Commencement Week

One of the thoughts that have been haunting my mind last week is the negative feeling caused by the pressure of time that makes you long for the end of a process regardless of the consequences. I am sure that many of us have had this feeling but were wise enough not to yield to it. Now that we are in the end in just a matter of hours, I realize how mistaken I was to have longed for the conclusion of such a successful and rewarding learning experience that somehow reminded me of the good old university times but with one major obvious difference which is that I have been comfortably attending the seminars from the comfort of home. It is also hard to believe that 10 weeks have been enough to change upside down the way I was regarding my role as a language teacher. I am not a digital native but I do not consider myself as a digital immigrant either since I have witnessed most of the development in the information and communication technology from the early PC (personal computer) to the advent of the Web 2.0 and how they have revolutionized educational systems in many countries. I have personally tried some of the web tools such as weblogs, wikis, online grade-books … (you name it) but I have never succeeded in adopting any of them practically mainly because the educational system itself was not that encouraging. I mean that my school was not really equipped with enough computers or internet connection neither for office use nor for the classes. On top of that, some administrators and colleagues were very critical about the use of such technology as it meant unnecessary additional workload for them in addition to the cost. All this meant that I was the odd one out in this entire situation. Therefore, the comfort of a traditional classroom situation, reminiscent of the way I myself learned, seemed to be the norm to abide by. In spite of this unfortunate situation, I kept on reading articles and reports, watching videos and attending conferences whenever possible about ICT integration in education and how students in developed countries are reaping the benefits of such investments in education. Then came this opportunity of an online E-teacher course which has opened up a new horizon for someone who has been trying to swim against the tide. Week after week, consistently and methodically, we, the participants in this and myself, were (re)trained to become the new old teachers of the 21^st century that our students are silently demanding. Thanks to this course, slowly and gradually I have managed to successfully implement some of the tech-tools with some of my students. I am delightfully witnessing these days in company of my amazing partners Alex and Zeljko how much these students are totally engaged in their learning, how much autonomy they are experiencing, how much collaboration and leadership they are using in order to achieve their educational goals. Now that the course is over, that the walls of my classroom are torn down and that my metamorphosis is complete, I rediscover a new teacher inside me with so much spare time ahead after this last week, ready to celebrate the commencement of a new period in which I am set to declare a war on the traditional systems of teaching and learning starting from my school environment reaching the educational policy-makers in the top of the educational system in my country. May God help me in this venture.

It’s hard to for me to conclude this last post without referring to all my course mates from all over the world who have been a great source of inspiration to me through their constructive comments, their insightful discussions, encouraging suggestions and recommendations throughout the entire course period.  Special thanks to Alex Duarte and her students from Portugal, Zeljko  Andrijanic and his students from Serbia who have all been awesome partners all these 10 weeks. Finally, no one of us would have achieved so much success without the expert guidance and the extraordinary devotion and attention of our dear instructor Donna Shaw. Thank you, Donna.

Week 9

The Final Sprint. This is the week that has seen the climax of our hard work. The project writing phase is over and its implementation is underway. The students´ excitement and engagement is transcendent. This is what I call autonomy and authenticity in action. This week´s workload was light but prolifically productive as we have seen how the multiple intelligences and the learning styles theories were not synonyms but inherent characteristics of the learners for which technology can play a fundamental role as it is a bit challenging for the teacher to cater to all the LSs without the help of technology. Another milestone is the final stage of the project writing. Reading and peer- editing my course mate´s draft was an enriching experience from which I realized that there were many things which we take for granted but which can only be seen through the eyes of another reader. Such a reader is able to pinpoint the flaws and suggest constructive moves to improve the project. I was so lucky to have had a very serious honest peer-editor to whom I am so deeply indebted for having devoted whole-heartedly her precious time to scrutinize the tiniest details of the draft.  Although I am trying to concentrate on this week’s reflection many thoughts about next week keep haunting my mind and I am afraid that I let loose all my thoughts I won’t have anything to say about next week in due time. So, I’d rather put an end to this week’s reflection right now.

Week 8

Two more weeks to go before the graduation party: The celebration of a great learning session. Thank god this week was off thanks to the end of term 1 break in Morocco which for me means more time to dedicate to the course under no pressure at all. At least, that was what I had thought. This time the pressure came from my children who wanted a change of air during the break. Guess what? The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it as Oscar Wild used to say. I myself need to recharge my batteries to start a new term on good grounds especially that a major project is underway this year thanks to my participation in this online course. However, when you are away from home, all the routines that you have established these past weeks collapse. To make things worse, the internet connection is unstable as some areas in Morocco are not wired. Hopefully, I have managed to strike a balance between my duties and spending quality time with my children. Although I am tempted to describe my vacation, I won't yield to the temptation this time because I know that you will feel jealous and it will affect your performance on the course. That's why I am going to focus only on the learning experience of this week which as usual was very fruitful. Writing the draft of the project and peer editing a partner's draft was a very enriching experience.  As you may know, we are the only group of three partners in this course project and Donna would probably confirm to us whether this was unprecedented. If you are interested in our projects, please feel free to pay a visit to our blogs here or here. In addition to the project, this week was also rewarding in terms of the new web-tools that I learned about which catered for all the skills and activities ranging from creating simple offline printable worksheets such as crossword puzzles (which I enjoy doing) to a more complicated CMS (Class Management Systems) such as ANVILL which I am considering for my future projects after the course now that I am hooked on integrating technology in my teaching. I may now say that I have overcome the tech phobia that some teachers have when they hear about the new trends in teaching. I believe that I am well prepared to try any innovative tool regardless of its complexity for the benefit of our students.

Week 7

This is the climax of the course. I am now seeing the result of the six weeks of hard work reflected on my students. Before this course, most of my students didn’t even dream of having an email account. Now, they are speaking out loud to the world in their broken English. Even better than that, they are seeing the reaction of the world to what they are saying.

Thanks to the project, my students managed to create email addresses, a class blog and a large community across the Mediterranean. They are now in touch with students from countries whose language and culture are totally different from their own.  English therefore is the language they have to use to communicate. They have already exchanged greetings and expressed their enthusiasm about this experience.

Now they are working on developing content to share with the community. They are very busy reading, writing and taking photos and videos about their hometown to share with their new friends on the other side of the sea. I can’t hide my excitement because, for me, this isn’t the first time I have created blogs for my students, but it’s definitely the first time I have managed to go beyond the boundaries of the classroom. Evidence for this, is the abundance of warm greetings and encouraging comments from both teachers and students from the two partner countries on the project: Portugal and Serbia.

My excitement over this great achievement has overshadowed week 7’s assignments which were equally beneficial. The articles on autonomy and m-learning added greatly to my professional development as an English language teacher. Although I have been witnessing the overwhelming evolution of communication technology, I cannot trace back the history of such rapid overlapping innovations in the mobile technology. However, Robert Goodwin-Jones’s article about mobile apps for language learning was very insightful in this matter, especially on what is available now in terms of applications that could be used by the students inside the classroom as efficiently as if you were using a multimedia lab in your school, as well as outside the school for individualized informal learning. Of course, smartphones are far from being democratic gadgets, but due to the fast spread of such devices, they will soon replace the personal computer as the prevailing source of information and means of communication. Meanwhile, the one computer approach is still considered the best alternative to the sophisticated costly media-lab which is most of the time unavailable in the largest majority of public schools in the world. The references on the word processing tips, strategies and applications of this approach are abundant and viable. So, it is high time we started integrating technology in our classrooms even if our schools aren’t equipped with the latest computer laboratories. 

These are the links to the blogs involved in the project so far. If you are interested in joining the experience, we will be so pleased to welcome you in this global learning adventure.

Soure, Portugal

Tetuan, Morocco

P.S Also check the fantastic feedback my partner Alex from Portugal is getting on her week 7 reflection

Week 6

I think this week has been the most challenging week in this course for me so far. But not because of the assignments and the regular tasks, though. It's because of technology. Yes. Technology is supposed to help you and make things easy for you- at work, at school, at home. But when it fails, my goodness, when it fails everything collapses. Everything is turned upside down. And you start panicking.

You don’t know what to do. Has this ever happened to you, or not yet? It will. I Know. It’s not the first time this happened to me, and it won’t be the last time. The worst thing is when it happens in the wrong time. When your life depends on it. This is what happened to me this week. My computer went down. Of course I panicked. The only thing I was thinking of was Wednesday 11:59 and Sunday 11:59. My thoughts had even gone so far as to think  about who would be able to survive on this planet if technology fails on a global scale. I thought of the poor farmers in the country-side who don’t rely on electricity and running water. These farmers and their animals would be the only ones to could rescue us and provide us with food and water.

This week, I started implementing the project with my students in collaboration with Alexandra Duarte from Portugal and Zeljko Andrijanic from Serbia. We created a class blog and G-mail accounts for all the students. In the middle of the process my computer started to give weird signals of weariness. A command that took a split of a second to execute seemed to take forever. Finding other computer to work with and saving what could be saved and backing what could be backed was not a piece of cake. Deadlines for assignments don’t take these variables into consideration. Although this week’s learning experience was frustrating thanks to technology, it was fruitful and insightful content-wise, as usual, the topic for this week, teaching large size classes and how technology might help to overcome the drawbacks of this inevitable situation in so many public schools around the world including the school where I teach. According to the research referred to  in this week’s articles, students are very much unsatisfied with large lecture-style class, which no one denies, but I would rather say that it is mostly teachers who should suffer from the limitations and the frustrations of large size and multilevel classes on top of students’ frustrations. Another point is that small size classes also have drawbacks, although not at serious at the other type of class. In both cases technology, of course when it doesn’t fail, plays an essential part in lowering these challenges.

The techniques suggested in the articles are very useful, especially in adult classes while with kids and teens classroom management is a bit harder. Cooperative learning methods in combination with technology quite often enhance the learning/teaching situation up to a certain level. However, they require very strong commitment from the teacher and an active engagement and willingness to learn from the student.

This week, I had not been very successful in staying on my personal schedule posting the discussions but fortunately I have managed to respect the deadlines of the course although I know I might not get any feedback from my course mates as they will have already engaged in week 7.

Next week is a new week.