Week 10: Every End Has a New Start

Feeling:

Week 10 of the course, has come up with some mixed feelings. I am feeling both relaxed and sad.

disjointed but well oriented, left alone but leading ahead, at ending line of the race but feeling victorious!!!

Hmmm... i dont know how to articulate my emotions while posting for this special reason. I just compare 'myself now' with 'myself then' and realise a fact that God has made this life so beautiful and we have got it bit more as we are the teachers. A satisfaction of living one's own life beautifully definitely gives contentment but bringing the same beauty in lots of lives is a matter of satisfaction.

Being an ordinary man, i cant stop myself beign greedy, selfish, and wanting more!! But immediately concludes when i understant the eternal truth; Everything has an end. I promise that I will cherish this End  by giving it a New Start!

Note of Gratitude:

  Namaste!!!

I want to extend my deepest gratitude to University of Oregon, entire team, specially Robert for being so nice, cooperative, and patient through out the course. He has been a great motivator and a fantastic counselor through out; the qualities must for being a model teacher.

I am also greatful to my dear batchmates who have been a direct and indirect help to me during the course. Csilla, Jitshalin, Gulnara, Sujit, Saffa, Bernie, Ildiko, Tania, Preeti, Amela, Colomba, Diana, Rajinder, Egle, Kinnari, Liliana, Sam, Smiles, Tatsiana 

I wish you all a beautiful life and a great success. May God help us being the role models for the society and the strength to make this world a more beautiful place to live in by inculcating high standards of humanity, compassion, love, and honesty!!

Task & Learning:


I was a bit relaxed before beginning of the last week as i had no planning to make any change to my first draft of the report plan. It reminded me of a wellknown English essay writer Francis Bacon who suggested the enrichment at every rewritng of the draft. I read it again and took a bird view. It helped me making remarkable changes and it ended up with self satisfaction.

LoTi survey also awakened me to new levels of expectations. However i found it little bit inappropriate in my educational setup i took it as a personal enrichment.

Every week has been a treasure of learning and i wish to be in touch with all the team of our course forever. I wish if we can start some international project and have exchange of knowledge to great heights!!

Great Luck and Great Life to All!

Academically yours,
Tushar
India

Week9: Let's Make a Difference!

Hello friends,

This week has brought us almost close to submission segment of our project work.

I will not call it the end but a fresh new start because my previously handled techniques are definitely going to be enriched by the precious knowledge i received during this course. Last two weeks i remained engaged working on the project plan and submitted it today.

What i learnt out of project plan is not limited to this course. A good planning may take sometime but it helps us reaching the desired results. Sometimes we end up giving more tries saying, 'it wont make much difference.' but actually its all these small differences that makes a big difference in the end.

In last discussions I observed that many English teachers have expressed the limitations of proper hardware availability. Most of us have one or the other issue related to hardware, be it one computer, no computer lab, no internet, large class, lack of internet connection, and many.

I would like to share an experience here. The management at our campus decided to develop a customized interactive application 'Zoomi' and make it available on windows, mac, java, and android platforms. We suggested the students to use it last year but it did not work the way it was expected due to varied hardwares. Hence recently, we provided android (4.0.3. ICS) based tablets to all students with 'zoomi' application preinstalled.

On 'zoomi' the registered students can interact with faculty members on messenger, send them mails, can download notes and reference material, view notices, notifications, and results. They can also view the list of recommended educative android based applications and download them. Just to name a few there are dictionaries, pronunciation dictionaries, tongue twisters, language learning games, puzzles, quizzes, Oxford audio podcasts and much more.

I have been a part of the think-tank in our campus and we have witnessed a change among the students. They are more confident, happier, and have started learning on their own. Due to large classrooms and inadequate time, they could not previously take part in to discussions at al.

Secondly, with the help of my learning from this course,  I started an online class on facebook network. It is a very small group of 12 students as it is a pilot plan now. They are also the part of nicenet class now. I aim at working on limitations during this pilot plan. Once it is done, I wish to apply it to 'Zoomi' also where all 5000 students will be the part.

Learning through technology definitely brings more freedom, confidence, and customized preferences for the students. I look forward to one step ahead of starting an international class by all of us introducing atleast two students from our sides. That i think will be the real online teaching experience. What do you say?

Regards,

Tushar

Week 8: Views before reviews on Project Plan

Hello Dear friends,

The last weekend was little bit upset with shut down of Nicenet classroom but back up plan B helped us at the crucial time. It establishes the fact that technology can make wonders but it also has limitations. A good teacher should not make complaints about it but be ready with a back up plan to over come technological limitations. Robert proved it.

I found project planning quite interesting and has submitted for review. I also have tried to create my website . It was quite easy to do that but i wish to learn more about it. I wish i knew something about html coding. But i am happy that i started now i will make sure i keep moving.

We are coming close to the submission time and i try to recall the learnt tools and techniques. Oh.. a long list; nicenet, blogger, jupiter, wiki, wallwisher, popplet, vocaroo, hangman, webquest, google drive, and still more to add.

I believe that we should keep it in practice otherwise the thrill we feel today  will vanish soon with lapse of memory. Hence i have kept my virtual classroom ready and the plan up to date to implement once the college reopens. I have however shared it with my students and they have not only liked but have welcomed it so much that they are eagerly waiting for it to start. I wish to orient them about this virtual experience in the real classroom first si that they have a better hand on it.

I am glad i have learnt a big bunch of learning and teaching techniques.

Regards,
Tushar

Week 7: Time to recollect ideas!

Dear friends,

A true teacher is a student for life time!!

While doing my schooling, graduation, and post graduation under quite unfavourable study conditions, I always used to complain to my parents about disastrous situation in the field of education. My father, a vernacular language teacher, used to say, "thats why you should work hard, be a commited teacher and change it what you dont like now."

It gave me a spark and I decided to bring the CHANGE!!

I keep learning new things and immediately implement put them in practice otherwise chances of missing it remains quite high. Thanks to University of Oregon for extending this scholarship which has opened up new avenues for exploring new teahing tools and multiplying the benefit by expanding it to the students.

It hurts so much when no student in the class of 180 raises hand on being asked, "Who wants to be a teacher?"

I am not much aware about the world but in my setup teacher is no more idealised. Why its always a doctor, engineer, chartered accountant, and not a professor? Other professions may earn you better money but can they provide directions to innocent minds? can they build the foundation of the nation? I doubt. I wish your responses here.

Week 7: Recollection of Rare Rubrics!!

This week, i spent most of the time pondering over the treasure of learning received all these seven weeks. Acquaintance of Wallwisher turned out to be a blessing in disguise. There was a rich discussion on how a single computer can be used effectively in a large class. Number of games and quiz from hangman, manythings, monopoly etc were discussed as quite impressive tools.

The discussion on "the autonomy of a learner" was flooded on classrooms wall at wallwisher. Saffa, Csilla, Robert, and Tania gave very impressive suggestions in the development of discussion thread.

A true pressure has started building up with development of project planning now because students are not available due to Diwali vacation, India's biggest festival of the year. However i am contacting and bringing students from social community sites to a common place where i can try my project plan. I am sure something better will come out from this challenging situation.

My Warm greetings to all class-friends on the festive season of Diwali!!!

 

Thanks & Regards,
Tushar

 

Week 6: HAPPY DIWALI

A very very Happy Diwali to all dear friends!!!

May this Festival of light and colors bring lots of happiness and prosperity to your lives!

Week 6: Entering the third level of our project, EXECUTION!!

This week turned out to be more challenging than before as it was all about rearranging the previously done mindstorming and trying it. We at Ahmedabad, India had exams last week and now celebrating biggest festival of the year, DIWALI- A new year.

No students, no teaching made it quite tough for me to execute my project plan on the students but i found it more interesting. i gathered all my students from facebook and started involving them in my work. By doing survey of my students about their proficiency of English language, i found a sharper directin to move towards my project work.

Survey Monkey became a great source to collect responses from them and then Wikispace became a meeting place. To be true, i developed each step keeping in mind responses of the students. I am happy that my students found it very interesting and they are motivated towards self learning (task-based). The best par of learning for them was more visual education through videos and presentation. I introduced to them to my webquest on zunal and they liked it very much. Its a good learning for me as well. The only trouble i face was that zunal doesnt permit us to open a new webquest, and surveymonkey doesnt allow us to putin more than ten questions in single survey. I would be happy to get advices on whichare the authentic teaching resources with unlimited scope of execution.

Powerpoint, though it appears to be simple tool, is a very effective and a smart tool of teaching. I have been using it since quite long but this time i added more hyperlinks, videos, pictures, sound, and maded it a self-sufficient, self-explanatory tool to study simple present tense. I took students' feedback on it. Vernacular students who have problems with basic english grammar found it very useful....

Regards,
Tushar Raval
India

Week 5: Don't just let it happen; make it happen!!

Hello Friends,

'Sandy strikes United States' was the most painful thing to happen this week. I have my relatives there though unafffected. A true teacher is a global citizen and i have equal pain for those who lost their lives, houses, and are affected.

Fifth Week of the course has brought another awakening towards the unexplored side of knowledge.
Another tightly associated programme with the previous week.

This week i enjoyed working out the technology based solution to my project issue.
Robert has been a great help at every move. Jenine's arrival to the discussion room added a valuable insight. Her advice of using wikispace turned out tobe a a great help in taking technological help in PBL.

PBL concept gave a concrete shape to what we had just been discussing so far. I tried creating my web-class on zunal. I am still working on it and will possibly use it in my final project.

Regards,
Tushar
India

Week 4: Skill Development

Hello friends,

The online course on "Web based skill Development" programme is turning out to be quite fruitful now. I strongly believe that the travel to destination is always more interesting than reaching the destination. Every week is coming with regular assignment tasks and reading material now.

Its getting technical now or we can put it as, its getting focussed and purpose oriented. Robert has always been there to make sure that all the participant are moving ahead comfortably. Last to last week i forgot to comment on fellow participant's blog as i was not well and it affected my jupitergrade. I have regret for the same; not for loosing a couple of score but missing the duty.

The forth week has brought us a task of refering few websites which can help us i) designing lesson plans, <ehow.com>. Visiting Baltimore website was another great experience where you can easily get the predesigned lesson plans according to your needs.

Apart from all that this week has helpmed me to know the project issue minutely. Robert has asked us to focus on finding the issues and pondering over the possible application of the technology as per the need of the project. I am excited about the next week right from this moment now.

The best part of this course is that nothing is disjointed. each day leads to another and every week connects to the next one. Gradual learning process helps me enjoy it along with learning. I am glad to be the part of it.

Thanks Robert & all my friends
Tushar

Week 3: Hmm..Delicious..

This week was both Exciting & Mind-gobbling.

I learned new things and that makes me glad!

The first thing is social bookmarking delious.com that lets you maintain a personal collection of links online, similar to the bookmarks or favorites in your browser, but they are also accessible to others. What I especially liked in the service is "tagging". When you save a link to your collection, you tag it with one or more keywords to describe it. Different people can use the same words, so you can search for everything tagged with "teaching" or "aural/oral skills" and get the collected archive of everything that anyone using the service has found using that tag.

Social bookmarking can be successfully used for educational purposes. The student could share the links with the rest of the class. It is very useful for collective projects or any other specific activity. It is also possible to get people from all over the world contributing to your class links list!

Another great activity of this week was reading articles about CALL for listening, speaking, or pronunciation skills, and evaluating some of the skill-building websites.
Very often our students are given practice in something (listening, writing etc), but they are not actually taught it. However, there are many choices of how to make teaching oral/aural skills more effective. I feel now, after reading the sources recommended by Robert, more confident in using some of them. First of all, I will try the following sites Randall's Cyber Listening Lab: http://www.esl-lab.com/ and English Central: http://www.englishcentral.com/. The former has a large collection of exercises on listening, the latter is a video site for English Language Learners, it lets users listen to parts of the video, then lets them repeat what the characters say and compare it with the original. My idea is to use the sites for building a more motivated and engaged learning environment.

This week we were given an opportunity to read the sample project reports from past Webskills classes. All the proposed projects were carefully structured, accurate, and easy to understand. I especially liked the Project Report for Graduate Students at the Jesuit University of Philosophy and Education by Joanna Zubel from Poland. The author described various techniques and approaches to using the web platform for teaching and learning processes.

Joanna has written in her project, "A good teacher is a life-long learner, an inquisitive person who develops teaching technique in order to meet the students` needs, their expectations and their requirements". 

 

I am sure we all hold the same idea.

 

Week2: Ignite the Lamp!

Dear Friends,

 

In the hubub of modern life and in the blind rush of getting everything tailor made, we have lost more than what we have gained. 'To be able to do something' is, i think, not so important than 'to have skill about doing it'. I mean, we all sing, but we all are not singers. We all can kick ball, but we all are not football players and all.

 

Its not at all wrong to try various things and discover our selves but then there has to be a minute concentration on something in the end. If Bethoven had not got a chance to put his hand on music, who would have known him today? Many of us are bestowed with certain talents which flourish in particular atmosphere..background. A man is an outcome of his breeding.

 

A teacher's true role is to acquaint the student with his potential by exposing him to a particular situation that can ignite the lamp already there in him/her. Teaching, being one of the noblest profession, stands a crucial importance. A student idealises his/her parents and teachers as their role models. Do you remeber the games of early childhood? A group of children would play role-play games; someone acting daddy, another mummy, one being the son or daughter and, finally one teacher. A school becomes a citadel of "Shaping up" for them.

 

I think, "A student is a book that a teacher has to refer page to page"

Week : 1 Retrospecting

"The woods are lovely dark and deep,
               but i have promises to keep,
  The Miles to go before I sleep,
  the miles to go before I sleep."

                                                                                        - Robert Frost

Hi,

I, Tushar welcome you to my blog and express my gratitude for considering it worth. The feeling among all the participants i guess is same this first week. Little bit excited and somewhat confused. Its for the first time i am creating a blog. It appears tough but i am sure i will get-through.

Believe me every long journey begins with a small step.

This first week start has been beyond my perceptions. I was actually not anticipating so much of guidance and help every step but self introduction, efficiency survey, freezing on discussion rules, and now creating blog.... great start, isnt it? Thanks to all dear classmates and Robert.

Being a lecturer in English, I have always faced it from people who think that the people with English literature background are not close to technology. Its not totally true but not false also.

I have always been techno-savvy/gizmo freak since long. But its for the first time i am receiving an exposure into how that energy and efficiency can be directed toward "teaching effectively".

I strongly believe that the Falling down is not a failure but not trying to get up is surely one. The person who never fails in life surely must not have done anything new ever. I teach under graduate and post graduate level students. I cant change the existing education system and hence i developed my own parallel system which can actually educate them and not just literate.

Teaching a poem is not enough but helping the student being a poet should be the goal. Bringing entire world into small compartment of four wall is difficult but not impossible. Classroom is a place with four walls and a tomorrow inside.

I am happy that the University of Oregon gave me an opportunity which will help me enhance my communicative skills by adding technological aspect to what i do.

I think teachers are towers of nations and pillars of society. A teacher must be first of all a fantastic human that a content master. Much has been said about might of the pen that a pen is mightier than a cannon.

I look forward to making friends with such stalwart human beings from across the world.

Thanks for Reading,

Keep Moving to keep living...

Tushar