WEEK 10, THE BEGINNING OF THE JOURNEY

Finally, we are in the last week of the course. One difficult question was asked by Donna. The question is "To talk about topics that enjoyed more than the others!" For me every single topic we tackled wes really interesting and fruitful. I can't ignore how wonderful was week week one with the introductions. I personally attribute all the success the course has had to that week! We wouldn't have worked this collaboratively, if we we didn't know each other! What a wonderful experience knowing about blogs and nicenet!!!

Week two's ABCD objectives were also nice. They personally gave me a new way of preparing my lessons with clearer objectives. In fact all the topics;  Aural/oral skills for week 3, Reading/writing skills for week 4, Project-based learning and WebQuests for weeek 5,  Technology tools for creating student-centered classes for week 6, Learner autonomy for week 7, Teacher resources -exercise generators for week 8 and Learning styles for week 9 were all good. Knowing different learning styles however, helped me a lot in knowing the differences in my students and how to cope with these differences. I have realised that a learner is not bad but may be the teaching style does not match his/her learning style hence giving negative results.

I thank you Donna, I thank all of you for your great contribution to this forum.

Regards

Richard

Week 9 on its tail

We are at the ending week nine and soon the course weeks will get to ten (10). Can you believe the tenth week will be the end of the course?

Anyway, this weak was as fruitful as the past ones. I especially liked the classification of learners as far as learning styles are concerned  by Richard M. Felder. It is easy for every teacher to make the learning environment easy and more  inclusive. It's just a matter of knowing who are your learners and what are their learning styles and then trying to think beyond the talk and chalk theory of teaching.

The final project was also another experience. It actually taught us that working in groups is a possible thing. Sometimes teachers fear it just because they think they can't manage their students. But as it happened with our groups, it's just a matter of making learners responsible for the group work. Then things get easy.

Week 8 reflections.

It's reality that our wonderful time together is getting to its end. I'd say it is sad news to hear that we are ending our discussions and the sharing of ideas in few weeks to come. But it is abvious that everything should have an end. We can't enjoy doing endless things, can we? I think it is good to have the results of the first action and go on with the next! I believe very soon will be the end of the course but not the end of ourselves! we are still there and we can decide keeping in touch.

Anyway, this week was full of good learning. I didn't know I will once be able to create my Nicenet class!! Through this week I managed and through discussions have not yet started on it, I believe I will make it very soon. Unfortunately, I didn't participate to UNVILL live discussion, it seems I wasn't fully equipped to be able to follow the discussion but I enjoyed the reading about it and found it useful. Through technology, our English classes can yield wonders!!! Thank you Letty Antonio, my project group mate this week. I believe my final project will be a good one just because of creative mind.

Thanks

Week 7 reflections

I can't believe we are at the end of weak 7. Weeks are running so fast and the end is near. Anyway, I was happy to learn a lot during this week. I learnt a lot of new things on how I can omprove on learners' autonomy. And this is a great thing as our education should seek to produce responsible people capable of doing things themselves. I was also happy to have you Letyy and garri as my project goroupmates. I hope next week will prove that we can really learn from eah other and also that two heads are better than one, as the saying goes.
Happy time to all of you.

Week 6 Project plan

I have already started implementing the changes within my class.It deals with speaking skills development. I mentioned last week on Nicenet that we have a network problem at the college Consequently. As I said, I have already downloaded some English pronunciation lessons and saved them in the computers in the computer lab for my students. I tell them to watch the videos and focus on words pronunciation. I also provided text for the videos so that learners will read the same text conforming to the pronunciation in the videos. Students are now critically watching the videos paying much attention on the pronounciation of some words. We hope that the netwok problem will be resolved soon and students will be able to send their reflections on the blog I will have created. That's where they will also share ideas on the relevance of the course. This will also include the improvement of other skills such as writing and reading. I'm still thinking on how very well this can be done.I will appreciate any help from you, distinguished readers of my blog.

Best wishes

In the middle of the full course

I can see we are going further and further in getting new knowledge as days run faster and faster. I can't  believe believe we are closing week 5 now. But let me say it was full of new experiences to me. Creating rubrics, making learners participate in their own assessment using rubrics and project-based learning, and many more were learned during this week. I also liked Donna's question on how we should behave once a learner becomes sad for some corrections made by the teacher. I still have to say that we should always correct the errors not the one who made them.  I liked this week's content though I didn't have much time to be on internet as I was having a workshop on the introduction of a module system and learner centered approach to teaching in Rwandan universities and institutions of higher learning.

The best.

Week four to its end

Dear all,
I'm happy to announce that I'm now quite a new person as far as teaching is concerned. I rarely used technology based teaching in my classes before. when done, I could only use a radio and CD just for listening! I thought only listening can be tought using these audio tools. But, guess what now!! I used internet to teach reading and vocabulary this week!! And it was more than interesting. Teaching using enhanced technology tools is more easier more fruitful for sure. Thank you Donna for introducing me into this, thank your all for your relevant contribution to my everyday learning. Your experience in teaching helped in in discovering some of the secrets hidden in the profession.

Further knowledge is coming and brain is widely open to to capture every single relevant knowledge to come in.

Further steps in learning are coming.

We have now covered three weeks doing our course on Building Teacher's Skills through Interactive Web.Are we still the same people in terms of knowledge? I hope NO! We have already learned a lot. Many of us didn't know what blogging is, but we can now see ourselves blogging! What about Nicenet, Delicious, Bookmarking, Noodletools, new acquaintances and many more?Did you know all of these? So perfect that you didn't learn anything? I believe the answer is no. We all learned new things from each other.

It is not yet over! We are still together and learning from each other. Week three, for me, was my big time to explore a lot that I did not know before. I can now save  any URL I find interesting and and easily access it at any computer through Delicious. Knew and very helpful knowledge! I've been having troubles in teaching the languages skills, especially listening but I have got a good answer from week three. The articles we read and all other documents we read gave me a useful information on how to deal with this. Furthermore, I'm now starting to have an idea of what and how my project will be! Just because I read some project samples. Thanks Donna for providing this information, thanks all for helping me understand more the world of technology applied to language teaching.

Week two ends with tremendous improvement

This is the end of week two and learning continues. Throughout  this week I realized that one ceases to learn only once he is no longer! I can't find a way to thank all of you who helped me in getting new sources of information I give to my students. Now I know that Google is not the only website where I can do my search. There are also others, many.

What an accurate way of setting objectives! I had never come across the ABCD method before. And I fond it very useful as it shows clearly what is your target as a teacher and how much you can expect from your audience once the lesson has been well delivered. Thanks Rashid for giving me ideas on the Degree phase of the ABCD method. I said it before, I will get a lot from all of you! I have already learnt a lot and I'm continuing to learn.

The project tasks I read from others also gave me a hint on how well I can improve mine. I hope things will continue to improve as time goes on.

End of the first week

This is the end of the first week in the course!Allow me to say I'm lucky to be with the right company and also to thank you all for your commitment to work with each other.

This week was surely full of new experiences: Nicenet, blogging and new acquaintances! This is my first time to be in touch with people from many different countries at the same time.I do not only like this but love it. Thank you Donna for being there for me and surely for all of the group members. It is hard work to  be present for each of us but you have managed and now we can blog and use many more internet options thanks to you.

From the way the first week was very good and fruitful I hope to gain a lot from the following weeks and I wish we will continue to work together as inthe first week.

Thanks
Richard

My blog for Webskills e-teacher course

WELCOME TO NIYIBIGIRA RICHARD BLOG

LEARN AS YOU GROW!!

The best thing in life is not only to get every thing changed for the better but also to create new situations that would help people to grow up in their minds and physics.

Thank you all in advance for I believe you will be the source of my inspiration during during this 10 weeks period to go. I hope my contribution to the ongoing of the course will help many of you, if not all, in our goal to improve English language skills in our beloved students.



All constructive comments are warmly welcome

THANK YOU