Week Three

I can honestly confess that I tend to log into Nicenet dozens of times each and every day in anticipation of new asks from our instructor and new posts from my classmates in the course. So the minute the third week opened, I was already excitedly scrolling through all tasks to see what we are going to learn this week. 

What caught me eye this week was Delicious, a free social bookmarking tool which enables you to save your favorite links online and even browsing through other users' accounts.  I only came to learn about it when I saw the link posted on our web skills course site, so I began looking into it before it was posted as an assignment. I absolutely love this tool since it also allows me to add tags and even sorts the website according to date added or tags. Indeed, this is a much fresher experience than having to use the regular adding to favorites on browsers. I must confess, however, that I also use Symbaloo, another wonderful bookmarking site which allows you to create a block of websites based on category and discover other people's bookmarks when searching for a specific subject. This is one of my sample Symbaloo Tabs:

The second task for this week included looking through speaking, listening and pronunciation websites and reading the articles. Miller's article "Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials" had the largest impact on me since she provides numerous examples about teaching  listening using authentic materials and dividing the lesson into pre-, while- and post- listening activities. I have always taught listening comprehension, but since I was so focused on having my students practice for their matriculation exams, I almost forgot that there can be an element of fun while teaching listening. I particularly look forward to teaching the example Miller gives on using the news while incorporating internet search and group work for this task. I can certainly see how the students can benefit from a three step process when learning and practicing the skill of listening comprehension and having fun with their peers as they work together toward a common goal. As for Maria Busa's article on "New Perspectives on Teaching Pronunciation", I feel that I need to revisit the article to explore the wide range of pronunciation software mentioned as many of them need to be downloaded to the computer.  

I have added many website links to my favorites. I feel I am getting richer by the day with every website that I add to my list. I am not sure people would want to read a whole list of my favorites, but I have made a Prezi (I love embedding presentations as you have noticed) showing five websites and how I would apply them with my students (although the list of tasks has to be expanded as I will be strictly following the three step method from now on):

As for reading the project task, I felt that the project I chose, written by Zlatka Dyankova is similar to what I have in mind as she teaches the same grade level. I certainly have a better perspective on what is expected of us by the end of the course and I can clearly see that we are working towards this goal while acquiring a vast amount of knowledge and web tools which will enable us to create the project. 

I cannot wait for week four to open as I am already excited because I know we will have to create a technology enhanced lesson. I think this will be our chance to incorporate what we have learned so far in the course and maybe even more. 

Nahla