Week 8 (updated)

Another week has gone by and fast, very fast our course is coming to an end. I started the week struggling to finish my draft and didn’t even have the time to reread it attentively, which I’ll do this weekend once I fear I missed some details and some other positive aspects.
By now, I have already taken part in the nicenet discussion, explored the links shared by Donna and created a website which I intend to use with my classes for assignments, resources. In it, I included my ready to use resources for the lesson plan I shared with you a couple of weeks ago but added crosswords and a word search using some of this week’s new tools. Not much to read but a lot to create and that's what I really like - hands on activities and projects, always making the best possible use of everything learnt each week. Among others, I've also tried Hotpoatoes, the freeware that allows us to easily create a multitude of exercises for our classes; padlet, the blank wall that allows us / anyone to put up post-its about virtually everything; the ones I've used for this week's examples,  http://www.crosswordpuzzlegames.com/create.html and http://www.toolsforeducators.com/ which, in the twinkling of an eye and simply by introducing our data, allow us to create free crosswords, wordsearches, worksheets...for further consolidation and practice, or simply for fun - the only problem is that they are not embeddable, we can't save them for later use.
Yet to be done… Karim’s draft to read and gaining some courage to read Zeljko’s comments on mine. How I “envy” you who manage to accomplish everything so fast and well. It’s a compliment, believe me, because I am slow but I spend the whole day at school and only manage to have some time by Friday which means that I have to do a lot overnight.
Saturday I’ll read Karim’s draft and will reread mine surely to be rewritten. In the meantime, I have my children / students sending me material from photos to texts, ideas and comments always popping up. They are absolutely delighted with the blog and their virtual friends!
Best of luck to all and a great weekend,
Alex

Here I am again.
I’ve just checked here that it was indeed Charles Dickens who started “Tale of Two Cities” with “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way...” Please don’t laugh at me, but as you have already noticed I have my ups and downs, and these antitheses somehow mirror my state of mind.
I have participated in a few teacher training courses both at home and abroad (the latter always with Comenius Funding) but this has been, by far, the best but also the most demanding course! As we have discussed in nicenet, every week I/we come across so many great sites, links, suggestions – real goldmines for some, pearls for others. I feel completely overwhelmed by the stuff that is shared and then also by the required tasks. I wish I had (much) more time to dedicate to this course as some of the sites will have to be further explored. I try to do my best, but by now I am feeling drained by so many hours of classes, school meetings and the course without breaks, holidays. Consequently, I get the feeling I am not doing my best and I’m not pleased with what I do. Those around me tell me I should not be as demanding with myself and therefore with students. Poor children… hope I haven’t set too high standards and expectations. They have managed to do what was expected, (victory! wow!) and on their own also as expected, but I wasn’t counting on so many obstacles with Flickr. Maybe my fault, maybe theirs for their dependency and lack of autonomy, but that’s what may happen when you do something for the first time, right? They are doing fine and I’m really pleased with their blogging, commenting, photo skills (almost 300 beautiful photos), text production... Learning the hard way, for the students as well as the teacher.
Now, back to the quote… on the one hand, taking all the pressure aside, after so much learning and sharing with such a supportive and encouraging group, I am now starting to feel I am going to miss this enriching and rewarding experience, this amazing contact with all of you. Even the stress.
I don’t think I can now measure the impact or the benefit this course will have in myself, my teaching and my students. One thing is certain: it will!
Thank you so much,
Alex