Week 10: LoTI

http://loticonnection.com/index.php/resources/publications/20-loti-framework

LoTi Framework

The Levels of Teaching Innovation (LoTi) Framework was first conceptualized by Dr. Chris Moersch in 1994 as a research tool to assess authentic classroom technology use. Several iterations later, the original LoTi Framework has transformed into a conceptual model to measure classroom teachers implementation of the tenets of digital-age literacy as manifested in the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). The LoTi Framework focuses on the delicate balance between instruction, assessment, and the effective use of digital tools and resources to promote higher order thinking, engaged student learning, and authentic assessment practices in the classroom--all vital characteristics of 21st Century teaching and learning.

PDF: LoTi Framework

• LoTi Level 0 - Non-use
  At a Level 0 (Non-Use), the instructional focus can range anywhere from a traditional direct instruction approach to a collaborative student-centered learning environment. The use of research-based best practices may or may not be evident, but those practices do not involve the use of digital tools and resources.
  
  The use of digital tools and resources in the classroom is non-existent due to (1) competing priorities (e.g., high stakes testing, highly-structured and rigid curriculum programs), (2) lack of access, or (3) a perception that their use is inappropriate for the instructional setting or student readiness levels. The use of instructional materials is predominately text-based (e.g., student handouts, worksheets).
  
  
  
• LoTi Level 1 - Awareness
  At a Level 1 (Awareness), the instructional focus emphasizes information dissemination to students (e.g., lectures, teacher-created multimedia presentations) and supports the lecture/discussion approach to teaching. Teacher questioning and/or student learning typically focuses on lower cognitive skill development (e.g., knowledge, comprehension).
  
  Digital tools and resources are either (1) used by the classroom teacher for classroom and/or curriculum management tasks (e.g., taking attendance, using grade book programs, accessing email, retrieving lesson plans from a curriculum management system or the Internet), (2) used by the classroom teacher to embellish or enhance teacher lectures or presentations (e.g., multimedia presentations), and/or (3) used by students (usually unrelated to classroom instructional priorities) as a reward for prior work completed in class.
  
  
  
• LoTi Level 2 - Exploration
  At a Level 2 (Exploration) the instructional focus emphasizes content understanding and supports mastery learning and direct instruction. Teacher questioning and/or student learning focuses on lower levels of student cognitive processing (e.g., knowledge, comprehension) using the available digital assets.
  
  Digital tools and resources are used by students for extension activities, enrichment exercises, or information gathering assignments that generally reinforce lower cognitive skill development relating to the content under investigation. There is a pervasive use of student multimedia products, allowing students to present their content understanding in a digital format that may or may not reach beyond the classroom.
  
  
  
• Level 3 - Infusion
  At a Level 3 (Infusion), the instructional focus emphasizes student higher order thinking (i.e., application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation) and engaged learning. Though specific learning activities may or may not be perceived as authentic by the student, instructional emphasis is, nonetheless, placed on higher levels of cognitive processing and in-depth treatment of the content using a variety of thinking skill strategies (e.g., problem-solving, decision-making, reflective thinking, experimentation, scientific inquiry). Teacher-centered strategies including the concept attainment, inductive thinking, and scientific inquiry models of teaching are the norm and guide the types of products generated by students using the available digital assets.
  
  Digital tools and resources are used by students to carry out teacher-directed tasks that emphasize higher levels of student cognitive processing relating to the content under investigation.
  
  
  
• Level 4a – Integration: Mechanical
  At a Level 4a (Integration: Mechanical) students are engaged in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources; however, the teacher may experience classroom management (e.g., disciplinary problems, internet delays) or school climate issues (lack of support from colleagues) that restrict full-scale integration. Heavy reliance is placed on prepackaged materials and/or outside resources (e.g., assistance from other colleagues), and/or interventions (e.g., professional development workshops) that aid the teacher in sustaining engaged student problem-solving. Emphasis is placed on applied learning and the constructivist, problem-based models of teaching that require higher levels of student cognitive processing and in-depth examination of the content.
  
  Students use of digital tools and resources is inherent and motivated by the drive to answer student-generated questions that dictate the content, process, and products embedded in the learning experience.
  
  
  
• Level 4b – Integration: Routine
  At a Level 4b (Integration: Routine) students are fully engaged in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources. The teacher is within his/her comfort level with promoting an inquiry-based model of teaching that involves students applying their learning to the real world. Emphasis is placed on learner-centered strategies that promote personal goal setting and self-monitoring, student action, and issues resolution that require higher levels of student cognitive processing and in-depth examination of the content.
  
  Students use of digital tools and resources is inherent and motivated by the drive to answer student-generated questions that dictate the content, process, and products embedded in the learning experience.
  
  
  
• Level 5 - Expansion
  At a Level 5 (Expansion), collaborations extending beyond the classroom are employed for authentic student problem-solving and issues resolution. Emphasis is placed on learner-centered strategies that promote personal goal setting and self-monitoring, student action, and collaborations with other diverse groups (e.g., another school, different cultures, business establishments, governmental agencies) using the available digital assets.
  
  Students use of digital tools and resources is inherent and motivated by the drive to answer student-generated questions that dictate the content, process, and products embedded in the learning experience. The complexity and sophistication of the digital resources and collaboration tools used in the learning environment are now commensurate with (1) the diversity, inventiveness, and spontaneity of the teacher's experiential-based approach to teaching and learning and (2) the students' level of complex thinking (e.g., analysis, synthesis, evaluation) and in-depth understanding of the content experienced in the classroom.
  
  
  
• Level 6 - Refinement
  At a Level 6 (Refinement), collaborations extending beyond the classroom that promote authentic student problem-solving and issues resolution are the norm. The instructional curriculum is entirely learner-based. The content emerges based on the needs of the learner according to his/her interests, needs, and/or aspirations and is supported by unlimited access to the most current digital applications and infrastructure available.
  
  At this level, there is no longer a division between instruction and digital tools/resources in the learning environment. The pervasive use of and access to advanced digital tools and resources provides a seamless medium for information queries, creative problem-solving, student reflection, and/or product development. Students have ready access to and a complete understanding of a vast array of collaboration tools and related resources to accomplish any particular task.

LoTI gives us clear descriptions and expectations as well for us to know the level of technology integrated into our classroom.

I think, what I had in my class before was in :
LoTI level 1 - Awareness.
At a Level 1 (Awareness), the instructional focus emphasizes information dissemination to students (e.g., lectures, teacher-created multimedia presentations) and supports the lecture/discussion approach to teaching. Teacher questioning and/or student learning typically focuses on lower cognitive skill development (e.g., knowledge, comprehension).

Digital tools and resources are either (1) used by the classroom teacher for classroom and/or curriculum management tasks (e.g., taking attendance, using grade book programs, accessing email, retrieving lesson plans from a curriculum management system or the Internet), (2) used by the classroom teacher to embellish or enhance teacher lectures or presentations (e.g., multimedia presentations), and/or (3) used by students (usually unrelated to classroom instructional priorities) as a reward for prior work completed in class.

I let students to communicate with me through e-mail informally. It was not the obligation for the students to deliver questions or problems or sometimes tasks/homeworks through this tool, but they can access the curriculum through internet. so basically, we were aware that there were tools to support our learning process but never considering them as part of teaching-learning aids (Thanks to this UO summer course and Donna; and now, with my new teaching plan, we will be in:
Level 3 - Infusion
At a Level 3 (Infusion), the instructional focus emphasizes student higher order thinking (i.e., application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation) and engaged learning. Though specific learning activities may or may not be perceived as authentic by the student, instructional emphasis is, nonetheless, placed on higher levels of cognitive processing and in-depth treatment of the content using a variety of thinking skill strategies (e.g., problem-solving, decision-making, reflective thinking, experimentation, scientific inquiry). Teacher-centered strategies including the concept attainment, inductive thinking, and scientific inquiry models of teaching are the norm and guide the types of products generated by students using the available digital assets.

Digital tools and resources are used by students to carry out teacher-directed tasks that emphasize higher levels of student cognitive processing relating to the content under investigation.

Based on my project plan, I then will on purpose enhance the teaching method and use/apply technology like web, e-mail, class blog, assessment tools, webQuest to share tasks and students will sporadically or may be regularly use the tools aforementioned to fulfill the tasks required.

I hope this plan can be implemented well and finally I can go on to the next level.

Lets enjoy the last WEEK!

Week 9: Learning Styles

Hi everybody!

It is true that knowing our students' learning style is a "vital weapon" to help us in delivering  the knowledge to them. What I have in my mind when reading the research findings conveyed by Terry O'Connor from Indiana State University "Using Learning styles to Adapt Technology for Higher Education" we realized that  learning is not only for our students by for us as well to help us to be a better teacher.

Today, IT has become part of our daily life.  I like IT very much, because IT can take me 'everywhere'.

Technology, then, will be my 'new partner' in fulfilling my dreams to be able to share  to students. I will use it to enhance the teaching that I've never done before. Fortunately, my campus can facilitate us well and I found my students (as I often meet them almost everyday in class)   are familiar with technology as well (sometimes they are more modern than us).

But the most important thing is creating the best method of teaching through students' eyes, and knowing their learning styles better will help us in enhancing it. The chart provided by Colin Rose: http://www.chaminade.org/INSPIRE/learnstl.htm will help me a lot when determining the students learning styles. and then I can elaborate Richard M. Felder classification to give the students, the suggestions to know how the learners help themselves.

Happy finding our students' learning style!

Week 8 Online Tools

Hi everyone!

It's been a very tough week and I think this is the hardest one for me. I have a lot of things to this week. This wee I got a special assignment from my Dean. I had to participate as one of the reviewer for evaluating the English Books for Junior and senior high school students. Wow! It's a very nice experience for me, because I was chosen as one of the 40 reviewers here in my country in Indonesia. The work itself was very exhausting, because I have to spent about 12 to 13 hours each day but very valuable indeed for me, to meet and share knowledge with my new friends there, English teachers from all over my country.

Catching up with the tasks given for this week, I truly got problems. I hardly difficult to do all the assignments while at the same time I had to finish the task from my Dean as well. However, I did my best to finish everything, and now I am still doing some works about this week assignments.

The main topic of this week is about Online Tools. I found ANVILL is an amazing tools, I hope I know it earlier. To make my project success, I have created some online tools.


Since I have to use my campus sites for teaching purpose, so here is my sites URL for this project
Here are the addresses

https://sites.google.com/a/widyatama.ac.id/meita-and-classes/ (sites address)
https://sites.google.com/a/widyatama.ac.id/meita-and-classes/essay-writing-1 (The menu for course's description)
https://sites.google.com/a/widyatama.ac.id/meita-and-classes/essay-writing-1/task-1 (The menu for class assignement)
Class Blog URL
http://ewriting1.blogspot.com/ (The address for posting and commenting tasks or assignments)
and as a supplementary site, I use webquest also. Here is the URL
http://www.zunal.com/webquest.php?w=108896

Week 7: Learner Autonomy

Hi there!

This week has given me a lot of exposure in exploring learner autonomy. As I mentioned in the discussion thread that the paradigm has changed from teacher-centered to learner-centered. Students can do things to improve what they have. They can decide by themselves what activities they will do or they can ask someone or the teacher to help them know what to do.

Just like Little (1991:4) mentioned that by encouraging learners to self-direct learning, It is expected to assume greater responsibility for, and take change of, their own learning.

I agree with what Thanasoulas said that'however, learner autonomy does not mean that the teacher becomes redundant, abdicating his/her own control over what is transpiring in the language learning process. In my opinion, autonomous learners can be divided into two kinds. They are what we call as:
1. Fully autonomous-learner, where learner has a full access to decide what learning style, materials, level or even where they want to do the learning process. Teacher can be conditioned as resource person.
2. Semi autonomous-learner, here where Teacher and learner should work together to enhance their own and their students'autonomy just like Sheu said in his article- http://coyote.miyazaki-mu.ac.jp/learnerdev/LLE/8.1/smithE.html. Here Teacher has more role in encouraging, motivating or leading the students to do some activities for helping them to take responsibility for their own learning. Further Sheu explained that he found that the activities could encourage those who were less motivated to learn by choosing and doing what they wanted and liked, and sharing with friends.

For being an autonomous learner student can use technology or without it. From the lesson I got this week, I found various alternatives to do for letting the students have their learning autonomy.

See you all next week! 

Week 6: Engaging Students vs Large Class vs Interactive Power Point

Time flies like an arrow! That's what I'm having now. The clock is ticking! Two more weeks to go to share the project reports and about three weeks to finish the final draft of my Project Plan.

Wow! What a marvelous weeks we had!

Engaging students in class is one of the ways to enhance learning process. Just like Smith said that a teacher requires not only knowledge of subject matter but also knowledge of how students learn how to transform them into active learners. and further Johnson mentioned that "Learning is a social process that occurs through interpersonal interaction within a cooperative context. Individuals, working together, construct shared understandings and knowledge."

Both says about interaction between teacher and learner, it's all about interaction. Creating an interactive class is one of the ways to keep the students engaged and participated in class activities. There are some general lectures of interactive activities based on http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/interactive/whatis.html such as:
Think-pair-share, Concept test, the Question of the Day and Longer activities.
These types of activities provide feedback on what students have learned, enabling us to either discuss a particular concept in more detail or move on with confidence that students have mastered that concept. 

Large class. In my experience, to almost always have large classes in every semester becomes common to find some lacks in our teaching -learning process. So indeed, me as the teacher has to work harder to create the various activities that can involve all students in the same time and limited time. In my case, I always give clear instructions at the beginning of the class so the students know what to do and  pay attention to. 


Another thing to consider when facing a large class, is what we call Just In Time Teaching (JITT). It can improve student learning and increases in-class teaching effective teaching and learning practices. It specifically:
- improves students' preparation for class
- enhances student motivation for learning
- promotes on going formative assessment of student learning (by both instructors and students)
- informs in-class activities that target students learning gaps
The key to successful JITT implementation is developing a set of effective questions that will be posted online for students to answer before the next class. 


Just like Donna said, that  Power point is very commonly used in teaching, but it is rarely used interactively. This is the thing that some teachers forget to (even me sometimes.) The interactive one is kind of teacher's effort to create an interesting class, to keep students awake and to get students' attention to materials given. What more important than those mentioned above is  to have students better understanding about the goals of the lessons. 


In my project, in the near future I plan to put technology into learning process. I and my co teacher are going to work together and use Self Access Centre as a media of supporting class activities. We will also use Class Blog  as a media of evaluation and communication. We'll use this to show students that it will work for improving their writing ability. We'll put some goals to achieve  and of course provide the ground rules earlier to keep everything under control and work properly.


Interaction is the key!

Week 5: Project-based Learning, WebQuest, and Rubric

Seeing the world through students eyes! That's what I learned most in this week as Donna said to me, and indeed I got the points of what Donna did tell me. You are just kind of a mirror to me Donna, showing our "sins", correct us when we were wrong, no judgement, and keep us believing  and motivating that we can do everything for our own goods.

Being a better teacher is always about giving the options to students and this week I learned so much about that. One of them is project-based learning. Just like Gaer's project title: Less Teaching and More Learning. So, by designing a well prepared project, we'll have the opportunity to develop more on monitoring the students works and improvements. Using tools can be very helpful, effective and efficient. We can use  Rubrics to give student's chance on checking their assessment result online and finding the correction more details. This is my rubric's address:  http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=ShowRubric&rubric_id=2072997

Project-Based Learning also gives a new atmosphere for students to have collaborative and peer learning. They communicate each other, give comments and correction, even at the end, the teachers have to check again and give more inputs. On line discussion can be another alternative to do so.  At the beginning, perhaps, It will take a big effort to set everything as we wish and need more time to prepare and provide valuable and easy access information. This can be also uploaded through WebQuest: this is the page for gathering and sharing valuable materials provided for the class. And here is my WebQuest address: http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=108896 I still need to work on it more, since I still just put a preliminary design for it.

It's an excellent week for me though. even I have to fight with fever and heavy flu at weekend. I found this week very fascinating and challenging.

Happy sharing!

Week 4: Technology Enhanced Lesson Plan

What a hectic week!

Do the readings, fulfill the tasks, comments e-friends' opinion and share my weekly experience (what I a m doing right now) in this blog or  do my office things   have driven me to be 'superman' this week. It's a great week after all.

What a 'wonderful' coincidence that everything is deadline.  I feel great actually, even I have to keep everything up at the same time. It is said "The more we have works and can meet all things at defined time, The more we learn time management better. Hope so!

This week I have to cope with Technology Enhanced Lesson Plan. What I had in my mind while reading this task was thinking about making plans for my class and using new ways of teaching in sharing the knowledge to students.

Technology becomes very important today and we have an obligation to be able to participate in this New Era. Technology can help us in developing and improving the way we learn and share with students.

In my case, I'll be co-lecturer for Essay Writing 1 Class. so I and my partner will work as a team to conduct a technology supported writing class. My partner will share the theories to students and I'll handle the technology used for supporting this class. We designed a Technology Enhanced Lesson Class that we will use in coming semester, create a class blog as a media for monitoring and doing the students works, progress and evaluation.

What technology  does today to our world, hopefully can help us also in improving our ways of teaching and students; ways of  learning.

Here is my Lesson Plan for week 2:

Technology Enhanced Lesson Plan

Lesson Title: Part of an Essay

Lesson Author: Meita L. Sujatna

Grade Level: third Semester students (pre-intermediate level)

Subject Area: Introduction paragraph

Time allotted for the lesson: 100 minutes (1 meeting)

Short Description of Lesson: at the end of the lesson, the students will be able to write and analyze the introduction paragraphs

Classroom layout: The lesson will be delivered in a classroom but it is an option to move to Self Access Centre (SAC) room where students can access the multimedia facilities provided by university (scheduled as non-class activities). They will work individually.

State curriculum Standards met in this lesson: We will use the standards provided by the university

Instructional Objectives:

1. The students will listen to presentation given by lecturer

2. The students will have opportunity to have Questions and Answers session

3. The students will be able to  understand and analyze the sample of introduction paragraphs given

4. The students will be able to write the introduction paragraphs

Materials and resources needed for this lesson:

1. Part 2-Blanchard, Karen & Christine Root.2003. Ready To Write More.Longman. Pearson Education.

2. Part 2-Oshima, Alice & Ann Hogue. 1998. Writing Academic English. Longman. Pearson Education.

Technology resources for this lesson:

1. Computer

2. Internet

3. Self Access Centre

Web address needed for this lesson:

1. Links address : http://englishclub.com  especially  http://eslblogs.englishclub.com/english/

2. http://lklivingston.tripod.com/essay/index.html.

3. http://writingguide.geneseo.edu/ (only for lecturer)

Student’s Present level of performance and knowledge: The students have taken Basic Writing 1 & 2 and Internet class

Instructional Procedures:

1. Discovering those who have written e-mail, letters or private journal

2. Reminding the students that they will have to write things in near future like posting their essays to class blog, final report, or even letter of application after they graduate from university

3. Asking the students to write a short sample of writing, it can be letter, e-mail or an application letter (it has relation with lessons to go)

Techniques:

1. Explaining the part of Essay which comprises the paragraph parts: Topic Sentence, Three support paragraphs, concluding Sentence

2. Giving samples and recognizing the Parts of an introduction

3. Recognizing general and thesis statements

Activities:

1. Students will listen to explanation

2. Students will do some exercises given related to techniques above

3. Lecturer will give corrections or ideas

4. Discussion

Lesson Closure:

The lesson will be closed by making correct sample of introduction paragraphs and read some students revised works.

Adaptation for Special Learners: Since in in our class there are not students with specials needs, we don’t have to do any adaptation.

Supplemental Activities:

1. The students will be ask to access SAC for getting information needed for the lessons

2. Remedial given or provided when students have difficulties or questions

Assessment/Evaluation:

1. In some meetings, the evaluation will be given in the classroom (at the end of lesson while summarizing it) to  ensure the students that the materials given are fully understood in the form of class works.

2. At defined meetings the students will have to post their essays and comment other posts at  class blog

Students Products: Essay and Recommendation posted in Class Blog

Meita's Note: Week 3: Bookmarking with Delicious

www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/research/resources/student_res/postscriptfiles/vol3/vol3_1_gong1.pdf http://222.124.204.200/xmlui/handle/123456789/1350

Meita's Note: Week 3: CALL for Oral/Aural Skills

www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/research/resources/student_res/postscriptfiles/vol3/vol3_1_gong1.pdf, http://222.124.204.200/xmlui/handle/123456789/1350

Week 3: CALL for Oral/Aural Skills

Hello e-friends,

Talking about CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning)  for  Oral/Aural Skills has become more attractive to those who live in this machine age. The paradigm has changed, namely from the teacher- centered to the learner-centered approach.  Using IT as a means of supporting media has become one of   the ways to improve quality of language exposure, and students’ experience is important to support the learning process in classroom  as well.  The use of computer is unavoidable and important to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of learning process itself. As IT develops and becomes closer to people’s daily life, the challenge to use computer and IT for learning and teaching purposes becomes stronger.

As quoted by Gong, (Levy 1997: 1) offers an unrivalled range of possibilities to provide learning experiences that are impossible without a computer. In the past, language learning was restricted by the six-sided classroom and many language learners did not have the opportunity to interact with native speakers in a meaningful way. Nowadays, the CALL environment becomes an ideal safe haven for learners to practice interaction. The computers, accompanying software packages and network have been used in a number of ways to assist language learning.

Further, Gong quoted some experts saying that, the potential of the computer medium for teaching language speaking skills has been realized by researchers, programmers and language teachers. In second/foreign language classrooms, the CALL environment creates situations that stimulate interest, allows dialogue and communication, enhances reactivity, fosters a sense of personal worth, facilitates collaboration among students working together, permits rich learning experiences for all students and strengthens communication skills (Borras 1993; Pennington 1995, 1996; Cameron 1999; Hardisty et al. 1989; Inoue 1999; Kohn et al. 1997; Powell 1998).

The paradigm has changed from lecturer-centered to students-centered. It is obvious that computers can facilitate the gap between lecturer and students. Lecturer  can easily use computer and access the internet to have opportunities to improve their teaching method which can be adapted to current conditions and students can put themselves into better communication skills in modern and more fun ways.

And then, Meita: 2010 in her paper “IT Suporrted SALL” mentioned that English is often still a handicap for its users. Knowing and learning English since primary school to university level was not a guarantee for the students to be able to absorb and use them optimally. It is quite often learners and teachers and curriculum are bound by the conditions of that in fact the theoretical and not practical course also limited by time and opportunity to practice as an individual, especially in classes with large numbers of students. We must pause and ask: What has been taught in class?How many of us / students who have been able to use English to communicate? Many of the students simply learn English only because they have to, not because they need to or know what benefits are. They have not been forced to use them. How then can we encourage our students to learn and to communicate properly. Therefore this reason  is enough for us to be more innovative in supporting and providing conditions for effective learning and efficient.

SteStephen Krashen said ‘… two independent systems of second language performance: The acquired system and the learned system

 'Language acquisition (language acquisition) was obtained naturally and subconsciously, which is like a child who is learning his first language, the speaker on this system does not only focus on the speech but also its meaning, while in the learning system was obtained consciously in the form of formal instructions, such as the grammar lesson that we are achieving in school. Both  systems must be conducted , depending on the skill, and the creativity of the teachers

So, CALL for Oral/Aural skills is becoming a compulsory to enhance the students’ speaking ability.

Week 3: Bookmarking with Delicious

Hello everybody.....!

Bookmarking is something that I always do while finding interesting URL or links. But what I did was bookmarking them directly  to my browser (because it was the only thing I could do). The list became very long then. I had to force my eyes to focus searching the addresses I needed. It became more annoying when I clicked a wrong link and I had to go through the list again.  Do you know what happened to those fabulous bookmarks when my computer got crashed or virus attacked and I had to re-install the computer? I cried. Absolutely! Because I was  too lazy to make notes of those URL and I had to try very hard to re-locate all (not all actually) the bookmarks that I needed desperately. It occurred few times, and meant crying few times as well.

At the beginning,  It was quite easy for me when I had to create a delicious page, because Healey has given us a very informative 'how to'. But then the problems came when I lost my track keeping the terminology in my head. 'Tags, title and how to put tags in Tags bundle. So trial and error really happened to me. And then, things changed after I found the way to do it as easy as that. Now, I am really, really, really enjoying it!


You know what? This week gives me a relieve! I find delicious.com is a miracle for me, since I never heard about it before.

Thanks to Donna who introduced me to this new experience. You can see the dates when I bookmarked the links. I kept doing this almost every day in this week.

Happy Bookmarking!

Week 2: Learning Objective

It's been  great that the task of Week 2 will support me a lot for developing and improving my teaching method in my class. In this week we have some tasks concerning how to use various  search engines,  make learning objectives using ABCD objective, and also describe the class I'd like to use with my project.

What I had in mind when reading the task was "Wow.. It will guide me how to create a  conducive class in applying technology into my class and create a better academic atmosphere by taking my students actively participate in learning activities."

Now, I found that not only google, yahoo, or wikipedia that can help me search the information I need for completing my academic purpose but also www.noodletools.com that links us to other search engines for our information needs, like INFOMINE, INTUTE and etc.,  then TWURDY http://www.twurdy.com/search.php (just like Jose Carlos Manrique said that " it can  very handy, especially when you want to recommend a text to your students.")


It helps me a lot and my upcoming team teaching class more then, when the task came to ABC learning objective. Because by doing  so, it will be easier when I have to teach in this class using  this clear guidance. I plan to have my project in Essay Writing 1 class, where my co-teacher teaches this class and I'll be his teaching team conducting the project. The population of this class is about 15 to 20 or sometimes 25 students, the third semester of four years of English department course. We'll have a blog to share our ideas, experience or comments for students' essay. 

The students came from different educational background. What I meant is the students came form different major in their high school; sciences and socials, none of them from language major. Their age between 20 to 21 years old and different socio-economic condition but basically they have the access to computer or internet in their house or our campus.
The class that we will use is in good condition with lcd projector installed. We use moving class style so every student will have different room to join every different subject. 
In our campus, luckily,  we have fully access to computer and internet.  It is a fabulous coincidence that I work for Self Access Centre (SAC) is a learning environment where learners have access to a variety of learning resources. SAC is a means of self-study/co-curricular activities, especially for Self Access Language Learning (SALL) for students who find difficulties or wish to deepen and develop English Language Skills beyond the acquisition of material in classroom. SAC is integrated to technology (computers and internet) which  will support the achievement of autonomy. In SAC, the learners is able to access various learning resources. Learners can select and use materials with or without the help of teachers or anyone else, utilizing suitable materials provided, learners are expected to make improvement in their learning process. So hopefully I can solve the problems that some of my e-friend teachers have.


I believe I and my students will have more benefits while doing the activities together.

Week 1 Assignment

Hi everybody!

"What a wonderful news!" that was what I said when I got e-mail informing me to have this opportunity to join the online course. I found that it would be a challenging occasion for me in developing teaching and learning English through website.

But then I almost missed some tasks because I was ill for few days so it was a little bit hard to keep up with all of the readings and assignments. Actually I used my old blog for completing this task which unfortunately has not been filled by any posts since i started it. And it is now a very great 'coincidence' to elaborate it.

Now, I am doing my best to complete all the assignments given because it has been a dream for me to teach students in unconventional methods and use IT to support self access language learning (SALL).

What I found difficult while creating this blog was deciding what suitable name should be put for my blog that can represent my goals but considering it is editable then I just keep it as it is now and then the second one was designing the page of my blog, which photo I had to choose or things to make it nice. But even so, I believe I could make it better soon I am getting used to it.

Another thing that I believe will come true is that I would be able to share 'things' to my students through this blog. I plan to create an online forum and get my students to have their own English blog and make them write just like me as well.

I am very sure by fulfilling the weekly assignments for posting at least one writing in my blog will 'force' me to be a better teacher in sharing the knowledge to students or anyone and what is more, one thing which make me happy is that it will help me and my students to write.