Tuesday 28th,/2012 WORKING ON THE NICENET

Today, I got up early in the morning, I continued checking my students´ tasks.
I went to my high school, there we continued discussing about the international bachelorship, we checked some documents, I think, for the next friday we would decide about this.
In the afternoon, my students and I were checking some exercises about the use of SHOULD and SHOULDN´T. When I planned the class for this topic I used this link:

http://www.eclecticenglish.com/grammar/Should1A.html

Here you could find interesting exercises, examples and quick grammar notes:

In the evening, I came back to my house. I started to work on my computer. I opened the platform to review the tasks. I worked on the Nicenet Website. I checked the Conferencing Topics and I developed the designing learning objectives. I used these links to do it.

http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/learningdesign/objectives/writingobjectives/

http://www.slideshare.net/ashleytan/writing-specific-instructionallearning-objectives-presentation

After that, I read the article that I found at:

www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/research/resources/student_res/postscriptfiles/vol3/vol3_1_gong1.pd
It was about The Employment of Computer-Assisted Language Learning ( CALL ) in Teaching  Second/Foreign Language Speaking Skills ( by Julia Gong ), it was interesting because it is highly motivated for students, they create situations that stimulate interest, ups!!! . It is 1:00 a.m. I am very tired. Tomorrow I will continue reading more about this article.I hope to complete the homework correctly. I will do my best.



I know, this is my last blog that you are going to check, and I´d like thank you Gaby, because you are a nice person. I am sure that my webmates and I enjoyed your classes. I hope to keep in touch soon, take care.

Sincerely,

Your friend

SANTIAGO HERRERA.

Monday,27th/2012 CHECKING OUR POWER POINT

After a tired weekend, I had to start working this week.
In the morning, I was checking my students´ tasks, it was very hard because I have 45 students in a class. I needed to spend a lot of time to do it.
Later, I went to work in my High School, there we had another meeting to disscuss about the international bachelorship, we had to analize the advantages and the disadvantages of it.
In the afternoon, I worked in the English Lab, we were practicing a romantic song, it was THE FLAME by Cheap Trick, I was using this link: http://www.saberingles.com.ar/songs/364.html  to do it.
I explained my students, that they could improve their pronunciation, using this website. I think it is a good option to focus their attention in the English language through the music.

After High School, I went to Maria del Carmen´s house, there we developed our Power Point Presentation, checking our lessson plan and our rubric. the topic was using the simple past tense using a legend, and the legend was THE TURTLE´S FLUTE. We used this link to do it

http://www.bookbox.com/node/763?plang=

This was very interesting because María del Carmen had some ideas and I had others, but we did it.

I think, our Power Point Presentation is according the lesson plan and the rubric.

Thursday,23rd/2012 CHECKING THE RUBRIC

I started this day early in the morning, I had breakfast and I went to my daughter´s school. I had a meeting there.After that, I went to work in my High School. All the teachers and the authorities were discussing about if we could accept the government proposal to start the international bachelorship or not, it was very difficult to solve it because some teachers were for and others against, I would like to start this new system, I know it is a big challenge for our institution.

In the afternoon, I continued teaching English, and I had an amazing experience because one of my classmates was waiting for me. He was with his brother " Edgar ". He was my student 7 years ago.
He came back from The United States, there He was studying English so his English is perfect, He helped me during my classes. It was an interesting experience for everybody.
At night, I went to María del Carmen´s house to check our Rubric. we had to changed it everything because we changed another lesson plan. We checked the links:
http://www.rubrics4teachers.com/
http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/rubrics/
And we had a better idea of this, then we opened the platform to compare with other rubrics.
I think, our rubric is O.K according what Gaby, our teacher explained us

Wednesday,22nd/2012 CHECKING THE LESSON PLAN

After the holiday, I had to start working.

In the morning I went to the Cathedral Church and I put  " the holy ash ", that is very important for me because I am Catholic, after that I went to work, it was very difficult, because I had to deliver my plans, my tests, etc, and with my other colleagues, we had to check everything.

In the afternoon, I worked very hard, I had to check students´ homework, and I had a meeting some parents to analyze the teaching- learning process. I had to give them some advice to improve their grades
In the evening, I went to María del Carmen´s house.There we decided to check our Lesson Plan. we opened the platform and we compared it with others.
http://educacionvirtual.uta.edu.ec/elearning/course/view.php?id=1019
We changed almost everything in our lesson plan. We changed the objective of the lesson, the internet sources, the procedure and the assessment. We were working on it until 11:30 p.m.

I think, it is O.K. according what we have learned.
I came back my house, and I finished this tired day!!!

Tuesday ,21st/2012 FREE TIME ACTIVITIES

To finish the Carnival Holiday, I decided to spend my time with my family, so we went to the Family´s Park in the morning, there we played basketball, after that we walked through the park, it was very interesting because we joined together telling some jokes, eating some snacks and breathing pure air. We had a lot of fun. It was a good time to rest and to share with my family.


In the afternoon, I was with my pets. I have 3 dogs. They are Pekingese. I had to brush its fur.This breed is very amazing, because they are small, lovely, pug and very friendly. They are very easy to take care, they eat very little food and they need small spaces to be. In the picture you will see to Renato, Yin Yang and Gerard. They are my pets. They are hairy.
Probably, if you want to get more information about this fabulous breed, check this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pekingese

In the evening, I had to check the my unit plans, because we are finishing the second term, and I had to prepare the tests for the evaluation.
I was a little tired because of the holiday, but it´s time to work!!!
I worked until midnight, and I decided to go to bed.



Friday 17th/2012 The last Day.

Last day we created and used an Internet Classroom Assistant with Nicenet.This was a project that uses technology and interacts with students.
It helps the teacher to prepare tasks using technology, for example a video, and the students follow instructions to do the tasks.
Gaby explained us  about  the assesment plan and other important things.
I think this course was very useful for me because I could use new resources in my class, for example I will use my delicious account to save the most important links, I will use my engrade account to create more quizzes.
My favorite web site is http://www.bookbox.com/ because I could practice other languages, and I could suggest it to my students to improve their learning skills.
Other important thing was that I had the chance to meet other English teachers and practice our English skills and share experiences.
My group was checking everything, and we decided to meet the next wednesday 22nd to  review the assesment plan, and we hope to do it correctly. The point is that we are learning, please forgive our mistakes.
Finally, I expect to have the chance to participe in another course. It is because I would like  to continue improving my teaching methodology.

THANK YOU GABI. THIS COURSE WAS VERY INTERESTING FOR ME

Tuesday, 14th/ 2012. SANTIAGO´S SECOND CLASS

First I had the chance  to check the student´s platform in my house, so I Had some information about what was coming for this day.
Gaby wished us " A HAPPY VALENTINE´S DAY"  and she checked our homework, almost everybody created the Reflective Blog, and we were ready for the next topic.
The topic was about the ABCD Method to write lesson objectives, first it was a little confused, because it was new for me, but later it was easy to understand.
When I am planning my class, some aspects of the ABCD Method are similar with the way I am working in my High School, for example Behavior is similar to the objective, Degree is similar with the evaluation and so on.
We were in groups to plan a lesson, so I joined María del Carmen and Mónica, we planed a High School Lesson to develop reading&writing skills, we followed a pattern that we found in the platform, it was a little tired, but we did it and we uploaded it to be checked for Gaby and the rest of webmates.
Next we checked  the Rubric for a lesson plan, and we used these links to do it.
http://www.tltgroup.org/resources/Rubrics.htm
http://rubistar.4teachers.org/

We concluded that:
"  Rubric is a clear guide that let us assess what learners do in a class. Giving a clear criteria. It is generally developed over time."

I think, teachers should use rubrics to assess their students' performance because they could help them to support their assessments.
If You want to get more information about rubrics, check this link.

http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/intech/rubrics.htm