Week 5

I wish days had more hours and weeks were longer so that I could do more. Right now the truth is that I can’t and tiredness is taking its toll.

I started this 5^th (and middle week) by reading the texts on rubrics and assessment, PBL and WebQuests, both the main texts and the additional resources and by Wednesday I had already managed to leave my post on Nicenet, our faithful asynchronous discussion platform.

Rubrics have definitely been the most difficult part. Not that they are more complex than what we have done before, but it’s just that I’m not used to creating them. I have already shared with you the link to my first rubrics and I’m pleased with them in spite of acknowledging they are very straightforward; my / our concern is that they have to be understood by our students and in my case, these are for a group of 12/13-year olds.

I have noticed that some participants are going to use WebQuests in their projects. Nice that we can share so many links of ready or almost ready to use links for WebQuests. About two years ago I created one you can find here (the links disappeared as the site underwent changes) which means I was already familiar WebQuests and PBL.  Nevertheless, I am already outlining a new one – which, in fact, has been in “lukewarm” (Portuguese saying), waiting for an opportunity to be created. If interested, please check this post, the basis for my new WebQuest, whose link I’ll share later.

While I consider WebQuests very rewarding and challenging for students (and for teachers, too), I have to choose a NEW technology tool for my project and that hasn't been that easy. On the one hand, I have to think I’m designing a project for tweens and therefore it has to be simple and doable also in what concerns my time. On the other hand, I have already tested so many tools that I feel at a crossroads… and back to the beginning of my post: if only I had more time!

Time to cheer up... Let me share with you a video that a good friend once shared to cheer me up - it worked and up to this day, it makes me smile every time I listen to it or watch it. Hope noone feels distressed...
Enjoy!

Week 4

Week 4 is almost over and I’m feeling dead tired with so many test papers to correct and grade and our tasks here.

My new routine has been as follows: Mondays and Tuesdays are for readings; Tuesdays night for posting in the discussion and then only on Thursday night and on Fridays do I manage to focus on the course again. Along the way, one or two sleepless nights, which make me feel a bit, should I say, “stoned”.

In spite of such work overload, by now, I have already accomplished almost all tasks: I have left on Nicenet our weekly discussion post and have also commented on other participants’ posts; then the second task was to create a technology-enhanced lesson plan which I will be using soon; thirdly there is/was project task, a step further for our final project and this blog post. Yet there are still comments to write to your blogposts, which I’ll be pleased to make as soon as I finish mine.

Nevertheless, I must admit all has been fantastic and believe me I’m honest. I particularly enjoyed the readings this week once reading itself has been one of my life mottos. I have always been a reader and then a reading mother – I can proudly tell you that I have two sons who are as avid readers as I am (in Portuguese and in English!);

»» Infographic on how to get children to love Reading
(please click here to read the article and the info on the infrographic)

at school, I have promoted a lot of reading activities among my students and with other students at school and have, in the meantime, published some articles and made some presentations. If interested, please click here, here, here and here;  in this padlet, myself, colleagues and students have also been posting their book recommendations for a while also using different web2.0 tools.

Now, off to test correction! Hope to come back soon to read your comments ;)

Greetings from Portugal,

Alex

Getting started - Week 1

Hi everyone!

By now, I have already joined Nicenet and taken part both in the introductions and in the first discussions. Thanks to Donna's emails and reminders, so far, so good; I don’t predict any problems here.

Now, here I am, ready to start blogging with all of you.

Though familiar with blogger and blogging, I have to admit that I'm both thrilled and anxious. Thrilled to be part of this group and to begin an exciting learning (and sharing) journey, but, at the same time, anxious if I'll be able to keep up and accomplish all tasks.

Believe me, expectations couldn't be higher! This journey will be a new one once this will be my first online course with colleagues from all over the world.

As I have just said, blogging has been in my routine for a couple of years now. I started this blog as a task for a teacher training course (just like now!) and enjoyed it so much that I am still running it :-)
Once I mentioned Thinglink in our forum and by means of introduction, I decided to roll up my sleeves and would like to challenge you all for an activity with this free tool that I've used before and with different teaching goals. I started by making a printscreen of a world map and uploaded it to Thinglink to make it interactive. Not all countries are on it - not even my own - but we all know exactly where we are. The challenge is then to ask you to tag your country on the map and add a link (can be for youtube, wikipedia, whatever) with some info about your country or the place where you are. I've left a youtube link for a video I created about Soure (the small village where I teach) with my own photos, as a way of publicizing the place but also to introduce vocabulary in a tourism course. Willing to join in? Place your cursor on the map, "edit" and double click on the map. In the end, please save.

PS: You might think this is a repetition of the activity in Donna's wiki, but my goal is to share this tool with you and more info on your countries and / or hometowns. Thank you all.