Week 7 : Reflections.

This week has been full of work. I have to do some activities with my students before they go away. The school year is about to finish and I want to implement some of the new ideas I have learned in the course. Hopefully, I managed to get some feedback from them. I have created a blog and started some activities. There still many things to deal with, but I feel it’s a ggod start.

The course main focus this week is using technology to teach classes and interactive PowerPoint. Many documents and resources offered a good help in the discussions and carrying other tasks successfully. I couldn’t imagine how a teacher can teach a large size class, much larger than what we have in our context. I am convinced that our classes are not large as they are in many countries around the world. Technology can make the task simpler if used properly. There is a good number of tools and techniques that could be implemented and makes the whole process of teaching and learning simple, interesting and motivating for both teachers and students.

I used to use PowerPoint in my classes and in some lectures and workshops to my colleagues, but I have discovered that they needed a professional touch to be better. I have developed a lesson for my beginner students and upload it to the wiki. I have for sure developed my skills. Do please have a look at it and give me your opinion.

Yours,

Hamid

Using Technology to Teach Large Classes

Let’s start with the first question that comes to my mind while thinking about large classes. In my context, a class of more than 40 students is a large one. This is annoying to most of the teachers. We are not used to teach a class of 56 students for example especially in classes designed for smaller numbers. I am more or less lucky in my school because we don’t have such large classes. 30 students is the normal class size. But, I have learned that there are places where people teach more than 200 students in a class. Wow! To be frank, I can’t even imagine how tough the work is. I wish I can see how things are done is such situations. So, what is a large class then? This differs from a context to another. But whatever what is supposed to be a large class, technology can bring to it a great change and make teaching and learning more effective.

The potential of technology may ensure better teaching/learning in such condition. I can understand the fear of Khang Nguyen in his experience with teaching 200 students. How can I make such a huge number learn English? I can’t even memorise their names and faces. How can I check they are learning? How can I check they have understood? How can I check they have done their homework? How can I assess them?... Technology can help solve the problem. It can ensure interactivity and the involvement of all the learners. Using some technological tools in class would be of great help. Interactive PowerPoint is a good example. Multimedia can attract the students’ attention especially the displayed material is well chosen. Course websites can function as an additional for students to get lessons and do tasks. The internet provides a good number of tools that could be exploited to raise interactivity in class and outside class. Class blog, listserv, online platforms, such as Moodle, Nicenet, yahoogroup… can bring the whole class into real interaction prompted by the teacher. Using virtual environment is also feasible to make students more exposed to English outside class. Second Life is for instance offers good facilities to the learners to study online and interact with each other synchronously or asynchronously. In virtual classes, the students don’t always need to teacher to be with them. They can interact with objects to learn and do activities. (If you have some time, drop to my platform in Muvenation region: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/MUVEnation/172/83/301

Teachers can use different techniques to guarantee their learners engagement in learning and interaction. One good way is to divide the class into collaborative groups to do projects, webquests, podcasts… I think each group could also work in a blog which could be called “group blog” where they can carry their tasks on collaboratively and may interact with their peers from other groups. Teachers should not get stuck to the textbooks. They should make their lessons more meaningful and comprehensible by making them stem from their real life world and cultural background. Interactive lectures and interactive PPT can ensure interactivity in class. Another technique that could be used to maximize engagement in activities and learning is rubrics which have been already tackled the previous week in the course.

Technology can offer alternative ways to assess, but this should not be the only type of assessment. Some examples of tools that would help do blended online assessment are Blackboard’s Assessment features, WiziQ, Moodle, Second Life, the Quiz Chair in Sloodle, rubrics… Some of these use synchronous interaction such as WiziQ and others don’t need synchronous interaction such as Sloodle and Moodle.

I am thinking of using two different tools in my classes. The first is Yahoogroup for for discussions, documents exchange and presentations (asynchronous) and the second is WiziQ (synchronous) to have more time for English outside the classroom. I have chosen these two tools because they can complement each other. Moderating Yahoogroup is not difficult and I can control the students’ posts and correct them before approving them. Wisiq give the possibility to interact using audio, video and written chat and to share interactive slides which the teacher controls and can give the students “tools” to with them online. It also displays a whiteboard which all the member can write on if the teachers wants them to. It is very simple to use and everyone can get a free trial of three classes. All we need is to invite students and fix time and the duration of the class/group with them and go for it.

Yours,

Hamid

Interactive PowerPoint:

Using PowerPoint in teaching is really helpful if used properly. It would make the teacher’s lessons/presentations clearer, more interesting and motivating and it helps the students grasp their lessons easily through the possibility to use a variety of tools and techniques that would tap on different learning styles. I have discovered through the provided reading materials that the way I use PowerPoint is not adequate. It is not a simple matter of choosing slides and loading them with scripts, images, audios and videos. If it is to be used in a class, it should be used interactively. But what is an interactive PowerPoint?

All in all, an interactive PowerPoint should display appropriate form and content and involve the audience in real interaction. A PowerPoint, as Deborah Healey says in her PowerPoint presentation “Interactive PowerPoint: Not your usual approach - A sampling of ideas from Deborah Healey” is not only by using buttons and hyperlinks, but by involving the students throughout the lesson as well. An effective one should activate their background knowledge schema through using interesting questions and “hooking” their attention. The learners could be integrated by sharing the lesson’s objectives with them.

The form of the slides is also important as it would help in the success or failure of a lesson. It should be appealing, motivating and interesting. A slide is never interesting by the amount of things you load in it what ever the importance of the information is, but god slides display short text in clear colors and font. The simpler the slide is the better. There are no particular forms we should stick to. There is a variety of techniques we can use, but it doesn’t mean that we have to make our slides heavy with colors and unclear writing. We have to choose appropriate word size, front and background colors, images, animation, clear graphs…

Presenting should make use of a number of facilitating techniques such as blank slide to make a smooth transition or change the focus of the audience. Other techniques are ConcepTest, Think-Pair-Share, Interpreted Lecture, Rapid Reflection, QuickWrite… We should therefore use the most helping ones.

Both the form and the content of PowerPoint slides should be convenient. There are plenty of tools and techniques, but these should be use reasonably to make our lessons more interesting and motivating.

Hamid

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