much for your interest. It's really a privilege to be in such a group of concerned educators.
Best greetings from Portugal,
Alex
Alex,
DeleteGoodday ! Your blog is full of new discoveries. You are wonderful. You guys are doing a project! I am going to make attempts google.doc . Class blog ! I am opening a new one for my writing class adults. Alex, is class blog different than blog we are using or the same setting?
SIncerely,
Tseeggie from Mongolia
Hi Tseeggie,
DeleteThanks for leaving your comment :)
Yes, that's right: myself, Karim and Zeljko are doing a project together and it's going fine. Later this week I'll think about a googledoc to share with Carlos and I'll share it with you as well. We'll talk about it then, ok?
As for the class blog, you create it just like you created your own for this course. However, if you are sharing it with students (I am the administrator and author and students ar so-authors), when creating it, in SETTINGS, permissions, there is a box and below ADD AUTHORS - that's where you are going to include your students emails. Lots of my students had hotmail accounts and had to create a gmail. Tell them that and remind them that they should always chech their spam (it also happened to my students). Hope I was useful. If you need anything else, just let me know via blog, email... feel free to reach me, ok? In the meantime, I'll share a googledoc with you :)
Best greetings from Portugal,
Alex
thanks , I found it. Tseeggie
ReplyDelete