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