Week 10: Wrap-up

I like the models suggested for assessing teacher's technology usage in the class, both of them are quite meaningful and convenient -
State of Washington: Tiers of Technology Integration
University of Southern Florida: The Technology Integration Matrix
I believe I have reached Tier 3 of Technology Integration into the Classroom Indicators, or level Adaptation of Technology Intergation into the Curriculum, since I still have to encourage the students to apply technology tools for English learning purposes and facilitate in doing this with all possible means.
Everything that I learnt throughout this course is worth implementing into the classes I teach. Now I use Delicious to save useful links, I know how to make successful interative PowerPoint presentations, and technology-enhanced lesson plans (with Hotpotatoes exercises, listening activities, videos, etc). The students, in their turn, are learning how to exchange data with Pudlet tools, do WebQuests and make use of different search engines. I hope that I will be able to motivate the students to take even more interest in using technology for learning English on their own.

Week 9: Learning styles - technology connections

I have been interested in the concept of learning styles for a while and has become convinced that it is technology that will inevitably help address the learning style preferences of all students. Now that I have read about tech tools whichsupport multiple intelligences I am able to identify which technology I use in class is best suited for each of the multiple intelligences:

Verbal/Linguistic- e-mails and forums,

Logical/Mathematical - Webquests,

Visual/Spatial - Powerpoints,

Bodily/Kinesthetic - Animation (Macromedia Flash),

Musical/Rhythmic - Sound and music files,

Intrapersonal - Blogs,

Interpersonal - Peer tutoring.

Moreover, I suppose the article "LEARNING STYLES AND STRATEGIES" is absolutely necessary for students to read, since it explains how learners can enhance their progress if they follow the recommendations for taking up information in the manner which is more efficient for the learning style they have. I believe what teachers should primarily do is to let students find out what multiple intelligences they prefer and then provide them with instruction of how to benefit from this fact. It is practicable even to teach a lesson about multiple intelligences, for example the one provided by the TeachingEnglish community at https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/multiple-intelligences-what-are-you-good

Also, I have come across the examples of lesson plants aimed at some of the intelligences: http://esl.about.com/od/teachingenglish/a/l_multiple.htm
Some more quizzes followed by recommendations
http://www.brainboxx.co.uk/a3_aspects/pages/vak_quest.htm
http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=questionnaire

Week 8: Teacher Resources Online

This week's collection of online technology tools was too varied, so I decided to focus on those which I had never explored before, trying to look closer into whatever appeals most. As I am now familiar with the online classroom technology nicenet.org, a free platform for creating blogs at www.blogger.com and the Padlet tool, I didn't check the links provided to study these resources in detail.
ANVILL, sites.google.com and SMILE seem to be sophisticated platforms, so I need more time to sort things out concerning the registration and the like, but I will certainly try all these out.
Among simpler tools I have got interested in are
http://www.crosswordpuzzlegames.com/create.html
http://bogglesworldesl.com/lessons/job_fair.htm
http://www.easytestmaker.com/
It also reminded of http://www.lessonwriter.com/, a web-site for creating lesson plans.
These resources seem to be quite appropriate for helping me with ESP classes, while most of the others are intended for yourng English learners.
I have Hotpotatoes already installed on my laptop, so I have created a few exercises to extend the range of activities of the Webquest I am desiging for my ESP class. Now I need to learn how to get a link of my online task and add it to a web space.
I can get a link by uploading the .htm files designed with Hotpotatoes on a web-site created by http://www.ucoz.ru/. That was a discovery of a lifetime!
Now I will go on completing my WebQuest http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=229857