Rahiza and Me

This is my newest best friend!!!

My final reflection within the course

SKILLS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        The greatest changes that education has face in the last decade are uncountable, from paradigms to materials every single aspect of education has evolve. Technology has brought us so many things we can do easily. But definetily in countries like Ecuador also we need to change our ATTITUDE  towards the use of technology. The challege of implementing new tools in education has just started. I believe that the next decade will give us more advances and in this way our lives will be easier too, but with the demanding condition of being prepared to use these tools.

 

In 10 weeks my whole vision about language learning has changed. I will be devoted to prepare my lessons better with the help of web tools. Now I am so eager to share what I have learned during this course with all.

 

Now, more than friends the participants in this training proccess will be a community. Please let's share anything. It does not matter if our context or realities are different, we can adapt and enhance any idea.

 

Finally if you happen to be in Ecuador come to visit me. Some years ago I heard an spanish quote by an american guy "mi casa es su casa", which means "my place is yours".

 

Thanks friends for sharing your toughts and effort in this program.

 

The most common among us is that  " WE LOVE ENGLISH".

 

Blessings,

 

Boris.

 

 

Howard and Me!!!

This week has made me reflect about how I like to learn things and how I should develop strategies for my students taking account their interests, but also their multiple intelligences.

Howard Garder gave an important turn to modern education with his theory, the first time I knew about it, it sounded great to me, nevertheless the more I read about the more curious I am about it.

I feel that technology can really provide us important ways to incorporate Gardern's vision into our lessons.

Using web tools gives different sources and materials:

• Images, videos for visual learners
• Grammar for logical learners.
• Lyrics, Music videos and Culture for musical learners.
• Blogs for intrapersonal learners.
• Chats and Social networks for interpersonal learners
• Watch and do for Kinesthetic learners.
• Information about world problems for Natural learners
• Poems, stories, novels for verbal learners.

Well we have everything in the web. It is amazing to see how much we can do it.

Boris.

The evolution week !!!!!!

During the whole course I have devoted important time to learn and put in practice interesting things. This week has been one of the hardest because the amount of tools we have to see and be familiar with.

The role of technology in education is questioned mainly for those who see it as something harmful, the time and interest that new generations put on technology. Nevertheles I think this week we could see how the process can be complemented through this tools, I mean how valuable can be the use of technology when teachers lead the students to use the web tools for learning and enjoyment.

The on-line activity I did, is part of my plan too. Honestly I will be busier than before but I feel it worth.

Changing paradigms is to evolve. I am part of the permanent evolution process. I am a teacher who dares to try new things in spite of the reluctance of students or authorities. The game is on and will be not the best player but I will try to do my best.

Borisito!!!!!!!

Autonomous Reflection and more!!

This week brought me hope to see a brighter future, the responsability of teaching goes beyond the teachers hands, not just an active role of students and adecuaded material can help us to see results. I strongly believe that sharing is the key for success. Language learning has been changing so fast in the last years, new visions and techiniques are spread all over the world in seconds, but put them in practice is taking more time, attitudes of all the member of the learning community have to change too. At the moment of giving self-learning tools to our students we are giving them also the opportunity to grow up as a person not just increase their knowledge about language. Being an autonomous learner will permit to a learners to achieve their goals no matter what they be. There are no limits when a person set up his/her own goals. just the sky is the limit.

Let's face this new stage assuming a positive attitude, planning the activities that can motivate to our students to learn by themselves, guiding them to do them as they need them, assessing thier progress as part of the process and giving them the biggest step to be an active learner, the guidance to be an autonomous learner. As we see in this cartoon theory is not enough we have to practice it!

Also I have reflected about how much we can do with just one computer in our classrooms, and uncountable activities that have come to my mind  which worth to be applied.

Care,

Boris.

The power of power point

I have so many memorables experiences from power point, the first time I hold a lecture for 600 students in an auditorium I felt so nervous, when I realize that the power point was guiding me through the topic I started to feel calmed and relaxed, since that moment 10 years ago I heavily rely on power points. This week in our course about web skills we had shared interesting points of view about not just power points but other fantastic strategies to improve students engagement.

I see that using power point permits me to include so many cultural aspects about language learning such as cartoons, music, videos, quotes, etc in a very interactive way.

Now technology has provided us so many new things and we have to take advantage of it, using and appliying things  like clicker  are valuable for our students.




Boris Cadena Murga.

Evaluation and Assessment week.

At the end of every day we have to take a look at the result of our actions nevertheless we should reflect about the way we got them.

Evaluation is a concept widely defined and discussed in education; new trends in language learning have introduced the concept “assessment”, which has a deeper meaning in the new class. The generational gap provoked mainly by technological advances had been in constant growing, now through the use of tools as blogs, rubrics, web quest, etc teachers can understand better to their students, and reduce the existing gap.

Instruments like rubrics not just permit to the teacher to be objective and clear at the moment of evaluate students’ progress (cognitive abilities), they also could permit to the teachers to be aware about the whole process. It means to consider the material, equipment, procedures, goals, resources, building rubrics for each one of the components. In another words not just what the students were able to memorize or repeat as traditional methods used to measure.

The appreciation of all the elements in the learning process is an important contribution of the new models of assessment.

We have to promote in our learning environments the understanding, construction and application of these tools. Thanks Donna and University of Oregon, you are helping us to have a better performance as teachers and of course to improve education in Ecuador and other countries of the world.

That’s all for this week folks!

Boris