What a wonderful journey it is!
Week-9 is a relaxed one compared to week-8. Week-8 was really hectic. After many hours of reading, writing and rewriting I completed my draft project. How will Robert give feedback to my first draft was the question that came to my mind. Online peer reading is a very innovative way of giving feedback without face to face dialoguing. Technology has made the world smaller. I, P.K.Jayaraj, sitting here at Bangalore in India and Javier Burgos from Ecuador reading and responding to each other’s work without face to face meeting is a wonderful idea. Peer reading has created lot of sharing and collaboration. I enjoyed reading the articles on multiple intelligences and learning styles. Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple intelligence addresses differences of learners in terms of teaching and learning from different perspectives. One individual/student may differ from others with different skills. One student may show skills in language and acting, one may enjoy dealing with people and one other may be interested in playing in musical instruments. Gardner formulated a list of eight intelligences: Verbal-Linguistic (Word Smart); Logical-Mathematical (Number Smart), Visual-Spatial (Picture Smart), Bodily-Kinesthetic (Body Smart), Musical-Rhythmic (Music Smart), Interpersonal (People Smart), Intrapersonal (Myself Smart) and Naturalistic (Nature Smart).
How can we use technology to address a range of learning styles and MI components in the classroom? My students are in-service teachers undergoing empowerment programme in language and teaching skills. For the first time we have introduced blogging for enhancing reflection and critical thinking of the trainee teachers. Technology-rich environments like blogs will certainly help teachers to respond to individual differences such as cognitive styles, learning styles and multiple intelligences.
After reading this week`s articles on Technology, MI and Learning styles I have created a table reflecting my idea about the technology tools. I will work with these tools with my trainee teachers. Here is my table. (https://sites.google.com/site/eslempowermentatriesi/home/activities)
The E-skills course is going to end next week. Sleepless nights and toiling with internet and websites are coming to an end. The greatest thing is that one need not be a technology expert to do the course. Robert and my E-pals all made it a collaborative venture. I will not regret my hard work and sleepless nights. I have learnt a lot. What a wonderful journey it is!
P.K.Jayaraj
Dear PK,
ReplyDeleteI certainly agree with you that the effort and time that we spent on this course was really worthwhile. We now could use technology not as a provider of exercises and tasks, but we are able now to create our own on-line exercises and tasks that we could leave on-line for other teachers to make use of. Before I took this course, I thought that in order to create such interactive on-line activities, one needs to be familiar with computer languages like C. It turned out to be user-friendly and all we should do is follow instructions.
Hi PK,
ReplyDeleteThis is really amazing that technology has made the world smaller! It gave us a chance to share ideas and discuss different issues regardless what part of the world we are from!!! I am very grateful to this course for this opportunity!
I think from this course we've learned that technology can make our teaching more effective and beneficial.
I agree with Nagwa that before this course I thought that for creating online activities, tasks, etc one may need special education and background knowledge. I could hardly imagine how easy it really is!!
Good luck with your final project! Hope to keep in touch afer the course as well))